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She bites down on her lip, but it doesn’t stop the corners of her mouth from rising as she turns her face toward the window. “Me too.”

“You don’t have to tell me why you cried if you don’t want to,” I say. “But if you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you. I don’t know if you’ve told anyone about what happened between us, but I thought that if you didn’t, then maybe you didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. But you can talk to me. Don’t worry about my ego, it can withstand you telling me that you miss Ethan. I would understand.”

I take a deep breath because it’s not like me to talk so much, but I’m trying so hard not to say the wrong thing.

“I don’t miss Ethan.” She wrings her hands as she talks. “You probably don’t believe me.”

“If you say it, I believe you. But emotions are complicated. You can both not miss someone and miss them at the same time, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. I miss my house and I miss having someone to talk to and to go out with, and I keep expecting that I’m going to miss him, but I don’t. If anything, I feel relieved that he’s not there sometimes. I feel… free.”

“He can be… overbearing.”

“Yes! Everything is so meticulous with him. I can’t do anything right. These days I come home, and I just enjoy the silence of not having someone complain that I didn’t put my shoes away.”

“Yeah, I lived with him for three years after high school. I know he can be a bit of a neat freak.”

“Yes.”

“I just learned to tune him out after a while.”

“Me too. I thought I was being patient and kind, and tried not to get offended when he complained, accepting that he’s that way and doing my best to be as neat as he wanted even though it was hard for me and never seemed to be good enough for him. The worst part about getting dumped is feeling like I wasn’t enough.”

I get an overwhelming urge to smack Ethan, and hug Amelia. But I keep my hands steady on the wheel as I drive onto the lot, parking in front of the run-down farmhouse.

“Is this it?” Amelia asks, opening her door and stepping out.

I do the same, letting Rusty out behind me.

“It’s beautiful!” Amelia exclaims, looking out at the mountains. “Who’s selling this?”

I close the door and make my way around to stand beside her.

“No one. It’s mine. Well, ours. It was my parents’ house. My brothers and I lived here when we were kids.”

“Wow. It must have been amazing. All this land to play.”

My face must look pretty grim, because she quickly changes the subject.

“So where would you want the brewery to be?”

I give her a quick rundown of my main ideas. “But I’m open to suggestions.”

“I think that whatever you choose to do, it will be amazing. I can definitely imagine the tourists staring out at those mountains for hours.”

I grab our coffees and donuts from the car, open the tailgate of my truck and jump in. “Come sit. Let’s have breakfast with a view.”

She can’t put her foot up on the tailgate without first hiking her skirt up. I enjoy the view as she struggles to get her bottom down on the truck bed.

I hand her a donut when she finally settles into a sitting position with her feet straight out in front of her crossed at the ankles.

“Thanks.”

She watches the mountains as she eats, and I watch her.

“I do want to talk about it,” she says after her second bite. “But it’s embarrassing and probably stupid.”

“You sure know how to make me curious. Now I have to know.”