He climbed to his feet and drifted to the windows overlooking the backyard. Hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “I think I loved you before I met you. But we don’t always get what we want. I let go of my crossword puzzles and word obsession because it didn’t fit into my life any longer. The thing is … I don’t know where you fit into my life. And I know, I know you don’t like your age to matter, but it does. I won’t be the reason you don’t take chances in life. Don’t make marriage and sex your life’s goals. If Rory found out, she’d want to know why. Why I would get involved with an eighteen-year-old girl? And I don’t think cruciverbalist would work. Maybe if our ten-year-age gap was more like twenty-five and thirty-five, I could make a case for word geeks and kismet.”

He turned to face me, every ounce of his vulnerability on full display. No walls. No lies. Just the hard truth. “Loving you is my favorite thing to do. It’s automatic and effortless. And you’re right, that matters. But …”

“It changes nothing,” I whispered, setting the notebook on the sofa and pressing my hands to my legs as I stood. Gazing up at the ceiling, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and blew it out in one big whoosh. “Naked fisherman, you are incorrigible. Moody. Bold. Unpredictable. Brash … and a million other things that are bad for me. Yet it felt like you were the first person in my life who just … fit. The version of myself I dreaded … the version I blamed on your bad behavior, I came to love it. It started to feel like my true skin. It felt good to smile without something in my brain telling me I should smile. You gave my days this vibrant color, and I don’t know what I will see when you’re not…” I drew in a shaky breath as emotions stung my eyes “…when you’re not mine.”

His arms slid around my waist, his chest to my back, his face bowed to my shoulder. And I shook as emotion took my body like an earthquake. Unsettling emotions needed to be released. Grief suffocated my lungs. Reality tore at my heart.

Fisher turned me in his arms and pressed my cheek to his chest. He soothed me with soft kisses to the top of my head and gentle strokes from his other hand down my back.

I was so tired of the unfairness in my life. The unanswered prayers. The testing of my faith.

My dad died, and it made no sense. And I didn’t want anyone, not even God himself, trying to convince me otherwise.