He shrugs. “I mean, yes and no. He didn’t punch me in the face and I don’t think he’s going to kill me.”

I smile at that. “I’m grateful for that. I’d miss you if he did.”

His head swings up, just enough for me to catch a flash of green. “Will you miss me? When you go?”

This is it: This is the moment to ask him how he’d feel if I said I was thinking about staying. For him.

“Will you miss your walk on the Wilder side?”

He says it almost like a tease, but the familiar words catch me with a jolt, and I can hear the hurt. Plus his head’s still down. No eye contact.

“Did Connor—?”

He nods.

“Brody. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should never have said that Wilder thing, even as a joke. It was more about me than about you.”

“I know,” he says. “You had to prove something about yourself. That you weren’t any kind of girl. And you did.”

“No—I mean, that wasn’t all it was, Brody. It might have started that way, but it became something else.”

He lifts his head, turns toward me. And stares at me. Green eyes, long lashes, his hair rumpled. His stubble is golden.

He has never looked more beautiful to me, and I know that the more I get to know Brody Wilder, the more beautiful he will be.

And I can’t read his expression at all.

“I care about you, Brody. A lot.”

Say it, Rachel. Say you’ve fallen in love with him. Tell him you love him.

I almost say it: I love you, Brody. I want to stay, if you want me to.

But I don’t get the words out before he says, “It’s been a good adventure, Rach. And I’ll be sorry when it’s over.”

Wait.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

This isn’t the plan.

The thought stops my breathing.

Have I done it again, without even meaning to? Have I leapt so far ahead in my fantasy world that I stopped clearly seeing the man right in front of me? Have I written a whole plan for a man who wants nothing to do with it?

As if he can hear the voice in my head, he says, “You can pick up your plan right where you left off. Like you said, you didn’t even lose too much ground. You have your job again, in Boston, the apartment with Louisa.”

Now, Rachel. Now.

“But you’re here.”

“Rachel,” he says, sounding tired. Like it hurts him to say my name. “I’m not the guy in the plan. I don’t—”

We lock eyes. Something stills in his, like a spark that has flickered and gone dark.

“You don’t what, Brody?”