You don’t have to do this, the text read. I hope you won’t. But here it is.

I hope I won’t do it, either. But it feels necessary. It feels like the end of one thing and the beginning of another. And I want this to end.

For me. For Dom. For us, if there can be an us.

But this has to end. This thing.

I think Dom’s asleep until he says, “Stacey knows.” His voice is low.

“What?” I ask.

“About you.”

“Does she?”

“For a long time. After you left, things got… difficult with me.”

“You were lost,” I whisper.

“Yeah. For the longest time.”

“We screwed up, huh?”

He snorts. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Was she mad?”

“Nah. Not her. I think she knew before I ever said anything. I wasn’t the… easiest… person to live with after you left. Then Ben came and I pushed you away. I had to make sure they were okay. That I’d do right by them.”

“What happened?”

“You were always there. Turns out it’s hard to push someone away when they’ve taken your heart. She knew. I thought I was doing the right thing, but she knew. She finally asked me one day what I was going to do to get you back.”

“What did you say?”

“I thought about lying. That I didn’t know what she was talking about. But by then, we were already over and we both knew it. We made better friends than anything else. So I told her I didn’t know what to do.” He laughs to himself. “She told me to man the fuck up.”

“And did you?”

“I was getting there,” he says. “But then I heard you were coming back and I waited. I told myself that you’d come back and I’d find you and we’d hash this out and we’d see what we’d see. So I waited.”

“Until you could arrest me, huh?”

He smiles. “Something like that.”

“I was scared.”

“You were shaking.”

“I was so mad. At you. And at me. And then you arrested me.”

“I dream about that.”

“Arresting me?” Kinky fucker.

“No. That moment. When I saw you again for the first time. That defiant look on your face. The way you stuck out your chest, trying to make yourself look bigger. You know what I thought right then?”

“Probably how long you should tase me for, huh?”

“No,” he says. “I thought, ‘We’re inevitable.’”

“Yeah, Dom,” I say hoarsely. “You and me, huh?”

“Sure, Ty. You and me.”

“Stacey knows.”

“Yes.”

“Bear knows. And Otter.”

“Do they?” No concern in his voice. “I thought they did.”

“I think Bear’s known for a long time.”

“He’s smart.”

“Sometimes. Dom?”

“Ty.” My name on his lips is something I’ll never tire of hearing.

“Stacey.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s okay?”

“She is. She told me something once. At the end of me and her.”

“What?”

“She told me if you truly love someone, you could let them go.”