“Hate to break it to you, but you guessed wrong. I didn’t mess up. She decided she only wanted to be friends. So there you go,” he said.

Kat shot him a doubtful look. “She just wants to be friends? I have a hard time believing that,” she said, bending over the front of the stroller to point out to Chloe a Beagle running alongside his owner.

“And why do you have a hard time with that?”

Kat turned to look him square in the eyes. “Because that girl is in love with you, Nate.”

He stopped in his tracks. His feet were stuck to the concrete. All the sound in the park had been zipped up in her words. Her beautiful, hopeful words. “What?” he said, stumbling on the question.

His sister nodded several times, stopping too. “I saw the two of you at Yankee Stadium. And at my house. I’ve seen the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you.”

“How does she look at me?” he asked, and he couldn’t deny that his sister’s words felt exhilarating.

“The same way you look at her,” she said, and it was as if the sun broke free on a rainy day. But then, something didn’t add up.

“Why would she say she only wants to be friends then?”

“Oh, gee. I don’t know. Is it maybe because you give off the I’m-not-over-my-ex vibe?” Kat asked in a singsong voice.

“That’s not true. I’m over her. Completely.” He slashed a hand through the air to emphasize his point.

Kat arched an eyebrow. “Are you, Nate?”

He nodded. He was sure of this. Absolutely sure. “Yes,” he said confidently. Then he lowered his voice because he didn’t like admitting this out loud to anyone but Kat. “Maybe my pride isn’t over it. But the rest of me is.”

She gripped his arm, squeezing him. “I get it. I understand,” she said softly. “Pride sometimes takes even longer to heal than the heart does. But maybe it’s time to let that go?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“And look, I’m not dismissing what happened to you or the way your marriage ended. I’m simply saying maybe it’s time to fully jettison the past.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Actually, it is that simple,” she corrected. “And I know that from experience. Bryan broke my heart when I was younger, though obviously not for the same reasons your marriage ended. His reasons were different, but five years later when we reconnected, I had to make the choice to forgive him. The heavens didn’t split open. I didn’t wait for a sign. I didn’t see an apparition. I made a choice to move into the future. You can do the same.”

A choice. It was as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. But could he make that choice? Could he truly choose to shuck off the way he’d lived his life in the last few years? That was the big question.