“You are always hungry,” he points out, and I roll my eyes at him. It’s annoying that he knows me so well.

“Well, I’m not today,” I say. Walking past him, I stop in front of Jacob. “Can you get Ethan today? I want to make sure that the inside is cleaned and all that before I leave.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Jacob says. “We were going to ask you if we can take him up north this weekend anyway.”

“That’s perfect,” I say and walk away from them. Going inside, I finally drop my arms from across my chest. Heading to my office, I close the door and take the wet shirt off, putting on a black tank top with the bar’s name across my chest. I walk out of the room, and I see Beau there in the middle of the room with his hand covering his mouth.

“This …” he says. “This is.” I blink my eyes, trying not to think about it.

“Yeah,” I say and walk over to the broom, trying not to look at him.

“Savannah.” He calls my name, and the way he says it just makes my heart fill up. “Look at me.”

“No,” I say. He’s seen enough of my tears. I grab the broom and start to sweep, hoping that he walks away. But instead, I feel him coming closer. His hand stops the broom from sweeping, and then he places his finger under my chin. I try to fight it, but he doesn’t let me, and I finally look up at him, and he sees the tears running down my cheeks. “Please.”

He brushes the strands of hair falling out of my bun away from my forehead with his pinky. “Please what?”

“Please, I don’t want to talk about this,” I say, my lower lip trembling as I try to be strong. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. All I want to do is clean it up so I can put it behind me.” His hand moves down to my cheek as he brushes the tear away, and I finally let it out. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” I admit my biggest fear to him. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this town.” I drop the broom. “At first, I stayed to show them that it didn’t bother me, but now …” I shrug. “But now, I don’t think I have it in me.”

“You can’t let them win,” he tells me quietly.