* * *

• • •

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long. Simon was due to meet me at the store after I closed up and we were walking to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It had to be an early night, of course, since we both had Faire the next day. His timing was perfect; he arrived as I was locking the door.

“Hey. You look . . .” After kissing me hello, he took in my appearance and broke into a smile. “You look happy.”

“That’s because I am happy.” I wasn’t surprised that my emotions showed on my face; I practically bubbled over with excitement. And relief. When I looked at him now, all the doubt I’d had for the past few days fell away. He hadn’t gone behind my back to help Chris hire my replacement. How could I have doubted him? “I have so much to tell you.” But I wasn’t sure where to start. How much did he already know? Knowing this town, probably everything. I went with the obvious. “Lauren came in today for training.”

“Oh, yeah! I’d forgotten about that. How did it go, will she work out?”

“It went great. She’s going to work out fine.” I nodded enthusiastically. I was doing everything enthusiastically right then, down to holding his hand. Our fingers were threaded together, and I swung our joined hands between us as we walked. I loved this. Walking down the street of what had become my town, holding hands with this man who, in such a short period of time, had come to mean so much.

“Well, if hiring a new employee makes you this happy, maybe Chris should have done it sooner.” He looked down at me with amused delight.

“There’s more,” I said. “Since we have Lauren now, I got a promotion. I’m going to manage the store for Chris while she’s away.”

“Away?” Alarm lit up his eyes. “Where is Chris going?”

Oh, so he didn’t know. I needed to back up. “Florida. She’s going down to stay with her mother, help take care of her. Which means I’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future. So you’re looking at the new manager of Read It & Weep.”

“What?” He shook his head like he hadn’t heard me right, a look of dismay spreading over his face.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Her mother’s okay. I mean, she has some medical issues, and I guess she needs more care now, which is why Chris is going down there, but—”

“Chris is leaving?” He stopped walking now. “She’s . . . she’s leaving?”

Something prickled at the back of my neck. I thought he’d been upset because of Chris’s mother, that maybe he knew her. But that wasn’t it. “Yes . . .” Did he not hear the part where I was staying?

Evidently not. “Okay, but is she coming back? Ever? Or is this a permanent thing?”

“Just for the winter.” He looked so distressed I wanted to reassure him, even though his reaction made no sense. I had no idea he and Chris were so close. Why hadn’t she told him about all this, then? “She’ll be back in the spring. I think they’re going to be splitting their time between here and Florida from now on.”

“Oh. Okay.” He blew out a long breath, relief clearing his expression. “So she’ll be back in time for Faire.” He nodded. “That’s good.”

A sick feeling bloomed in my chest and his hand was suddenly too heavy to hold so I dropped it. “That’s your takeaway here? With everything I just told you, your big worry is if Chris will be back in time to put on a big dress and play the Queen again next year?” He hadn’t even registered that I was staying. Or if he had, it didn’t rate a mention. Not while the topic of Faire was on the table.

“Sorry, but yeah. That was the first thing I thought of. Because . . .”

“Because that’s what’s important.” I nodded, my head bobbing on the end of my neck like a toy. That sick feeling trickled its way down to my stomach, leaving cold in its wake. “Faire’s what’s important to you. Not Chris’s mother’s health. Not that I’m staying here in town, and we can . . .” I swiped an angry hand across my cheek; where had that tear come from? “That fucking Faire is all that matters.” I’d been here before, in a relationship like this. Where I always came second. Where once again my worth was measured in what I could do for someone, not who I was.

“You really think . . .” His face hardened, his eyes sharpening. Despite the longer hair and the beard, he looked more and more like the Simon I had first met all those months ago. “After all this time, that’s what you think of me?”

“Can you blame me? You sound like the guy I knew during rehearsals, telling me I wasn’t taking anything seriously.”

