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I glanced over at him, but he kept his eyes trained on the horizon.

“If I worked late or took on two massive projects in a row, it was fine. If I forgot an anniversary, it was fine. If I picked the wrong restaurant even though she’d dropped a million hints, it was fine.”

He grimaced and picked up a handful of pebbles, which he tossed into the ocean, one at a time, throwing them harder and farther each time.

“Eventually, I started doing stuff that I knew would irritate her, just to see how far I could push her. Petty, I know. I’m not proud of it now.”

“I get it,” I said, when he fell silent, watching a ripple extend out into the water.

“You do?” he asked, tilting his head to look at me.

“Yeah. At some point, any reaction is better than no reaction at all.”

“Something like that,” he replied, turning back to the water. “In the end, we were more like roommates than spouses. She had a packed social life overflowing with drama, and I had work. So much work. Which, of course, was fine.”

“What brought things to a head?” I asked, mesmerized by this unseen side of Art.

“Viv was caught shoplifting with a friend. I got called to pick her up at the little pretend police station at the mall, and suddenly, I saw the teen she was becoming rather than the little girl I kissed good night before going back to work. That’s when I realized I’d almost missed her entire childhood.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” Art picked up another handful of rocks and threw it as far as he could. “I asked their mom for a divorce the next day. Told her I wouldn’t fight her on anything if I could have the larger part of the custody split.”

“And she went with it?”

He shrugged again. “She has her own career. The kids were mostly with a nanny or at after-school care anyway. As long as she gets to take them on one or two nice vacations a year and see them the occasional weekend, she’s happy. And they don’t seem to mind all that much, which basically tells you everything you need to know about their relationship with her.”

We sat in silence for a long while, watching the sun’s slow descent toward the horizon.

“I can’t do that again, Meg.”

“What?” I asked, startled out of a light daze. “Can’t do what?” My heart hammered in my chest, and it was all I could do to not grab his arm to keep him from leaving.

As if he could sense my imminent panic, he slipped his hand into mine and intertwined our fingers and squeezed. “I can’t do ‘fine’ again. I don’t want to. I want a partnership where we feel safe enough to tell each other anything and everything. We’re going to fight and disagree about things. That’s normal. What’s not is pretending everything is okay just to keep the peace.”

He fell silent and squeezed my hand again. When I didn’t say anything, he kept going.

“We’re going to get mad and say things that push each other’s buttons. There’s no avoiding it. We’re not perfect people.”

“Speak for yourself,” I muttered, bumping my shoulder against his.

He laughed and untwined our fingers to throw his arm around my shoulder and pull me against him so he could kiss the top of my head. “Fine. I’m not a perfect person. I cannot promise that we’ll never fight, but I can promise to always be honest and do my best to remain open-minded and listen when you have something to say without immediately jumping to a conclusion or defense.” He pulled away and turned sideways to look me in the eye. “Do you…” He glanced away and back. “Do you think you might be able to promise the same?”

Even as fear grabbed hold of my stomach and squeezed, I couldn’t help lifting my hand to gently caress his cheek. His beard tickled my palm when he smiled down at me, his brown eyes full of promise.

I wanted nothing more than to tell this wonderful man that of course he was right, we should be honest and never hide things from each other. But when I tried to tell him how upset I was that he’d given Viv permission to start a social media account for the shop without running it by me, the words stayed stuck in my throat.

There was no doubt in my mind that, like his daughter, he’d had good intentions. I understood airing petty grievances, but what about throwing gifts or kind acts back in his face? How could any relationship survive that? What if what I revealed dimmed some of the light in his eyes when he looked at me? Or, worse, made him shut down until I apologized?

I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine how he would react if I told him that I was developing magical abilities. Something told me that discovering that his girlfriend was a witch wasn’t something years of therapy had prepared him to handle.Still, I couldn’t look into his earnest, hope-filled eyes and say nothing.

His face darkened for an instant as I grappled for the right words, then his eyes widened in understanding. “It’s the kids! Oh! I’m such a bonehead. It’s too much. I should have known. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I… ah…” He blinked frantically, and I could almost see steam pouring out of his ears as he worked through all the possible solutions to their living situation that he’d already worked through and dismissed for one reason or another.

“Stop! It’s not that,” I said, resting my hand on his forearm. Instantly, his agitation settled, and in his expectant gaze, I saw what I could tell him. “I mean, it is that, but not in the way you mean.”

Confused, he frowned down at me. “I don’t understand. Tell me more?”

“I feel bad. You do so much for them, and for me, honestly.” He’d made dinner every night since they’d moved in so that I could keep working in the shop, and he hadn’t even let me clean up. “I constantly feel like I should be doing more, but I don’t know what. I’m scared that I’m letting you down.”