“So what? You and Sam were broken up. You dated someone and gushed at her. Sam can’t hold that against you forever. Just get married and move on.”

Blake nodded. “I really laid it on with her. Look, I don’t know what all I said in the heat of the moment. I was just spilling my thoughts.”

“Then just come clean with Sam about what you may or may not have said, that you may have gotten a little carried away, and she’ll forget it. This is really odd behavior for you. Worrying so much about this. You’re all tied up in knots over what you said in a letter to this Jen. It’s no big deal.”

“Sam does like to see the best in people. Everybody, not just me.”

Blake’s assessment of Samantha rang true. She struck me as one of the most guileless people I’d ever met. But I didn’t believe she saw Blake simply as a reclamation project, a chance to show that her empathy and patience could outlast anything he could throw her way. When Sam and Blake were together and things were good between them, she did smooth his rough edges. She brought things out in Blake—patience, calmness, sensitivity—that no one else did. And Blake helped tether Samantha to the ground, helped her appear less naive. Despite everything they’d been through as a couple, they struck me as a good match, the best I’d ever seen Blake part of.

And what would happen if Sam saw a note written by Blake pledging his devotion to another woman?

It would be awkward and strange for them. For Sam.

But not worth ending a relationship over.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and saw a text from Amanda.

Are you coming soon? Sleepy baby.

Sorry. Hurrying.

“Just ask for the letters back?” I asked as I put the phone away.

“I’ve tried that. Many times. But she won’t really take my calls anymore. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve called her or talked to her. We’re at loggerheads. She won’t budge. As the wedding approaches . . . I just don’t want anything to blow this for Sam and me. We’re almost to the finish line.”

Maybe I was slow off the mark. Maybe the wheels in my mind didn’t turn as quickly as they should have.

Maybe I just couldn’t comprehend that Blake would ask me for the kind of thing he had dreamed up.

But I didn’t see where any of it was going.

I had no idea.

“Do you want me to recommend a lawyer or something?” I asked. “I’m not sure a respectable attorney would get wrapped up in something this insignificant. Or petty. Or whatever you want to call it.”