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“No. I mean, yes, eventually, obviously, but that isn’t what I mean.”

A hint of amusement touches his face before it disappears again.

“Back to what we were before?”

“No.”

That answer comes immediately.

Kell waits.

The studio seems suddenly larger around us. His paintings. His bed. His clothes on the shelves. His life, built in the weeks since he walked out of mine.

“I don’t know,” I say.

It’s the first thing I’ve said since I arrived that feels completely honest.

Kell’s shoulders ease a little.

“I know I don’t want what we had at the end,” I continue. “I don’t want you living in my house while I keep wondering whether you belong there. I don’t want to keep measuring everything you do against what I thought my life was supposed to look like.”

He doesn’t interrupt.

“But I don’t know exactly what I’m asking you to come back to yet.”

“That matters.”

“I know.”

He glances toward the back room and then at me again. “I have a life here now.”

“I can see that.”

“I like it.”

That hurts, although I’m not sure why it should. “I’m glad.”

“I didn’t say that because I want you to be hurt.”

“I know.”

“I’m saying I’m not waiting here until you decide whether you want me in your old life again.”

The words hit exactly where they should.

I look around the studio once more. The canvases. The worktable. His terrible towels. All the evidence that Kell didn’t stop becoming himself because I got scared.

“I don’t want that either.”

He studies me.

“I don’t want to erase this.”

“Good.”

I almost laugh. “You really do make everything difficult.”

“I stopped having sex with you five minutes ago. I think that proves I’m capable of terrible decisions.”