I couldn’t care less about whether the guys I dated previously talked about me. Sometimes I preferred they didn’t. What was the point? I was going to move on and drift into their oblivion anyway, why even waste the time to tell their friends my name?

But I wanted Justin to think about me and talk about me. I liked that he planned things for me. That he spent so much time making his surveys and invites and picking out the perfect places to take me.

“Dreams” ended and then Peter Cetera came on with “The Next Time I Fall.”

Justin stood there with his hands in his pockets. He was supposed to kiss me.

I thought maybe he’d do it somewhere in Stillwater, but he hadn’t.

He took a step toward me, and my heart launched.

“Is it okay if I kiss you good night?” he asked, his eyes flickering to my lips.

“Yes, you may kiss me.”

I slid my hands up his chest. He smelled so good. I’d been leaning into it the whole evening. Something spicy and warm mixed with the scent of mint. Justin was so… familiar. Like I was dating a boy I grew up with and I hadn’t seen him in a few years and when I did, he’d turned into someone irresistible. Obviously that whole scenario was impossible. I knew nobody from my childhood. There was nothing before I moved in with Maddy. Just a smear of people and places and schools and foster homes. But I just knew without knowing that this comparison was the right one.

Maybe a wall that I usually had up was coming down a little—probably because of the circumstances of our arrangement.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it was just him.

Something about this made me feel uneasy. Like something scary was happening but I couldn’t explain what. But I didn’t have time to think about it because Justin was leaning in.

He cupped my cheeks in his hands, looked me in the eye. Then slowly, sensually… kissed me on the forehead.

The forehead.

I waited a moment for the real thing, but he stepped back. “Okay. Good night.”

I blinked at him. “That’s it?”

“You didn’t like it?” He smiled.

I gave him a look. “Really, Justin? A forehead kiss?”

“I’m told they’re all the rage. The female gaze and all that.”

“You are supposed to kiss me. On the mouth.”

He looked thoroughly amused. “We have time. I don’t have to do it right away. We have two more dates.”

I crossed my arms and his eyes sparkled. He was messing with me.

“I’ll see you next week,” he said. He turned and started around the front of the car.

My arms dropped. “Justin!”

He waved his keys at me over the top of the car as he got in the front seat. I watched with my mouth open as he started the engine and drove off.

I gaped at his taillights until they turned a corner out of view. Un-believable.

I’m not sure if it was his intention, but the tease made me want him to kiss me a thousand times more than I’d wanted it five minutes ago. Maybe he was right about the female gaze…

I made an exasperated noise at the empty street, then I went to wait for Maddy on the dock, opting not to peek in and bother Mom. I sat on the bench that overlooked the water and watched the lights of the pontoon beam in the distance.

My heart was still pounding. It was so rare for a man to make my heart pound. I knew my heart should pound when I was with a guy I liked. Only mine never had. Everything was always flat for me.

Maybe that’s why I was a good nurse. I had the gift of extreme empathy paired with detachment. I could deeply understand someone and anticipate their needs, but also never get close enough to them to feel it when they passed away or suffered or I moved on. I didn’t fall in love. Not with people or places. Not with anything, really. I mean, that was the curse we were trying to break, right?

I wondered how I got this way.

Sometimes I felt like I was roaming this earth as a ghost, seeing everything and feeling nothing. These tiny things, a fluttering heart, butterflies in my stomach—the urge to dock. I never got to feel like this. It was exciting that Justin made me feel like this. But it didn’t really matter. It could never work out with us, at least not now anyway.

I didn’t want to raise someone else’s kids. I wasn’t even sure I ever wanted my own kids. I liked my life—the traveling, the money, being spontaneous and always having a new destination to look forward to. I didn’t want to stay here. I didn’t want to stay anywhere.

Maddy picked me up and we went back to the island.

CHAPTER 21 JUSTIN

The day came. The day all our lives were changing forever.

Mom wanted today to be as normal as possible for everyone. Like she was leaving on a long work trip and would be back before we knew it. She didn’t want us to drive her to the intake, she wanted Leigh to take her. She wanted to make us breakfast like it was any other day, do the dishes, kiss us all goodbye, and leave without any fanfare. So Alex, Sarah, and I ate French toast at the breakfast nook and tried our best to pretend what was happening wasn’t really happening. We forced ourselves to act normal and watched Mom wash the frying pan with her back to us so we wouldn’t see her cry.

I didn’t know if this was the best way to deal with her leaving or the worst way, but something told me it would have been fucked up no matter how she did it.

Somewhere in the middle of the surreal fog that was breakfast, Emma texted me.

Emma: I hope you’re ok today. Call me if you need anything.

It was amazing how different my life could be from one day to the next.

Last night I’d been with Emma, happy, kissing her on the forehead instead of where I really wanted to kiss her.

I’d been thinking a lot about her since our date last night.

I knew she liked me. She was genuinely attracted to me, I could feel it. But this was still the game for her.

It wasn’t a game for me. Not anymore.

I’d hoped before that she’d renew her contract, but now I wanted more. I wanted an actual chance. And to have that, she’d have to meet me where I was. Here, in Minnesota.

She had to stay.

I wanted time to convince her to give me a real shot and we didn’t have it. And if she got what she needed from me to complete the agreement we’d made, she might be done. I might never see her again after our fourth date.

Unless I didn’t kiss her.