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“What?” He blinked at me rapidly. “No! This has nothing to do with Ryan.”

“Oh.” Thank God . Except now I was even more confused than before. “What’s it about then?”

“Okay.” Ben let out a long breath and dragged his fingers through his hair. “A few months ago, I was in a very bad place, okay?”

I felt a twinge of sympathy, but I still had no idea where the hell he was going with this. “Okay.”

“I was, um, in this book club. We met at my local library in Boston, but we were also all online too. Anyway, I was under a lot of pressure at work. Like, legal pressure. Someone was stealing funds—not me, but I was basically being framed for it. It was a whole fucking mess.”

Sam reached out and squeezed his hand.

“Okay,” I repeated softly, still not sure what this had to do with me.

Ben held my gaze, pressing his mouth into a thin, unhappy line before he spoke again. “I wrote a review of your last book. It wasn’t positive, and it went viral, and a whole bunch of your fans doxxed me.”

“Shit.” My jaw dropped. “You’re BenDover123 from WordBook!”

“Yeah,” he said in a small voice.

“Holy shit .” I blinked at him. “Firstly, that is a terrible username.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “God, that review. I can’t believe this. You know what sucked most about that review, Ben?”

“What?” he asked faintly.

“It was right .” I stared at him, astonished.

This was not how I’d pictured BenDover123.

Teenage edgelord, I’d thought. “Well, apart from the bit about how I’d never been to New Hampshire because I came here a bunch of times as a kid.

I might have forgotten some details, that’s all.

But the stuff about computers and security systems and shit like that?

What did you call it? ‘Glaring inaccuracies in the technical aspects of the story.’ Oh, and ‘garbage.’”

“You memorized it,” he said, and looked as though he was trying to sink under the table and vanish.

“Not intentionally,” I said. “Let’s just say that review is burned into my brain.”

Ben winced.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “This is so crazy. That review is the whole reason I came here. To prove to myself that you were wrong and I was right. Can you imagine my face when I realized the garbage cans on Main Street aren’t yellow like I said?

So all I really did was prove that I hadn’t just screwed up the computer stuff and that I really should have opened Google street view at some point too.

Like, any time before it went to print would have been good.

Why did I even mention the color of the garbage cans anyway? That wasn’t an important detail!”

“You’re not mad?” he asked me.

“I was,” I said, trying to be honest. “Because your review said everything I’d tried not to admit.

You were disappointed in the book, and I was pretending so hard that I wasn’t .

So it was like a slap in the face to see it there in black and white.

But no, I’m not mad at you. It sucked that it went viral, for both of us, apparently, but shit, even if you’d said the book should have been torpedoed into the sun, that would be your valid opinion, and it’s not okay that you were doxxed for it.

I’m sorry that happened. I would never want my fans to go after someone like that. I hope you know that.”

Ben’s shoulders relaxed. “No, I know.”

“Holy shit,” I said, because that seemed to be pretty much the only thing I was capable of saying. “This is wild .”

“You seem to be taking it well,” Sam said. “Better than Ben thought you would.”

“Did you think I was going to stab you with a pen?” I asked, and Ben gave me a weak smile. Okay, we weren’t at the joking stage yet. “Honestly, coming to Harmony Lake for real has been one of the best decisions I ever made, and I wouldn’t have done that without your review.”

I remembered Friday night, when I tipped my head back to stare at the stars and talked about fate with Ryan. About the universe getting things right.

Ben looked as though he didn’t believe me, so I stood up and moved around the table. I stood beside his chair and gestured for him to stand up, and then I pulled him into a hug.

“Still thought I was going to stab you with a pen, didn’t you?” I asked him as I patted his back.

He huffed out a laugh. “Little bit, yeah.” He leaned back. “We’re okay?”

“We are definitely okay.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” he said. “Because I really do love Alex and Beckett.”

I released him. “Oh, man, then I hope you love where I’m taking them in the next book.”

His eyes widened. “Not—” He lowered his voice. “Are they getting together?” His expression lit up at my nod. “ Yes ! That’s awesome . Sam, you gotta read Adam’s books!”

Sam smiled. “Okay.”

Ben and I sat down again, and I ate my burger and chips while Ben rambled on about Alex and Beckett.

It was so weird to think he was the guy who’d written that scathing review that still haunted me, but it made me happy that he obviously loved the characters as much as I did.

Maybe even more than I did. I bet he’d never fantasized about killing them both off in increasingly ridiculous ways during a prolonged stretch of writer’s block.

Ben’s enthusiasm for them was contagious though, and even though I was really enjoying his and Sam’s company, I found myself itching to get back to the cabin to keep working on the book.

So, when Sam asked if I wanted to order anything else after I’d finished my burger and fries, I gave him my honest regrets—there were maple donuts on the menu—and we had a brief argument about who was paying for lunch.

I let Ben win and then went to the bathroom, thinking I could at least drop a twenty on the table as I made my escape after that.

When I came out of the bathroom and headed for our table, Ben was engrossed in the menu, and Sam’s back was to me.

I dug into my pocket for my wallet, glancing down to see which note I was reaching for while my footsteps took me right up to the space behind Sam.

And when I looked up again, I saw straight over his shoulder to his phone screen.

I didn’t mean to get involved in his personal business.

Which was more, apparently, than I could say for him.

Because on his screen, at the bottom of a text chain, was a photograph of the note I’d written this morning and slipped into Ryan’s apron as I was leaving to come to lunch. The one that laid all my thoughts bare.

Ryan, every day with you feels like a gift I haven’t done anything to deserve. I’m scared of how much you’ve come to mean to me in such a short space of time. I didn’t know my heart could feel this full. I’m falling in love with you. Adam.

The sensation that came over me was as though I’d been dunked on cold water, so suddenly and shockingly that my body couldn’t remember how to breathe. Blood roared in my skull, and everything felt strange and distant.

Nothing made sense.

“Oh, hey,” Ben said, glancing up from the menu. “Did you forget something?”

Sam twisted to look, turning his phone away from me.

“Just this,” I said, pretending I hadn’t seen the message.

Not to protect Sam, I didn’t think, but maybe to protect me ?

Because I didn’t know yet what was going on.

Like the guy in the movie who got shot but kept going because his brain hadn’t caught up yet.

Not until someone asked him if he was hurt, and then suddenly the pain caught him, and he was dying dramatically.

I just had to stay ahead of that moment, that was all.

So I smiled as I dropped the twenty on the table and shook my head at Ben’s immediate protestations.

“Thanks for lunch. I’ll catch you around, okay? ”

And before they could say anything else, I kept walking, even though every step was taking me closer and closer to something awful and inevitable.