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He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

“It might mean spending a lot of time up there. Eventually opening another store. Moving.”

“Moving to Minneapolis?”

“Possibly.”

For a moment I pictured Side A without him. Then another thought followed quickly enough to shame me. If he went next week and stayed a while, the question about “us” might disappear before I ever answered it.

“When do you have to decide?”

“By the twenty-fourth.”

My fingers tightened around the bottle. The same deadline as I had for choosing to keep my life as it would be, or blow it all to smithereens.

“You should go,” I said.

Dean looked at me.

“To the meeting, I mean. You don’t have to agree to anything, but you should hear them out.”

He smiled faintly. “Easy for you to say.”

“What does that mean?”

He looked down at his beer.

“It’s different when everything you have is tied up in one place.”

“You think I don’t understand that?”

His gaze lifted as he leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.

“Lorrie, you come from a family where if something goes wrong, there’s another option. It’s not like you have much risk to any decision you make.”

The words stung because there was truth in them.

“You don’t know as much about my life as you think you do.”

Dean was quiet.

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

I set the wine cooler down on the table.

“If I can understand what it feels like to be afraid of making the wrong choice, you don’t get to decide I only understand it because my parents have money.”

His expression changed.

“You’re right.”

The quickness of the answer took some of the anger out of me.

He rubbed a thumb over the edge of the beer bottle.

“I’m sorry.”