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Normally, she would doubt something like that, because her experience was that those kinds of proclamations were bullshit, and would only end up harming her. But she believed him.

There was a wealth of sadness in the silence between the words, though. A wealth of regret. They could never be simple. Because they weren’t simple. Maybe he wanted to run away with her to Boston.

She had to stop herself from suggesting that. What a foolish thing to think. What a foolish thing to say.

Nothing about being with him scared her, but that thought did. It was a silly pie-in-the-sky sort of thought.

“I’ll go home. So that you don’t have to worry about Fia. She really would savage you.”

“I know. She made that very clear.”

She dressed slowly, and he watched. He watched closely. It aroused her, the way his eyes moved over her body.

It was sexy. So was he.

But she had to go.

She sighed and walked into the kitchen. He followed a minute later, still pulling his jeans on.

Then he took her hand in his, and her stomach hollowed out, her heart jumping up against her rib cage.

He walked her out like that, holding her hand, like he’d done up the mountain, and helped her into her car.

She didn’t need help. But she did need him. Needed him to give her this last bit of attention. It felt good. She felt good.

And she cried a little bit on the drive back to Sullivan’s Point; that was just a virgin’s prerogative.

Fia wasn’t downstairs when she got in, thank God. She went up to her room and took out her notebook. She stared down at the list.Assist the legend.

Get a kiss.

She had crossed offmakeover, and she could cross offclimb the damn mountainif she wanted to.

But what did you do when you weren’t the same person who made the list to begin with?

It hardly felt like the Summer of Rory. It felt like something bigger. With more consequence. It was no longer about her leaving town with a certain sort of reputation. It was no longer about what anyone thought of her at all.

She was happy with herself. And that thought was truly the most jarring one she’d ever had.

She had liked putting that dress on, she had liked people thinking she looked pretty, but she didn’t need it. She hadn’t figured out exactly how to dress herself because she didn’t care.

She liked to be comfortable, and she liked for things to be functional. She didn’t need to attract attention. She liked to talk about books, and segue into whatever weird thing interested her. She liked having one lifelong best friend. She loved her sisters. Who understood her without the need for explanation or apology.

She didn’t want to go out with Mike. She didn’t want to impress all those old bullies who had been mean to her.

They didn’t matter.

She was Rory Sullivan, and she was fine. And she’d had sex.

And... And... She pulled the paper out of the notebook and crumpled it up, sitting down on the bed hard as tears fell down her cheeks.

She didn’t need it. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. All she cared about was that between now and when she left for Boston she got to spend as much time with Gideon as possible. He was healing her. And she really hoped—she did—that she was offering him some healing, too. If she could do that, then nothing else mattered at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THELASTTHINGhe expected was for his sister to show up when he was still standing shirtless in his kitchen, recovering from that evening with Rory.

He didn’t even feel like he’d caught his breath.