38

I handed her the tumbler and said, “He’ll take one of these too. Thank you.” I waited until she was gone before I said another word. “After five-plus years, I came back to Boston and accepted a job with Hooked—the same place, in a sense, where I met you—and then it turns out you were the guy I fell for back then, and in two weeks we reconnected just as strongly as we had before.” I rubbed my thumb over the grooves in the table. “It’s hard to believe that two people who are so different matched at one hundred percent and hit it off not once, but twice.” I analyzed his stare, first his left eye and then his right. “What are the chances.”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t deny that—or any of this. But I can’t stop thinking about then, the way you just disappeared, changed your number, and gave me no way to ever reach out to you again. Why?” He added, “I didn’t deserve that.”

“No”—I shook my head—“you didn’t.”

“Make me understand.”

When I filled my lungs, I held the air inside.

“And another