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“I bet you find inspiration in lots of places, don’t you?” I said. “You have such a creative mind.”

He cocked his head. “Don’t you, as well? You seem to seek out the creative, what with your museum tours and love of poetry. Your writing aspirations. You’re always searching for something more. You’re not content with just going through the motions and accepting an ordinary life. And why should you be? We’re a lot alike that way.”

“We do seem to have that in common,” I said. “But while I seek creativity, you’re out there living it. You’re brilliant. I’d love to see inside your mind.”

Rafe grimaced. “Unfortunately, my mind hasn’t always served me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it tends to not want to shut up sometimes.” He sighed. “I’ve always had trouble quieting it, especially when it matters the most, like in school. My grades sucked, which got my stepfather on my ass a lot. He just assumed I was careless and lazy. I’d try to make up for it in other areas, like selling a gargantuan amount of candy bars to win an iPhone. But it was never enough. There were certain things I just couldn’t seem to focus on, when in reality, I was trying so hard.” Emotion clouded his eyes. “Stephen’s berating me only added to the noise in my head. And the cycle continued.”

That sounded so familiar to me, minus the berating-stepfather part. “That sounds like ADHD.”

Rafe nodded. “Pretty sure that’s what it is, even if I was never formally diagnosed.” He looked away. “When I started getting into art, the noise in my head stopped for the first time. But I have a tendency to overdo it, sometimes to the point that I lose track of time and reality. Like, I could be working on something for an entire day and think only an hour has passed. That’s happened to me before.”

I smiled knowingly. “You hyperfocus.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s the perfect way to describe it.”

“It’s not my description. It’s literally a hallmark of ADHD.”

He looked at me curiously. “I didn’t know that was part of ADHD. How do you know so much about this?”

“Because I have it.”

His eyes widened. “You have ADHD?”

I nodded. “I do. I was diagnosed in high school.”

“Wow. Okay.” He let out a breath. “This is so interesting. I always suspected my scrambled brain in school was ADHD, but not the hyperfocusing part.”

“I do the same thing with writing. I’ll sit down and not be able to stop, but if you ask me to complete simple tasks around the house, I can’t get anything accomplished. It’s one extreme or the other.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re honestly the first person I’ve ever talked to about this.”

I tilted my head. “You haven’t discussed it with Calder?”

Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. “Calder’s always had his shit together, you know? I’ve been reluctant to tell him for fear that he wouldn’t understand or think I was making excuses for being a fuck-up in certain areas of my life. But maybe that’s just my stepfather getting inside my head.”

“I’d bet that’s what it is. Calder would understand if you explained it to him.”

“Well, now that you’ve validated my experience, I’m not sure I need to discuss it with anyone else. Sometimes just hearing that you’re not alone helps.” He tilted his head. “Have you done anything for it?”

I shook my head. “I never ended up taking meds, but I’ve found some strategies helpful, like taking advantage of the fact that my morning brain is a lot clearer than my evening one, or breaking tasks down into smaller steps that don’t seem so overwhelming. The biggest thing is trying to manage distractions. I have this app that locks me out of certain social media sites on my phone when I’m working.”

“Cool. I might need to get the name of that.” He exhaled. “I don’t even know how we got started on this topic. You’re easy to talk to. I guess I need to be careful not to spill all my secrets.”

Silence lingered between us. His confession about not telling Calder about his ADHD tugged at something inside me. I’d measured myself against my high-achieving boyfriend more than once. While Calder had climbed the ranks in his career, it’d taken me years to find my footing and land my first job related to my degree. And more than once, we’d argued over my inability to follow through on little things—returning a phone call, remembering an errand, finishing a chore I’d fully intended to do. I understood how Rafe felt. But it was one thing to open up to Calder’s friend about my struggles. Admitting the cracks in my relationship with Calder was where I drew the line.

I shook that thought from my head and looked up into Rafe’s gorgeous eyes. If I’d already felt connected to him, it was even more so now. To make matters worse, he looked especially amazing today, the scruff on his chin a bit more grown out than usual. His hair, which he sometimes wore in a man bun, was fully down and loose. I wondered what it would feel like to run my fingers through it. I glanced down at his hands, noticing that he had a few small cuts, from glass, I assumed.

“What do you have going on today?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I looked up at him. “I have a tour of the publishing house where I’ll be working this afternoon.”

“Damn. That’s big. You start the week after next, right?”

“Yeah.”