He attempts a smile, but it doesn’t come close to reaching his normal one. “Well, either way, I’m sorry.”

“Ryot, you don’t need to—”

“Myla, can I ask you something?”

I pause, confused, and say, “Sure. Of course.”

His eyes fall to my lips and then back up to my eyes as he says, “I don’t want to be that guy, but . . . today kind of rocked me, and I just need to know where you stand when it comes to me.”

I open my mouth to answer, but he continues, “I don’t want to put pressure on you. Trust me, that’s the furthest thing from my mind, but I also need to know if you see this time we’re spending together as some sort of goodbye tour, one last hurrah kind of thing. And if it is, then that’s fine, but I need to know because I don’t want to get my hopes up that what we’re doing could be something else. But if this feeling, this electricity, these conversations are repairing what we used to have, please tell me. I want to work things out with you.”

Well, I was not expecting him to want to talk about that. I assumed that it would be more about how he had to leave baseball, but then again, that conversation seems to be paused. I think it was paused at the restaurant. As much as I love to believe that he’s been completely open with me, I can sense that he’s still hiding things, feelings he’s keeping to himself. I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t fully feel them yet, or if he’s hiding them for a reason.

This question might be the reason.

He’s protecting himself.

I’m protecting myself.

And I’m not sure either one of us knows how to navigate this.

The only option at this moment is to be as honest as possible, even if it might not be what he wants to hear. “Will you hate me if I say I’m not entirely sure what this is?”

His voice softens as he says, “Myla, I could never hate you. There might be times when I’m frustrated or angry, but I never feel hate toward you. Ever.”

And I know that’s the truth. We’ve been through so much, and even in the end, he’s always shown me love. Even now, after he signed the papers, he’s showing me love. I just wish . . . I wish we hadn’t stumbled . . . or drifted apart during those last few months.

I drag my finger over the divot between his pecs and say, “I’ve missed you, Ryot. This trip, well, it’s been fun, and I feel like we haven’t had fun in a while.”

“We haven’t,” he replies. “And that’s my fault, I know—”

“There’s no reason to point fingers and assign blame. That’s not going to do anything other than continue the bitter awkwardness between us, and I don’t want that.”

“I don’t want that either,” he says as his hand moves to the hem of my shirt.