“Oh, great.” His laugh was sardonic, and it stung. “We all know how much you hate that guy.” He paced away from me a step or two, raking a hand through his hair. “I’ve got bad news, Emily. Summer’s almost over. Pretty soon the pirate you like so much goes back into storage, and I have to be that asshole again.”

“You’re not . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence, because, well, he was being that asshole. I tried again. “You don’t have to be that asshole.” Why did he think that one personality couldn’t exist without the other? Couldn’t he see that he was really the best parts of both personas? And that I wanted them both?

“Sure I do.” He said the words casually, but his voice dripped with acid. “It’s who I am. Mitch is the fun guy. Sean was the fun guy. That’s the kind of guy you want, right? It’s why you like me right now. I get to be fun, I get to have fun, for six weeks a year, when I’m running around the woods dressed like a pirate. But the rest of the time? I’m the serious one. The one who gets shit done. Everyone likes the result, but no one cares it’s all on me to make it happen.”

“Do you ever let anyone help you?” I wished we were back at the shop, because throwing a book at his head seemed like a really good idea. Where was that Complete Works of Shakespeare when I needed it? “Hell, Simon, you blew a gasket when I moved some tables around! You don’t want Chris to fire some jugglers no one comes to see! It’s all on your shoulders because you like it that way.”

“So I should not do Faire anymore, let it die? That’d be a great ‘fuck you’ to my brother. For all his hard work.”

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.” Everything was tinged with red, and I wanted to scream in frustration. “The problem is you can’t let go of it, because if you do, someone might change something. And you can’t have that. But here’s the thing: you can do this Faire the same way every year, exactly the way your brother left it, and he’ll still be gone. He’s never coming back.”

Simon sucked in a breath, the color high in his cheeks, his eyes bright. “You think I don’t know that? Of course he’s not coming back. No one’s coming back!” By now we were openly yelling at each other in the street. Thankfully we were still in the business district, where most of the storefronts were darkened up and closed down for the night. “This Faire is all I have. My brother’s dead. My parents left; they left me alone in that . . .” He bit back his words, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. All my anger drained away when I saw the sadness in his eyes. The resignation. This may not be the life he wanted, but he didn’t know how to live any differently.

You have me, I wanted to say, but it felt like an inadequate offering. Not to mention a presumptuous one. How was I supposed to fill the holes in his heart left by so much loss?

I couldn’t, could I? He still hadn’t even acknowledged I was going to be a permanent fixture of Willow Creek. He hadn’t noticed because it wasn’t important enough to him. Certainly not as important as Faire.

That was my answer. There was no way that I’d be enough. Like I hadn’t been enough for Jake. Would I ever be enough for anyone?

Tears flooded my vision and I blinked them back hard. I couldn’t let him see. This was my fault, after all. I’d fallen too hard and too fast, and he’d never promised me anything. No, this was all on me.

“I need to get home.” My voice was gravelly and I cleared my throat hard, my head bent as I searched through my purse for my keys.

Simon stopped short. “No, come on. It’s okay, let’s go to dinner.”

“I can’t.” My voice didn’t even work that time. I made myself look at him, which was a mistake. He looked startled, confused. I wanted to comfort him. I needed to get away from him. “I can’t,” I said again. “I need to go home.”

“Hey. Wait.” He reached for me, but I shrugged him off and he dropped his hand. “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this.”

It was tempting. If any two people were good at talking, it was Simon and me. But the hollow feeling in my chest told me this couldn’t be fixed with talking.

“You’re so focused on the past it’s all you can see. How can we have a future if all you keep doing is looking back?” I clutched my keys so hard they made divots in my palm. “I can’t compete with a memory. I already spent five years being someone’s lower priority. Being second best always. I can’t . . .” I couldn’t talk anymore. I suddenly felt bone-weary. Tired. I knew this feeling. I’d talked to April about this very thing not too long ago. What had she said then? Stop fighting losing battles. My big sister knew her stuff. I gave a shaking sigh. “I deserve better than that.”