“Ugh,” Lennon huffs, shaking her head. “I have lesson plans to do tomorrow, so I won’t see you,” she says to me. “Let’s not go over a year without seeing each other again this time.” She opens her arms for a hug. “And I really like Chloe. I’m glad you two are finally together.”

“Me too,” Mom, of course, agrees. “They always got along so well, and Chloe was just such a nice girl. I’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time, and I know, I know, I don’t want to rush anything, but I have such a good feeling about this.” Mom beams. “You two were meant to be, and I’m excited to see what your future holds.”

My chest immediately tightens. As much as I want to enjoy the rest of the night, I want to tell everyone the truth because it’s fucking killing me to keep this inside. I’m not a liar, and withholding something this big feels like the biggest fucking lie and I’m close to coming undone.

The stairs creak and Chloe comes back down, phone in her hand.

“Did your publicist advise you kick him to the curb?” Mason asks with a smirk. “Trade him in for someone younger so you can keep up your image?”

“Hah, no,” Chloe replies. “She mostly wanted details because she’s nosy. I promise I’m not as high-profile as you like to pretend. I prefer to keep my private life private, though I do get really into my Instagram stories.”

“Oh, I know how to watch those now!” Mom says proudly. “Rory showed me. I follow you on Instagram.”

“Thank you,” Chloe says with a smile. “I’ll have to follow you back.”

“I don’t post anything,” Mom admits. “I needed an account to watch Rory’s posts and now you. Oh, and I follow a kitten-lady.”

“Clearly, Mom is winning the social media game,” Mason jokes. “We’re going to head out to La Cantina, you want to come?”

Chloe looks at me. “Do you?”

“I’ll go if you want to.”

“I kinda want to go back to the house and sit by the lake instead,” she confesses.

“I’d prefer that,” I tell her. “We came here for the quiet, after all.”

“Thank you for dinner and everything,” Chloe tells my mom.

“Oh, honey, it’s a treat having you here. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you two again soon. It’s still a ways off, but do you know what you’re doing for Thanksgiving?”

“I was going to come here, actually. My dad and Wendy have come out the last few years and now it’s my turn to have Thanksgiving dinner with them.”

“Perfect!” Mom claps her hands together. “Rory and Dean are coming up from Indiana this year for Thanksgiving too! Your dad and Wendy are more than welcome! We can have one big feast.”

“I’ll run it by them. My dad would like that, and Wendy loves to bake, so she’d come bearing lots of gifts.”

“That would be so fun.” Mom pulls Chloe in for a big hug. “You two take care. Be careful on the roads at night. The deer are worse this year than ever before.”

“We’ll be fine,” I tell Mom and then say goodbye to Lennon and Mason.

“You’re good to drive, right?” Chloe asks when I open the door to my BMW for her. “That wine kinda went right to my head.”

“Yeah, I, uh, took one sip of that drink and that was enough. You made it a little strong.”

“I eyeballed how much booze to put in. It smelled like a lot.”

“It was. Don’t give up your writing career to be a bartender.” I close her door and go around, firing up the engine and turning on her heated seat. Chloe leans back, looking up at the stars through the sunroof.

“I do miss this,” she says quietly. “It’s so peaceful here, and I’m really excited to see snow again.”

“You say that now,” I tease, reaching over and resting my hand on her thigh. My heart is pounding away, and I don’t know how she hasn’t noticed something is off with me, because I definitely feel off. I need to keep my shit together.

We change into our PJs once we get back to Chloe’s dad’s house, and then sit on the living room couch, searching for something to watch. We’re both dozing off halfway through the movie and go upstairs to go to bed.

“I had a really nice time today,” she tells me, pulling the blankets up over her shoulder. “It wasn’t the most eventful day, but it was nice.”

“It was.”

“We should make this a thing,” she says, voice getting a little raspy. “Like once a month or every other month if you want to be realistic.” She yawns. “We come back here and just chill and unwind.”

“I’d love to do that.” I slowly run my fingers up and down her arm.

“Then let’s do it.” She tips her head up, and I can see the hope and excitement on her face through the dark. “Long-distance is hard, we can’t kid ourselves there. But we’re both able to travel around our work schedules, and having a mini-vacation to look forward to will really help.”

“Yeah,” I say and force myself to take a slow breath. Chloe’s head is resting on my chest. She’ll be able to hear it when my heart sounds pounding with dread. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” she says sleepily, and lets her eyes fall shut. I try to stay awake as long as I can, enjoying the last time I get to hold Chloe like this. Leaving her will kill me, but how can I give her what she wants?

Long-distance is hard. We built our relationship around the premise of being able to travel back and forth to see each other…which won’t work when I’m taking care of a newborn. I’ll happily travel with my child, but that opens a whole new issue that I’m not mentally prepared to think about.

Chloe’s breathing slows, becoming rhythmic and steady. It lulls me to sleep, and I dream that Chloe is pregnant instead of Stacey. I wake up a few hours later, alone in bed. Assuming Chloe is in the bathroom, I roll over, waiting for her to come back to bed. Ten minutes later, she’s still not back and the house is quiet.

“Chloe?” I call, getting out of bed. The bathroom light is off, but a light is on downstairs. Blinking, I go down and into the kitchen. “Chloe?” She doesn’t answer, and for a split second, I worry something happened.

Then I noticed the spotlight in the backyard is on, and the door leading to the screened-in porch is unlocked. I see Chloe’s silhouette at the end of the dock. I put my shoes on and walk out to her. The wooden planks creak under my feet, and she jerks around, startled.

“Oh, hey.” Moonlight bathes her pretty face.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.” Chloe pulls the blanket tight around her shoulders, breath clouding around her as she speaks. “And I didn’t want to wake you up since you should be sleeping right now,” she adds pointedly. “You have to drive back to Chicago tomorrow and then get up early for work.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just working my regular hours on Monday.”

“Really?” She raises her eyebrows.

“Fine. It’s still a twelve-hour shift.” I sit on the dock next to her and she takes the blanket from her shoulders and drapes it over the both of us. “I woke up and you were gone.”