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“Yeah,” I whispered, wiping under his eyes with my thumb. “I chose you, Noah. I love you. I want to
always
love you. I want to live under the same roof with you, and make a home. I want you to buy stuff you love and help me shop. It can be
our
stuff. Or, you know, it can be a tent in the wilderness, as long as it’s ours.”

Noah cracked a half smile. “There has got to be a happy medium between Tchotchkes ‘R’ Us and Wilderness Men.”

“We’ll find it,” I said. “We’ll find it. I’ll go to the island someday when it’s my time, love. And I’ll wait for you to join me when it’s yours. I’m not worried anymore. I got to say good-bye.”

Noah swallowed hard, and I wiped his eyes again. He was probably hurting and tired, and tired of being worried, but he still lowered his face to mine and took charge with a possessive kiss.

He pulled back after a moment and grimaced, clearly uncomfortable. “Dad,” he called, his voice thick and congested, “Dad, I’m
dying
for a soda. Can we get some—”

“McDonald’s,” his father called back. “I hear you. God, you two deserve each other.”

I grinned up at Noah. “You deserve better,” I said solemnly.

“I got a movie star,” he replied. “I’m not bitching.”

I laughed softly and rested my head against him. Food would make this moment perfect, but I had faith it was coming.

Of course, it’s not easy to replace faith. I knew it. I was perfectly aware that Noah would be watching me carefully until I’d been
not
crazy for as long as he’d known me when I’d been losing my nut.

Our week of vacation passed smoothly though. On the third day, the doctor gave the all-clear and gave him a fiberglass cast, and we went on some mountain biking rides that
didn’t
end in disaster. We set up a weight room in the house, and he professed himself unexcited about stationary exercise. I told him that as soon as his arm was healed, we could go back to swimming, and he grunted that I sucked, and the next time I wanted to take a swim across the sound, he’d let me.

I kissed him, and we ended up having a quickie on the Soloflex, and after he’d come all over my back, he’d kissed my shoulder and announced maybe the damned thing was worth what I’d paid for it.

I agreed—and then ran and got the cleaner and a towel, because my back wasn’t the only thing that got hit that day.

Viv decided to stay down south with Jilly, and we got daily reports on her progress and how she was going to reform Hollywood. She told Noah that she’d already signed two clients for Jilly who
weren’t
white, and I’d half laughed.

“Vinnie and I weren’t white,” I said, because I hadn’t thought of it like that before.

“Yeah, well you weren’t Mexican and . . . whatever Vinnie was.”

“Mexican American,” I said dryly. “Both of us.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t fly your colors on the screen, Connor
Montgomery
.”

“Well we didn’t fly our gayness on the screen either,” I reminded him unnecessarily. “I think we mostly just wanted to . . . you know . . .
be
.”

He grunted and threw himself back on the couch, looking around the house. “This place is small, don’t you think?”

I looked around. “There’s only two of us.”

“Your place in Malibu was bigger.”

“I had to show off to people. You’re dodging the subject.”

He cast me a brief smile. “Because I don’t have the answer. You’re right. I mean . . . mostly, you just wanted to work unmolested. But . . . but look at what
not
telling people about you almost did.”

I sighed. “I don’t know how to fix it for other people. I fixed it for
me
, and that’s going to have to be what’s right.”

But I’d underestimated how powerful it could be, fixing the world for yourself and your loved ones. I’d underestimated the truly good things that could come from telling an unmalicious truth without hope or agenda.

The Saturday before shooting, Noah and I had his family over for dinner, and all six of us stayed up late and played Monopoly in the living room. Ky and Trina were joyful at having me to play with, since Viv was still in LA, and Noah had been happy to reconnect with his family.

His father and grandmother watched me carefully the entire time—probably wanting to make sure I didn’t go sharing the crazy again, or at least that’s what I thought.

But at the midgame stretch, when I went into the kitchen to refill the snack bowl, Noah’s gran came in to get more lemonade for the girls.

For a moment there was an awkward, if companionable, silence as we went about our tasks, but just as I was about to leave the kitchen, she stopped me with a look.

“No more swimming?” she asked, probably just to make sure.

“No,” I promised. Not for a minute did I think she meant me and Noah working out in the pool. “I just . . . had to do something there. It’s done. I wouldn’t hurt Noah like that again for the world.”

She nodded, and glanced out to the living room. “Their mother, she hasn’t come back, hasn’t contacted them, hasn’t done a thing since you saw her.”

I blinked. I remember her promising that she’d be back the next weekend, but then
my
life had exploded and . . . well, apparently she hadn’t kept that promise.

“But . . . she seemed so sincere . . .”

Helena nodded. “She was,” she said surprisingly. “Annette was
very
sincere about wanting to see her children again. But that didn’t mean she could.”

I frowned. “I mean, she could come back and—”

“No, hon. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean there is something inside her that absolutely can’t live that life.”

“Then why the song and dance?” I said, absurdly hurt for Noah, even though he’d been able to see it when I hadn’t.

“Because she needed to say good-bye,” Helena said serenely. “But some people have to make a big stink out of good-bye. You know, you people on stage can’t do anything quietly.”

I blushed. “No,” I agreed. “We can’t.”

“At least you didn’t hurt Noah when you did it,” she said.

If I hadn’t had the bowl of pretzels in my hand, I would have flailed in honest surprise.

“Did you
see
the cast on his arm?” Because I had—especially because he’d chosen the bright-green plaster, just to fuck with me.

“Yes, dear. But he slipped and did that himself. If you’d said good-bye to
Noah
, then you really would have hurt him.”

