Page 50 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

My mouth falls open, and I nearly drop my mug. Dylan doesn’t notice, clenching and unclenching his jaw while his gaze remains locked tight on his fidgeting hands.

“He was a close mutual friend,” he continues. “A guy who owned and ran a successful high-end restaurant. A natural extrovert, like Vivian, who worked a room like he was born to do it. When she told me things had gotten serious between them, I think part of her hoped I’d come out swinging. Tell her I’d do anything. Beg her to stay. But another part of her wanted to go, so she pursued a relationship that would feel like a double betrayal, forcing my hand.”

“Dylan—” I start, but he cuts me off with a brusque shake of his head.

“Let me finish first. I owe you that much.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do, I think. I owe it to both of us.” He meets my eyes for the first time since he came out here. The light from inside the house paints tiny amber sparkles on his dark irises. It’s beautiful and lively, but it’s not enough to offset the sadness in their depths, the sense of failure and regret, and the quiet plea for me to listen and understand.

“Okay,” I say. “No more interruptions.”

He nods before facing the sea again, making the sparkles vanish.

“The divorce didn’t take long. We didn’t have much to divide up. I told her to keep everything. I didn’t want to fight about any of it.” He picks at his cuticles again, letting out the least joyous breath of laughter I’ve ever heard. “Pretty ironic, huh? That was all she ever wanted from me. To fight for something. Even a chair or a paperback we got signed at an author event. And I just . . . walked away. Sofa surfed with nothing more to my name than a dented laptop and a duffel bag of clothes. I stopped writing. I let friendships lapse. I only stayed in shape because it was the one thing I could control. The one thing with dependable cause and effect. No broken commitments. No surprise announcements. No rugs being swept out from under me.”

Another seagull cries beyond the shoreline.

This time, it’s only one bird, flying alone.

I want to ask—and say—so much, but I wait, again, as requested.

“At first, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it mattered,” Dylan says. “You were only going to be here for a few weeks. All I had to do was stay out of your way as you attacked this house with a wild determination to rid it of its ghosts. Then you stayed, and avoiding you started to feel not only pointless but like the last thing I wanted to do. By then, I liked that you didn’t know this side of me, rushing to get married, chasing an illusion of the security I’d always wanted but never known, watching my marriage fail when my wife wanted to be with someone who wasn’t me.” He offers me a smile, stiff and conflicted, before turning away, crossing the porch, and dropping into a wicker chair, one where I’ve spent countless hours curled up, book in hand, sea in view, seeking precisely the kind of quiet he just described seeking, too.

I give him a minute, in case he has more to say. Then I set aside my mug and perch on the side table next to him, close but not too close, unsure what he needs most right now.

“Thank you for telling me,” I say.

“It’s not my proudest story.”

“You think it’s your fault that your marriage ended?”

“I think we were young and naive when we got married. And I think we had a window early on in the marriage where we both could’ve made different choices. Where the effort to understand our partner’s point of view and find workable compromises would’ve been so small, it barely would’ve seemed like effort. But neither of us made those choices. We didn’t have the conversations while the stakes were low. Maybe we were the wrong match to begin with, or maybe we became the wrong match. Either way, I think you were right.”

I wince, worried I’ve inadvertently doled out marital advice. “Right about what?”

“When something’s really important, we fight for it no matter what.” His hands go still as he exhales, deflating into the chair, relieved, maybe, or exhausted, or both. I’m pretty sure this is the most I’ve ever heard him say in one unbroken conversation, and that includes the night we opened the reserve rum. The admission he snuck into that last statement is huge, and I still have questions, but everything I want to ask—or say—can wait.

I watch him for a moment. Then I slide my fingers through his, slowly, in case the contact isn’t welcome, though apparently it is welcome, because he completes the handhold, resting our linked hands on the arm of the chair. We’re quite the pair, each following a direct path toward something we wanted—me with my teaching career and him with his marriage—only to have our expectations shattered, forcing us to start over, set new expectations, and redefine what we want. Then decide if we want it badly enough to fight for it.

Dylan breaks the silence first. “I’ll buy new running shoes.”

I gust out a laugh so strong I almost slide off the table’s edge. “That’s your takeaway?”

This time, when he smiles, it’s a little less conflicted. “Gotta start somewhere.”

“I guess,” I concede, then think through my own goals. The house and boat repairs are underway, and we’re writing Grams’s next book, which leaves the big looming question of my teaching career, the question I’ve been wrestling with since that damned sinkhole ate my bike. It also leaves the question of Dylan and whether I shake up our friendship by crossing a line I might not be the only one dancing around, though he’s so hard to read sometimes. I might only be seeing what I want to see, not what’s really there, neatly shelved under “landlady.”

“Any chance you could use a hug?” I ask, and even that feels like a risk.

He scratches his neck with his free hand, his surefire tell he’s battling anxiety.

“Or rum?” I offer as an alternative. “We could get wasted and blast the Goo Goo Dolls. Scare a few seagulls. Dance around in the rooms we never use. Primal scream at the sea.”

I almost catch sight of a dimple. Almost.

“Actually,” he says, “a hug would be great.”