Joey looked into his green eyes, still boyish and hazy, inviting her to fall back inside them. But falling by its nature entailed that inevitable crash back to earth. Falling was once the only way Joey knew how to love. With Grant she’d finally learned how to love on solid ground.

She had to trust in that solid ground now because she couldn’t rewind herself away from the beach. It was inevitable. She was always going to stay for the next part.

Joey sat back down on the sand. “Okay, sit, Leo. Talk.”

Chapter Seven

Joey

Corfu
2003

How Joey came to be Jonesey was a story that told almost everything. The beginning and, if you looked close enough, the ending too.

It was late morning on Corfu the summer they were eighteen. Joey wandered bleary-eyed onto the terrace abutting the Abrams and Winn families’ neighboring apartments, with their postcard vista of town, harbor, and mountains.

She surveyed the array of mostly empty plates and glasses and only Leo at the table, his shin propped against the glass table pane. His legs were tan, bulkier in appearance when he contorted them so, the little hairs adorning them bleached by the sun. He put a hand to his brow and gave her his trademark languid smile. “Half the day has passed, Joey. Fancy seeing you awake so early.”

“Ha. Some of us need our beauty sleep.” She scraped back a chair and sat. “Been out on the boat?” She could smell his intoxicating Abercrombie cologne. During the school year, on trips to the mall with her friends, she often lingered by the entrance to the store with its strong scent she associated with Leo, eagerly anticipating the summer.

“Yep. Let’s do something fun this afternoon, J. Got plans?”

“Not yet,” she said, her insides their usual tangle of hopes and fears.

“Great. Wanna go to Sidari? I rented a motorbike.”

Sidari. Wasn’t that the place with the stunning beaches and the Tunnel of Love? Had Leo finally figured out she’d had a crush on him since they were ten? If he didn’t kiss her at last, she’d combust. Die. Dead.

Okay, stop the crazy, Joey ordered herself.

As casually as she could muster, Joey said, “Cool.” She stared out at the view as familiar as her face in the mirror. They lived right in the heart of Old Town. The tallest building with the grandest terrace. They were the luckiest people in the world.