Page 69 of The Kiss Countdown

Now the small amount of hostility I sensed from Camille toward Vincent makes sense. And here Vincent is, ready to accept all the blame without even knowing if it’s true.

“Or,” I hedge, “maybe if you were around more, she’d find a different reason not to start a family yet. Have youactually talked to Camille about it, or is it all speculation on your end?” He doesn’t respond, and I shrug. “But if you really feel like that’s the reason, maybe once you return you can commit to being around your family more. It’s obvious how much you all love each other.”

“Will you be there to help me get through each visit?”

Our deal is supposed to be over and done with by the time Vincent returns from the moon, so my answer should be an obvious no. However, it’s getting harder to envision the end of our agreement.

He stares at me patiently, but I don’t answer. I throw a grape at his head instead, which he catches and pops into his mouth with a smile.

We continue eating and talking about every subject under the sun. I tell Vincent about trying to rein in a drunken bridesmaid who gave a twenty-two-minute toast oscillating between being ecstatic the bride had found her soulmate and being terrified her best friend was growing up without her. Vincent gives a replay of a Search and Rescue mission where his team searched two days for a missing hiker, only to find out they weren’t missing at all but instead were part of the local search party. We talk about our time in college—I went to countless parties, while Vincent obviously took his studies very seriously—and finally the age-old debate of Marvel versus DC. There’s one subject left untouched.

“So, I have to ask...” I move a piece of cheese on my plate from one side to the other, avoiding his gaze. “You were engaged before? What happened there?”

“Why? Mad you didn’t call dibs first?”

I throw the cheese at him, and this time he doesn’t catch it. It hits him square in the forehead.

“Hey!” He still eats it. When he’s done, he sits there and stares at me instead of coughing up the information he knows I’m dying to hear.

I glare at him. “Do I need to throw more food at you?”

He laughs. “Fine. Yes, I was engaged.” He reaches for one of the stray pillows and leans to the side, propping his elbow on it. His shirt rides up, showing a delicious glimpse of abs so hard they should be illegal. “We got engaged after I finished my engineering degree. But things changed after we lost Tay. Or I guess I changed.”

His thoughts seem to turn inward, but he doesn’t shut down like before. I hope it’s a sign that talking about his brother more is becoming easier for him.

“While doing Search and Rescue I’d be gone for weeks at a time. Unreachable for days. Even when I had the opportunity to at least make a short phone call, I wouldn’t.”

“Because you were grieving?” I ask.

“Because it was my responsibility to save lives. My team and countless people needed me present with my head on straight. I couldn’t afford to be distracted like I was when I should have been checking Tay’s bird.” He takes a deep breath. “But that meant I didn’t think about her needs. When I returned to the apartment we shared after a three-week mission, all her stuff was gone.”

Damn. It’s got to hurt to have someone you love just up and leave. At the very least, it would be hard to trust that a future partner wouldn’t do the same. And Vincent would probably place all the blame on his own shoulders, even when he was going through an incredibly difficult time.

“Since then, it’s been increasingly difficult to let anyone in on a personal level. I tend to keep most details private,” he says.

“You mean the man who barely gave me any info before showing up to meet his family doesn’t like to divulge his secrets?”

He takes the teasing in stride and grimaces. “Yeah, sorry about that. For what it’s worth, it’s been easy to open up to you. And spending time out here with my family, with you... It makes me realize it’s okay to let someone in, and I need to find some kind of balance between work and life.”

“You deserve to find that balance. Your career and everything you’re doing is amazing, but it’s only a part of who you are. The whole of you needs to be nourished.”

We lapse into comfortable silence, staring at each other. My curiosity about his past is almost satiated.

“Did she wear this engagement ring too?” I hold up my hand and wiggle my fingers.

“No,” Vincent says, his voice soft. Dangerously soft. “Mom never offered it up when I was engaged to her, and I never asked about it.”

Oh.

Way too many fuzzy thoughts and feelings are swarming through me, so I reach for the last sandwich half to avoid his eyes.

When Vincent checks his watch, I finally realize the sun has gone down. There’s no lamp in the tent, so we’ve been chatting in the increasingly darkening interior for who knows how long.

“Is it time to head back now?” I ask, trying to hide the disappointment this interlude is over.

“If we do, you’ll miss the best part.” Vincent uses the flashlight on his phone to clear the table and place leftovers back in the cooler. “Now, I need you to stand up and close your eyes.”

“Why?”

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