I rolled my eyes. “Can’t you be serious, Deb? Just this one time? It’s important.”

She was quiet for a moment. “No. Can I go now? Your bestie wants a post-dinner hand job.”

“Christ. Bye,” I said, poking END and dropping my phone in my lap. I covered my face and groaned.

A noise across the room prompted me to look up. Avery was in her scrubs, leaning against the kitchen doorframe with her arms folded over her chest.

“Hi.”

I did my best to pretend I didn’t want to choke out her friend. “Hi, baby.”

She hesitated. “Who was that?”

“Just last-minute plans for the wedding.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Is something wrong?”

She shrugged, pushing from the door and walking to the fridge. “I just thought we were going to elope … quick and dirty. Now you’re on the phone all the time, but I don’t feel like there’s been a lot of progress.”

“Baby, it’s only been a few weeks. I had to get some things together, but it is almost there.”

“A few weeks? Do you know what today is?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Cinco de Mayo?”

“It’s May, Josh. You chose June. You wanted to take over the planning because you felt it was too stressful for me. Now you’re dragging your feet.”

“Avery,” I chided. I cleared my throat. My exasperation with Deb was bleeding into our conversation. “What is going on? First it was all happening too quickly and now it’s not fast enough. I’m trying.”

“Are you stalling?” She turned around slowly, a tear slipping down over the apple of her cheek. “Because you don’t have to do that. You can talk to me.”

She touched the penny at her neck, and I panicked and pointed at her. “Don’t walk out on me.”

She blinked. “I wasn’t … I … was going to offer it to you. For your thoughts. Just asking doesn’t work as well anymore.”

I sighed. “We definitely need to talk. I can’t keep wondering, but I don’t want to upset you.”

“About what?” she asked, shifting her weight.

“I’m nervous.”

Her face fell. “About marrying me.” It wasn’t a question. She said the words as if she’d expected everything I was saying.

“No. Absolutely not,” I said, walking over to her. I held her arms in my hands. “You’ve been quiet. You clam up when I ask you about the wedding. I’m okay. I don’t want to wait, but if you do, I will.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t want to wait?” I asked, nearly allowing myself relief.

“There’s been talk at work,” she said, biting her lip.

“Talk? What kind of talk?”

“Michaels mentioned she saw you at Corner Hole the other night when you said you were at work. She didn’t say it to me. Deb overheard her telling someone else.”

I blinked. “I was.”

She looked up at me. “I texted you fifteen minutes before you got home. You said you were driving home from work.”

My mouth pulled to the side. Fuck. “I wasn’t trying to lie. I didn’t even think about it until now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going by the bar after work?”

I shrugged. “You’ve never needed me to before.”

She thought about that a moment. “Were you with a girl? A blonde?”

“No,” I said, inwardly cringing. Going to Corner Hole was stupid.

“Avery,” I said, squaring my feet, lowering my chin until she met my eyes. “I want to be with you, more than anything. There is no one else, I swear to God. There will never be anyone else but you. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

She hesitated, looking to the floor. I held my breath

“Is there something else?” I asked, a million horrible thoughts racking my brain.

“I hear you talking to her on the phone at night.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but I heard it loud and clear over the hammering of my heart.

“What?” My head turned to the side to hear her more clearly, wondering if I’d dreamed it.

“I wasn’t trying to catch you or anything. I just woke up.”

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, baby.”

Disappointment shadowed her face. She watched me for a long time. “Is that your answer?”

“I don’t have an answer. You know I’ve been making wedding plans. I told you I’d take care of it, and I meant it. That’s the truth.”

“I’m going to bed,” she said, passing me for the bedroom.

“Baby.” I reached out to her, but missed. “Aren’t you hungry?” I called.

“I’m not hungry,” she said from the bathroom. She closed the door, the light forming a halo around the edges.

I walked into our dark bedroom, standing alone. Frames holding pictures of us that we’d taken over the last year were scattered around the room, on the nightstands, and the corner table where I kept my emergency stash. Avery’s apartment didn’t have room for the hutch, so I sold it. Now I wondered if I should have found a smaller, locking chest. Opening a drawer was too easy.

The shower turned on, and I sat on the bed. I was stuck between telling her the truth to shield her from her imagination, and ruining everything.

I opened the door, seeing her perfect, naked silhouette blurred by the glacier glass. She kept her head under the water, letting it cascade over the hands that covered her face.

I had to tell her.

“Avery,” I said, reaching for the door.

“Please don’t,” she said.

“We need to talk.”

“No. I just want to stand in my shower and process everything.”

“I can fix this.”

She was quiet for a moment, and then she yelled. “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want you to fix everything? Maybe I just want it to be right and good in the first place! Maybe I don’t want something that has to be fixed!”

I stood with my mouth open. She’d never yelled at me before.

“O … okay,” I stammered. “I’m sorry. I’ll, uh … I’ll leave you alone.”

“Great,” she snapped.

I backed out, closing the door, and then kicked off my shoes. The clock glowed in the dark bedroom. I had to be to work in five hours and had no fucking clue how I was going to sleep. I peeled off my shirt and jeans, crawling under the covers in my boxer briefs.

The shower turned off, and Avery went through her nightly routine. The door opened, and she fell into the bed, yanking on the covers and turning her back to me. Her wet hair slapped against the pillow, and she let out a long sigh.

We lay in silence for a while, and then I reached back for her, touching my fingertips to her hip. “I can’t leave. I’m afraid you’re going to change the locks tomorrow and have all my shit laying on the sidewalk.”

She didn’t respond.

“I swear to God, I’ve never cheated on you. I’ve never wanted to. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

She sniffed. “Something doesn’t feel right, Josh. I’ve felt this way for a while. I don’t know what it is. Don’t you feel it?”

“Sometimes,” I said, trailing off. I thought about the times when I had to stop and take in the reality around me. Sometimes, sitting with Quinn, it felt like talking to a stranger. Some days I felt like I was at work, but most of my time between moments with Avery were just a blur. “You loving me has always been … I dunno, a surreal thing to me. But that doesn’t mean it’s not right.”

She sucked in a breath through her nose. She was crying now. I turned over. “Avery,” I said, wrapping my arms around her body.

She pulled her knees against her chest. “Just don’t lie to me. Ever.”

“Can you think of anything that would warrant me risking the most important person in my life?”

“Stress does weird things to the best people. Look at Dr. Rosenberg.”

I pushed up on my elbow, looking down at her. Her cheeks were wet. “I used to want to be like him, but that was only because of the way you looked at him. I don’t wanna be anything like him, Avery. I’m going to cherish every second I have with you, and our kids, and our grandkids. We’re going to grow old together, and I’ll look back on all of this and know I honored what we had.”