“No,” I denied, crossing my arms over my chest and lifting my chin. “Go away.”
“Mmhmm.” She reached for a glass, filled it with water, then leaned her hip against the counter, studying me. Taking a sip, she tipped her head, eyes softening just a fraction. “You don’t get that defensive over nothing, Teddy.”
“I get defensive over lots of things,” I said. “My team. My schedule. People touching my stuff.”
“And men you absolutely do not care about,” she added lightly.
“You’re uninvited. No pizza for you. Bye-bye.” I waved at her sarcastically.
Then she cackled, throwing her head back with joy, and I threw my hands in the air.
I was about to walk away when she turned to face me and took both of my hands in hers. “I’m gonna hold your hands while Isay this, Teddy. You are allowed to be happy at work and in your personal life. One doesn’t have to cost you the other.”
She sounded like Natalie. I swear they were in cahoots.
But if both of the strongest women in my life were telling me this, then I knew I had to listen.
I swallowed, the weight of a looming choice settling into my lungs, my heart, and my soul. I wanted more with Connor, I just didn’t know how to admit that to myself, let alone him.
“I think he’s moving to Ireland,” I said with a sigh, knowing that was our biggest obstacle we’d avoided. I knew he wouldn’t bring it up again, especially not given the last twenty-four hours.
“I think you need to ask him,” Micah said plainly.
I looked down at our joined hands, at the way hers were steady while mine weren’t.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for the answer,” I admitted. Saying it out loud made it feel more real, more possible to lose. “If I ask, it stops being hypothetical. It stops being something I can pretend isn’t already decided.”
Micah squeezed my fingers once. “And you want this to just fizzle out? To never ask him and he just leave being a secret this whole time?”
I exhaled slowly. I didn’t want that.
“If you don’t ask, you’ll fill in the worst-case scenario. I know you, Teddy.”
She wasn’t wrong. I’d been doing that my whole life—anticipating endings before they arrived, bracing for losses I hadn’t technically been handed yet. I guess you could say that I was born from a loss so big, so deep, that never really left me.
I’d learned early how to live with absence, with my father too, how to build a life around the shape of something missing and call it normal. Natalie was the only person to ever bridge that gap for me.
I’d absorbed the idea that love was temporary by default. That if you wanted it badly enough, you should also be prepared to lose it.
Micah watched me as that truth settled, her grip never changing, her expression unreadable in the way that meant she was listening, not waiting.
“I don’t think you’re afraid of the answer,” she said quietly. “I think you’re afraid of wanting him enough that it would hurt if he left.”
My throat burned. I didn’t bother denying it.
“I don’t want to ask him to stay and find out that I was just… convenient. Or that I mattered, but not enough.”
Micah laughed, shaking her head. “Teddy, I saw the way that man looked terrified for you yesterday. He wouldn’t back down from being able to see you, and he stayed with you after. If that’s simply convenient, then I don’t know what love looks like.”
The word sat between us, uninvited but impossible to ignore.
I swallowed, my throat burned.
“That doesn’t mean he won’t leave,” I said, quieter now.
“No,” Micah agreed. “It doesn’t. But it does mean you weren’t just something that fit into his schedule.”
I stared down at my socks, unsure how to verbalize all of this. “I don’t know how to ask for more without feeling like I’m asking him to choose between me and everything he’s worked for.”