She hustled back into the living room, and I stood there gaping.

Noah wandered in a moment later and closed my mouth with a finger under my chin.

“What?” he asked. “You’re catching flies.”

“Your gran—she does get to the point, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. Yeah she does. What point did she get to?”

I pulled my shit together and winked. “That I stayed with the right person.”

His grin was as relaxed as I’d seen it since the
Vogue
shoot. He leaned in and kissed me.

“Damned straight you did,” he murmured, and I knew that he’d found his way to faith in me, in how badly I wanted our life together, and in how ready I was to leave the destructive part of my grief behind.

Which was probably something I should have told Jilly, because when she called the next morning, she was really worried.

Noah and I were having a lie-in since this was our last day of vacation. We were sprawled on the couch downstairs, wearing sleep pants and T-shirts, and truly spectacular bedhead while we both read from our Kindles. Noah had a pair of hand-crocheted socks on that his gran had made, and I kept poking him with my toe, because I wanted a pair, and I wanted him to get her to make me a pair, but I wasn’t
quite
in the family enough yet to ask.

“No,” he said the fifth time I poked him.

“But they’re so warm!” I protested.

“I’ll make you some myself, but I’m not asking my gran.”

“You’ll make me some?” Okay, so we all knew Russell Crowe knit on set, but still. Wasn’t expected.

“You think she didn’t teach me? But you know, you hit college, you’re too manly for that shit. But for you, I will make socks.”

My entire body felt suffused with light, and I could feel my smile near my ears. “Oh my God! Can they be brown and blue and yellow and red? And have those lacy little shell things on them? Oh
please
, Noah, please. I’ll do
anything
for you if you could make me slippers like that!”

He stared at me. “You do anything for me
now
. Jesus, Connor, did you just offer to whore yourself out for a pair of slippers?”

I nodded. “Pretty please?” I thought about perfectly beautiful slippers on my big blocky feet that had been
made by my boyfriend
, and I convulsed with what could only be described as a paroxysm of joy. “Can we get the yarn today? There’s a yarn store on the boardwalk, by the candy store. Can we go? Please?”

“Yeah,” he said, with that same expression he had on his face when I was picking out his gran’s present. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll get you a how-to book. You can make me a pair in
black
.”

I nodded. “Sure. We can do that today, though, right?”

“Yeah. Why not? I don’t see why—”

And that was when my phone buzzed on the end table. I grabbed it and stood, planning to go upstairs and change, because oh my God! I was going to learn how to do something during set breaks and the thought actually made my
balls ache
with joy. Jilly was on the line, and the tone of her voice pulled me off cloud euphoria in one word.

“Connor?”

“Yeah, Jilly. What’s up? You sound—”

“Connor, why didn’t you tell me?”

I had to search my brain for what she could be referring to. “Tell you what?” I asked cautiously. I mean, I’d put her name on my hospital contact information, but I don’t think the shrink was that interested in contacting my agent. Unless he had a screenplay or something.

“Connor, Vinnie’s family called me today, and they told me what happened before you left LA.”

I blinked, and for a moment I was there on the beach, heartbroken and devastated, confronted with the remains of a life that nobody had known existed.

“Yeah,” I said through a rough throat. “Wasn’t their fault, you know. They were just—”

“They were making their own peace. Yeah, Christine explained all that.”

Christine—Kevin’s wife. I remembered that now—Vinnie’s older brother’s name was Kevin. “She was nice,” I said, remembering how she’d sat with me until Noah came. “But I don’t want to—”

“Well you’re going to have to, hon, because they’re on their way over.”

My eyes crossed so hard I thought they’d stick that way. “They’re on their way
what
?”

“They called me today—told me the whole story, and then asked me for your address so they could, and I quote, ‘Get something to him that he’ll want back.’”

“You gave them my address?” Damn—Jilly
must
have been rattled. That was a breach of protocol that most clients would fire for. “Why would you—”

“Well I didn’t know they were calling from Seattle, Con! But she called me back a half an hour later, and said I might want to warn you they were coming. I mean, they had
my
number because
Vinnie
had my number and I’ve been sending his family Vinnie’s residuals. I didn’t even know what you’d
want
me to do, and . . .” Her voice dropped. “You were so out of it, hon. That day I saw you and Noah, you were so sad. I would have given anything if they could have come and made you better. Please tell me you don’t hate me—
please
.”

I closed my eyes, and as the wave of sadness passed through me and my heart kept beating, still and sane as it had for the past week, I made a stunning realization.

I was all right. I really
was
all right.

But I would always be sad.

I’d sat on my euphoria cloud, so damned relieved to have the chance to say good-bye that I’d forgotten that I really had lost someone. But it was okay. I really had lost someone, and I would have sad moments like this one, and the one that was coming. But I could live. I
had
lived. I’d said good-bye, and I would keep on living, just like I’d been telling Noah all week.

“I love you, sweetheart,” I said kindly. “But Noah and I look like the cat’s ass right now, so let us go change, ok—”

Knock
,
knock
,
knock
.

“Oh fuck, Jilly, I love you, but you fucking owe me for this. I’m in my goddamned pajamas!”

Noah was scrambling to stand up as I stalked from the kitchen through the living room to answer the door. “Who is—”

And at that moment we heard a crash, like broken pottery, and Christine’s voice letting out an unmistakable wail.

“God
damn it
Kevin—we kept that thing safe across two airports!”

“Oh Jesus . . . Jesus, I’m sorry, Chris— Dad, I’m so sorry!”

Knock
,
knock
,
knock
.