“What does Jamie say?”

“He says he trusts my judgment.” He assesses my face. “Have I … hurt your feelings?”

Either I’m terribly transparent, or he’s perceptive. I think I know the answer from a lifetime together. He can practically feel this little tight lump in the base of my throat.

“No.” I frown at him until he’s partly convinced. “I’m just surprised that we’re two-thirds of our way toward a wall being knocked down, and you’re trying to flirt me into agreeing.”

“Flirt you,” he protests, a guilty flush on his cheekbones. “I’m not. I’m just recommending the best option for your sale.” He thinks for a moment on how to sell it to me.

“Try to imagine you’re waking on the couch in the living room after a nap. It’s late Sunday afternoon and I’m in the kitchen cutting up potatoes on the marble countertop. Darce is grouchy after sleep and needs feeding.”

“Talking about floor plans is not high on my list of kinks.” I look up at the ceiling. “Actually … Keep talking.”

His eyes crinkle. “You open your eyes and you can see me. No wall. There’s light just flooding through, and there are flowers on a dining table between us. Pink oriental lilies that I got you, just because.”

I can see it: The denim sagging at his butt and a white T-shirt stretching tight across his shoulders as he stoops over the countertop. The pollen-powder smell in my nostrils. Girls like me keep their favorite flowers as embarrassing secrets, but he knows.

“What else does this fantasy floor plan offer?”

“I look over and say, ‘Hey, you’re awake,’ and you stretch and say, ‘Tom, I’m so glad I agreed to let you take that wall down, it’s improved the layout beyond my wildest dreams.’” He risks a grin.

“I’m pretty sure I’d say something different than that. ‘Damn, those jeans. Get over here.’”

I’m imagining patting the couch next to me. He walks over with a half smile and a hand on his belt, vegetables forgotten. It’s a beautiful fantasy, and it’s just made me realize that I want it badly. A home. Being domesticated, caring about dinner. A dining table and flowers. Who would want that with me?

“Was this Jamie’s idea? Drinks with the difficult client? Next time ask me questions about house stuff on-site. This was unprofessional.” I twist away and signal to the bartender. “Your second-worst whiskey, please.”

“Here’s what just happened.” He takes my hand in his. “I’m sitting next to Darcy Barrett, close enough to smell her perfume, and she’s looking at me with a question in her eyes. And I know the question. I panic and I blow it. I’m not brave like you, Darce.”

“I’m done with being the brave one, because it really doesn’t feel great, hanging out on this ledge by myself. The next brave thing is coming from you. You’re not the only one here with something to lose.”

“That’s why I’m working so hard on this.”

“Not the house. I’m going to lose you. I’m going to fuck things up with you.” I put my elbows on the bar and my face in my hands. “Okay, actually that was the last brave thing I say to you.”

“You can’t fuck things up with me.” He says it like we’re family. Like he has to forgive me, no matter what I may do.

I look sideways at him. “Friends and family are the only ones I have a chance of keeping forever. And that’s what I want. To keep you, forever.”

He nods like I haven’t said something too intense or strange. “That’s what I want, too.”

“We need to be eighty years old, hanging out on a cruise ship together, laughing our asses off about this one day. Hey, Tom, remember that time when our young bodies tried to fuck up everything? Your wife will be there, and she’s someone I like, because otherwise I can’t have you forever …” I trail off, and I feel it, right in my chest. That little old ticktock. “If I make it to eighty.”

He’s aghast. “Of course you will.”

“I know you didn’t mean it, but you telling me things that will never happen? Not in that house and never with you? It hurts. Well, fuck it, if it’s so important to you, knock the goddamn fireplace down.” I seize the glass of whiskey and absorb it into my very being.

I can’t take the look in his eyes and walk to the bathroom, and spend a few minutes just staring at myself in the mirror. I wipe off my lipstick and jam my fingers into my remaining hair. I overlay Megan on top of me and my eyes fill with tears. I want to go to the second stall from the end and flush my heart. If this is what being brave feels like, color me yellow for the rest of my life.

When I’m composed, I push back out into the music and laughter and Vince takes me by the elbow. “Hey.”

I shake him loose. “I’m here with Tom.”

“I could see that,” Vince says. He’s not jealous, because the arrangement we have is a worthless waste of time. “What’d I tell you about him falling in love with you?”

“That won’t happen.” I can hear the flat desolation in my voice. “I can’t have a guy like that.”

“You could have one like me, though,” Vince says with a smile. “The chick I’m here with keeps telling me about her rescue rabbits. Let’s get out of here. Text him on the way out. Save me from getting my ass kicked.”

“I’m not going to do that to him.” Is this seriously the kind of person he thinks I am? “You think I’d just walk out of here and leave him?”

“You’ve done it to me. Darcy, you are hot, but you are a complete bitch.” He’s pretty matter-of-fact about it.

“Hey,” Tom says, materializing beside us. He’s regarding us both with an unreadable expression. “Fuck off.”

“No need to be rude,” Vince says, but he has no steel in his words. He’s at risk of being stubbed out like a cigarette.

Tom steps behind me and wraps both arms around my body. I feel like I sink six inches into his rib cage. We’re merging. Enveloping. Get in me.

“Don’t come around, don’t call her. Don’t bother,” Tom says above my head. It’s that alpha voice. It turns heads from halfway across the room. “Got it? Or do you want to find out if I’m serious?”

“She’s gonna leave, dude.” Vince shrugs a shoulder. “She has left town on me like, six times now. At least.”

“Yeah, she will leave,” Tom says, and his words rumble right through me. “But I’m having her as long as I can before she does.”

He turns both our bodies and we’re walking, his arms still around me. We’re a compass and we’re pointing to a bed. Vince is flushed away behind us. The crowd parts for us; eyes flicker from me to Tom; women look jealous, the men avert their eyes.

When we halt to let a bachelorette party pass us in a succession of tiaras and feather boas, I tip my head back. How can I feel this powerful, wrapped in his muscle? Because it’s mine now. “You never told me what you would do with me when you got me home.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Tom replies, and when I miss a step in the crowd near the door, his body presses even tighter against my back. His hand finds the hem of my top and slides in, a flat palm across my stomach. “You know I can’t tell you.”