JesseI hummed as I mopped the floors on Wednesday afternoon. “You’re in a good mood,” Joe commented from where he was closing out the cash register. As though that wasn’t obvious. He grinned at me and raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged defensively.“Yeah, I am,” I said.Fortunately, he let it be as he continued working. I knew that he was only good for teasing as far as the Audrey thing was concerned. To be honest, his teasing didn’t bother me at this point. In fact, the more time I spent with Audrey, the more I sort of liked his teasing. It made me feel almost like this was going to last. Even though I knew that it couldn’t. I continued mopping the floors, thinking back to the night before. I had gone over to Audrey’s mom’s place for dinner. It had gone well, with lots of talk and laughter. Clayton and I had chatted about some of our favorite fishing spots in the area, and we had made plans to go out together sometime over the summer. I wondered if Audrey would think that was strang

AudreyI was surprised when Jesse called, not because it was anything out of the ordinary for him to call, or because it was out of the ordinary for him to want to see me that evening. Lately, it seemed like we had been spending nearly every evening together. I liked that. I still hadn’t found a way to tell him that I was going to be leaving so soon. Tonight, I had promised myself, I would.It was surprising to hear the way that he asked the question. He didn’t just want me to come over. He wanted to know if I would stay the night this time.It was something that I had been trying so hard to avoid. Not because I didn’t want to. God knew that I wanted to fall asleep tangled in his arms after sex and wake up next to him the following morning. I wanted to make breakfast with him in his kitchen or have him bring me breakfast in bed maybe. I wanted sweet, soft kisses to start the day and a passion that built to a frenzy before lunchtime.I had been careful, though. I was leaving soon, and

Jesse“Oh wow!” I said in surprise. “Audrey, that’s amazing. No wonder you’re being so strict about your diet. It’ll take a lot of training to bring yourself up to that level, won’t it?” I felt relieved. Was that all that she was trying to tell me? That she wasn’t going to have as much time to spend with me in the evenings, or that she was going to be more exhausted when we did spend time together? That was fine.Audrey looked pained, though. “He wants me back soon,” she said. “And I’ve already said yes. This might be the biggest opportunity to ever cross my path. This is the one that dancers wait for. Like, this could make my career. This could get my name all over the world. Get me invitations to dance with whatever company I want to dance with and take all the roles that I want to take. It’s huge.”“It is huge,” I agreed, but I could feel apprehension welling up inside of me. She didn’t seem very excited about this. Somehow, it seemed like she was telling me bad news, but I couldn’

Audrey“If you’d just told me about it, maybe you wouldn’t have had to ask,” Jesse snapped. “I was going to talk to you about that. I was thinking of maybe handing over the hardware store to Joe, at least for the time being, and coming with you. I guess that’s just not something that you would want, though.”I stared at him, mouth agape for a moment. He had thought about coming with me to France? I had never even considered that he might want to. Had I screwed everything up by not telling him?The reality was, though, that I just couldn’t picture him fitting into my life in Paris either. With this lead role that the director was granting me, I needed to have 100% of my focus on my dance training. I was going to be exhausted whenever I went home. I didn’t need to argue with Jesse over whether or not I was taking it too hard, putting myself through too much pain for the sake of dance.What would he do while I was off dancing? How would we make ends meet? It was too soon to be talking ab

JesseI felt most terrible when I thought about the fact that she didn’t want to even try to figure out how to make things work with me. It made me think about what Annabelle had said about her using me. She had said that to Audrey, and Audrey had mentioned it to me. Now, I wondered if that had been the truth, if Audrey had been lying to me all along.I sat down at the kitchen table and took a bite of the dinner that we were supposed to share. I nearly choked on the first bite, the food like ashes in my mouth. I pushed my plate away and put my head in my hands. The house hadn’t felt this empty since right after Dad passed away.I had the sudden urge to head into town, just to be around other people. But where would I go? Gabby’s? I couldn’t do that. Annabelle worked there, and Audrey might be in there. Besides, even if neither of them were there, I would be stuck thinking about the last time that I had been there with Audrey. About the first time that I had been there with Audrey.I w