Page 102 of Every Beautiful Mile

“This restaurant is open from May to October, and I spend a lot of that time here. I try to stay in Bar Harbor from the Fourth of July to Labor Day, popping in otherwise as needed. I left a day later this year to be with you. And I didn’t tell you about this place because I just didn’t think you were ready.”

His grip tightens around my waist, but I don’t look at him. His logic pisses me off.

“Fine, you have a restaurant here, and you’re here. Ethan, that’s not even the biggest thing. Why the hell did you just leave? You just let me spend a whole day at your house, with my kids, and then disappear. Why? I cannot wrap my brain around that.”

His shoulders tense under my palm.

The song ends, and the blurred sounds of conversations combine with the scratching of chairs moving across the floor to fill the quiet pause before the music plays again.

“Since the night I met you, I can’t stop wishing the world was smaller and a mile wasn’t so far. Because you belong in Maine as much as I belong in Florida, but I keep trying to convince myself that maybe they aren’t so different.” His mouth is next to my ear as he continues, “and because Nel, if I had said goodbye, I would have also asked you for time I knew you couldn’t give me because of a wedding band around your neck that I didn’t want to compete with.”

Somewhere in the letters of all those words, the façade of fury I had tried so hard to maintain shatters. He rests his forehead on mine, and the look in his eyes makes my own burn.

“You said that if I wasn’t leaving—”

“I lied,” he confesses.

We stop dancing, but neither of us let go, frozen like a statue of two bodies carved as one.

My breath is labored, like I just ran uphill with boulders tied to my legs, and if my heart adds one more beat into the mix, it’s going to give out.

“I dropped my ring off at a jeweler, and he’s melting it down into a gift for Finn and Marin.”

He doesn’t move—doesn’t speak—just looks at me like he can see every thought I have and ever will have.

“Hey, Ethan?” a girl’s voice breaks whatever spell we’ve been standing in. “Sorry to interrupt, Boss, but Chef has a question about the menu before he shuts it all down for the night.”

He loosens his grip and glances at her. “Right, thanks, Emily. I’ll be right there.” He looks back at me. “Wait for me, and I’ll walk you home?”

“Yes. Fine. I mean…” I shake my head and smile. “I’ll wait.”

***

I wait outside on the sidewalk, vibrating with anxiety.

My brain doesn’t know what to do with everything Ethan just said, while my body seems very confident with what it wants to do based on the pressure that’s rapidly building up in me.

It is a battle of my brain versus my vagina, and I’m really hoping my vagina wins. I am Team Vagina so much that I would wear a jersey and wave a pompom if I had one.

Our reality hasn’t changed. I’m still leaving. He still changes women like I change underwear. The whole thing is a horrible idea, but dammit, if that man doesn’t know how to make me want to bulldoze down logic and reasoning.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, looking at me like I’m his favorite thing—the only thing.

I don’t bother to hide my smile.

He grabs my hand without hesitating, intertwining our fingers in a way that feels different from before. Like there’s no going back. Like it means something.

“What was your plan here? You thought I’d see the name of the restaurant and come throw myself at you? Were you ever going to call?” I ask as we start walking.

“I hoped. You said you were coming to Bar Harbor and that you’d be here for three weeks. It’s not a big town. I thought you’d see the sign and know. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me, but I figured I gave you a way to make the choice. Plus, you have been known to drive across the country to find me after I send a couple of emails. I decided it wasn’t such a long shot.”

I laugh.

Then he adds, “I don’t know if I would have called, but I would have waited.”

My eyes search his, trying to understand the enormity of what that might mean, before I blink away.

Maybe it’s because we’ve both said everything we needed to say, or maybe we don’t want to ruin whatever this is, but neither of us says another word the rest of the walk. Our two hands are a single shape right until we stop in front of the house and step onto the porch.

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