“Yeah. He owns a house in San Diego. Right on the water. We’re talking an incredible house—huge. Big enough for all of us to have our own space. He brought in all the key players from his development and design teams so Dave and I could get a feel for how they work. It was intense but amazing.”

“Sounds like it.”

“How was your weekend? Good wedding?”

“The bride fell as she walked down the aisle, but otherwise a perfect day.”

He pulled me a little closer. “So, birthday girl, are you ready for your perfect day?” He kissed me, and I leaned in, wanting to feel like I still had some connection to him and his new California life. I believed him when he told me he wished I could have been there. But I still felt . . . removed from it all. Wishing me present didn’t change the fact that we’d barely talked the entire time he was gone. One conversation to tell me Dave was convinced and they were working on final negotiations. And then one voice mail telling me he missed me. That was it. Didn’t make me feel very essential. At least the kiss was something tangible I could hold on to. I pulled him closer, deepening the kiss and slipping my hand to the back of his neck, my fingers tangling in his hair.

“Wow,” he whispered when we finally broke apart. “That was . . . wow.”

“I missed you.”

He kissed my forehead. “We have to get on the road.”

I climbed into his jeep, wondering for the fiftieth time where he was taking me at nine in the morning on a Tuesday.

“So where are we headed?”

He grinned. “North.”

“North? That’s all I get?”

“For now. That’s it.”

We settled into the drive, conversation coming the same easy way it always did. Somewhere right after we crossed the Virginia border—Virginia? He hadn’t been joking about heading north—I brought up the merger, more specifically the likelihood of the merger bringing about a move. He was frustratingly vague in his responses. “Byron likes the East Coast,” he said. “Maybe we’ll wind up staying out here.” I reminded myself that we’d been together only three months. That wasn’t a long time—not long enough to necessarily justify my involvement in his decision-making. But I wasn’t great with unknowns. The fact that he avoided discussing what might happen to us if he moved made me really uncomfortable.