What Lucas Said

That night, after Luna was asleep, Lucas came to Seraphina's sitting room with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"We need to talk."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

He sat across from her. Poured. Handed her a glass. She took it.

"Sera."

"Lucas."

"Are you going to go back to him?"

She did not answer right away.

She sipped the wine. She looked at the window. She thought about how to say it.

"I do not know."

"That is not a no."

"I know."

"A month ago, it would have been a no."

"I know."

He set his glass down. He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, and looked at the carpet for a long time.

"Can I say something?"

"Yes."

"I am not going to try to talk you out of it."

She looked at him.

"What?"

"I have thought about it. For three years. I have thought about what I would say to you if this moment ever came. And the answer I keep arriving at is that I am not going to try to talk you out of it. Because that would be for me, not for you. And I have not loved you well for three years by making it about me. I am not going to start now."

Her throat closed.

"Lucas."

"Let me finish."

She let him.

"I want you to choose what is best for you and for Luna. Not what is easiest. Not what is safest. What is best. If that is him, then it is him. If it is not, then it is not. But whatever you choose, I am going to stand where I have always stood. Behind you. If you want me, I am there. If you do not, I am still there. That is not going to change."

"That is not fair to you."

"It is what I chose. A long time ago. You did not know I was choosing it. I did."

"Lucas."

"Sera. Listen to me. He is not a bad man. I watched him today with her. He is not a bad man. He did a terrible thing. But a terrible thing is not the same as being a terrible man. If he has the chance to earn what he did back, the only person who can decide whether he gets that chance is you."

She was crying silently. She had not noticed.

"I did not want you to be reasonable about this."

"I know."

"I wanted you to give me a reason to walk away from him."

"I know."

"Then why are you being like this?"

He smiled. Small. Sad.

"Because loving you means wanting you to be happy. And the last three years, I watched you be safe but not happy. And today at the playground, for forty minutes, you looked happy. I have not seen you look like that in a very long time. I am not going to be the reason it goes away."

She put her glass down. She crossed the small space between them. She sat next to him on the couch and put her head on his shoulder. He did not move.

They sat like that for a long time.

"What do I do, Lucas?"

"You go slow. You protect Luna. You do not let him close the distance too fast. You make him earn every inch. And you do not close the door, because I think, whether I like it or not, he might actually become the man he is trying to be. People do sometimes. Rarely. But sometimes."

"And you."

"I am going to go back to London. I am going to run the company. I am going to be your best friend. And if you ever need me to come to New York and put a man in the ground for you, you have my number."

She laughed once, wetly.

"Lucas."

"Yes."

"Thank you. For finding me on those steps."

"Thank you for letting me."

They sat in silence for a long time.

Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed eleven. Outside, a taxi horn. A dog barking. London in the autumn, a city she had chosen because it was not New York, a city she had rebuilt her life inside, a city she had made a home.

A city she was starting to think about leaving.

"Lucas."

"Yes."

"If I go back. If I choose him. You will not disappear on me. Will you?"

"Sera."

"Promise me. Because you are not just a business partner. You are not just a friend. You are the person who kept me alive. I cannot lose you because I chose someone else."

He turned his head and kissed the top of her hair. Just once. Brief. The first time he had done it in three years of knowing each other.

"You will not lose me. Not ever. I do not know how to stop being in your corner. I have tried. It is not in me."

She closed her eyes.

"Okay."

She sat with her head on his shoulder and listened to the clock on the mantel tick, and for the first time in three years, she thought, without fear, about what the next three years of her life might look like.

It was a small thought.

But it was hopeful.

And hope, she had learned, was the thing that came back last.