Because whatever happened after this, he was here now. Whatever happened after this, he was hers now.

Whatever happened after this, she would be okay. She had to be okay. Because this had to be worth the risk. This had to be more than a sad country song about being drunk and lonely and missing the one you shouldn’t.

Because they had to be more than that. More than a country song. More than a few verses, a chorus and a bridge.

More than her anger. More than her hurt. More than his grief.

Right then, she felt like it might be true. Like they weren’t just Tansey and Flint, but all the stars and everything else. Like they weren’t just the bad things, but a whole universe of possibility.

She didn’t want the moment to pass, because once it did, there would be reality to contend with.

And she didn’t want it.

She just wanted him.

That was the scariest thing. After all this time, after all of this.

Knowing better. Knowing he was the cowboy her mother had warned her about...

She just wanted him.

As orgasm crashed over her like a wave, she let herself get taken under.

His heart was still beating so hard he could barely breathe.

He was back in bed with her. With Tansey. And he could pretend that sex was all the same. That he had been the one with experience, so he was the one who was armed against this kind of thing. The one who knew what it was. Whatever that meant. Because there was no defining what this was. Not easily. It wasn’t that simple, and it never could be.

It was something different, though. It was something he’d never experienced before, and it was why he hadn’t been able to touch anyone since.

She shifted beside him, and he rolled onto his side and looked at her.

And there was something still about it. Something peaceful.

A feeling that he hadn’t let himself feel in more years than he could count.

“I’m not really sad that I’m stuck up here anymore.”

“Good to know.”

“You haven’t been with anybody... Why?” She frowned.

“Why haven’t you?”

“Well. I could go into a whole monologue about broken trust. And another one about being famous. And how it affects the way that people see you. How it affects the way that you interact with people in all of that. But the simple truth is... I didn’t want to be.”

He shook his head. “Me either.” He wasn’t good with feelings; he wasn’t good with words. And it wasn’t just that he didn’t like sharing his feelings; at this point, it was like a language that he had lost. He had feelings—he could acknowledge that. But he had done such a good job of pushing them behind a wall, of suppressing them, that the truth was, he didn’t quite know how to translate them. Within his own self, to his own self.

“There was something different about being with you. The idea of letting somebody else put their hands where you’d put them... It was like cursing in a church. Walking on top of sacred ground, when you’re supposed to leave it be. I don’t know.”

She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I can claim to have felt like it was sacred ground. I just couldn’t imagine... I just couldn’t imagine. And maybe we needed this. Maybe we needed something more finished. Something not quite so painful.” She turned to her side again and put her hand on his chest. He closed his eyes. There was a goodbye in those words. He knew that. Goodbye had always been the only option. Because he couldn’t do forever. Which meant goodbye was inevitable, which meant he couldn’t rail against what she was saying. Not without changing everything, the entire landscape that he had built up inside of his chest.

The map to who he was.

He remembered vaguely thinking that she was a map to somewhere else, but... He wasn’t sure he could follow it.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

And that meant accepting the silent goodbye.

But for now, they were here. For now, there was no leaving here.

“You changed me,” he said finally. “Everything that I’m doing... It’s because of you.”

“Well, because you were angry at me,” she said.

“Does it matter? It was still a change.”

“I guess not. Because I guess the same could be said for me.”

“What are your plans for Christmas?” he asked. His own family would have their big rowdy get-together, and he would pretend he didn’t hate it.

“I’m going to visit my mother. In Palm Springs. That’s where her house is. She wanted to be warm. She wanted palm trees.” He saw a tear slide down her cheek. “I’m always so afraid that I might lose this. You know, the money is a big deal. My mother raised me in a trailer, never knowing if we were going to have enough to make rent, to keep the lights from being shut off. I found that in the end, revenge wasn’t the important piece so much as love. Giving back for the love my mother showed me. She’s a tough woman. But she loves me. I know that having me made her life harder, but she never acted like I was a burden. She always said that I was a gift. I like giving her things. I like paying her back... I like...”

“You bought your mother a house,” he said. “And on top of all of that, you’re her daughter. I don’t think you’d lose her if something happened with your career.”

“Maybe not. But she’s the only person that stayed in my life always. The only person who was there at every step, and I finally got to give back to her, and what if someday it isn’t enough?”

Unspoken was the idea that she clearly felt like she hadn’t been enough for her father.

“Do you think you weren’t enough for me?”

The words scraping his throat raw, it was dancing close to things that he didn’t want to talk about. Things that he didn’t want to admit.

“What else is a woman supposed to think? If I had been enough...”

He reached out and put his hand on her cheek. “No. If you learn one thing from what I told you, if you take one thing away from it, then take this. If there was anything that could fix me, it would’ve been you. It was never fair for me to touch you. Because when I tell you my problems are mine, and when I tell you they are built into the deepest part of who I am, I need you to believe that.”

She didn’t say anything. “Like I said. I think we needed this. I think this is important.”

He nodded slowly. Except he didn’t really like that conclusion for some reason. He’d always been like this with her. He wanted it both ways. To have her. To stay safe. He already knew he couln’t do both.

“I might not be able to fix all the things inside of me, but maybe I can fix what I did to you,” he said.

“I don’t need you to fix me, Flint. That’s actually been part of the conclusion that I’ve come to. Yeah, I was angry at you. I was. But I was afraid too, because if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have saved all of that for a song. I would have said it to you. Yes, I was hurt by what happened. You know that. I was devastated. I let myself believe that what you said about yourself was wrong. I let myself believe that because things changed for me they would change for you too. But I wasn’t trying to spare you by holding back, I was trying to spare myself.”

“That’s all any of us are trying to do,” he said, the words coming from somewhere deep inside of him, and he hadn’t realized how true they were until he’d said them.

But he made a concerted effort to shut off any realizations that might come as a result.