“I never said it was the right thing,” he replied. “I said it might be the kindest.”
“There is nothing kind in leaving her after tonight.”
“No,” he said quietly. “There isn’t.”
I looked down at the coffee between my hands. “How does it feel?”
He leaned back against the counter, facing me more fully. “What does?”
“Being right.” I let out a breath through my nose. “I didn’t even last a month without breaking the promises I made her, and it ended with her being kidnapped and hurt. She could have?—”
“Don’t.”
The word was jagged enough to stop me.
“You’ll drive yourself insane if you keep feeding the what-ifs,” he said. “She is here. She is safe. She is asleep. Stay with what is, not what almost happened.”
I said nothing.
“As for being right,” he went on after a moment, taking a slow sip of his coffee, “it does not feel good. I did not warn you so I could eventually gloat. That has never been my aim. I wanted to educate you, help you, spare you some of the things I learned the hard way. Your uncle always said my place was not to stop you from falling, but to be there when you did and help you get back to your feet. For the record, he was right about that, which is irritating.”
He looked at me a beat longer before asking, “What about your degree?”
I shrugged, the motion heavier than it should have been. “I have enough credits to graduate. That’s why I stayed through the summer and overloaded the fall semester. If I hadn’t met her in July, I would have been coming home in December anyway. These exams were always going to be my last.” I stared into the dark surface of the coffee.
“So that’s it?”
He looked at me steadily. “What exactly do you want me to say?”
I let out a tired breath. “Nothing.”
Everything.
“I just want you to think hard before you do this. You have an engagement ring waiting at home for a woman you called the love of your life less than forty-eight hours ago.”
“She is the love of my life.”
Something morphed in his face. Not disagreement. Not pity either. More like recognition honed by memory.
“Then the realization will hit you hard.”
I frowned. “What realization?”
He shrugged slightly. “Not the kind of thing I can explain to you. You’ll have to feel it.”
I stared at him. “Oh, now you’ve decided to become cryptic and wise? I thought that was Hoka’s particular talent.”
“For tonight,” he said dryly, “I’m borrowing a page from his book.”
Then he glanced at his watch and pushed away from the counter. “I should go home. Your mother is already convinced I’m hiding important information from her, and I prefer to delay that interrogation until daylight.”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth moved.
He picked up his coat, then paused and looked at me with a steadiness that made the next words land harder.
“I’ll see you soon, then?”
I nodded once. “Yes.”
