In a flashback to Scotland, Maya receives a package and card from Conor. He apologizes for leaving but says it was for the best and tells her to call him if she needs anything. The package contains a bread maker, and Maya remembers an offhanded comment she made about liking fresh bread. Conor keeps sending gifts to keep up the charade of Maya having a rich boyfriend. One day, Maya decides to call him to just talk, knowing it’s not what he meant by “needing” anything. After thanking him for the gifts, the conversation works around to the orgasm Maya had in his hotel room.

Maya teases him, telling him she’s been trying to replicate it and asking if she should be seeing older men. When Conor objects and orders her to date someone her age, Maya feels punched in the stomach. She asks if that’s what he wants, to which he says he doesn’t care, insisting that he only cares about her and “well-being,” which he feels he has “already jeopardized it once” (208). By the tone of his voice, Maya can tell he cares but will never admit it. She decides to enjoy his friendship because it feels infinitely less painful than pushing him until she loses him altogether. She asks if she can call him to talk and make her roommate uncomfortable. Conor wholeheartedly agrees.

Several weeks later, Maya’s ex-boyfriend apologizes for cheating on her with her roommate. Maya isn’t sure he’s worth her forgiveness. She calls Conor to tell him at five o’clock in the morning his time. It’s clear she woke him up, and when she jokingly explains silencing notifications, he confesses he does but gave her an emergency bypass. Maya is so shocked that she stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Right then, she decides to go to grad school in Texas.

In the present, the men of the wedding party go on a bar crawl while the women throw a subdued bachelorette party for Rue. All the ladies but Maya and Minami get high, and Minami announces she’s pregnant. She and her husband want Maya to be the godmother, which fills Maya with joy. The others start chatting about whether they want kids. At 38 years old, Avery hopes she can find someone soon and laments that Conor is emotionally distant and uninterested in her. Minami leaves the group, crying a little. Maya follows, and Minami confesses she feels like people blame her for Conor’s emotional state because she didn’t accept his marriage proposal.

According to Minami, Conor was emotionally stilted and secretive while they were together. Between his dad’s narcissism and his brothers being jerks, it seems like Conor became a protector of his mom and, later, Tamryn, which makes it seem like he views a romantic partner as someone “to protect, as opposed to someone to share a life with” (220). Maya abruptly realizes Conor chose to share himself with her and no one else.

Chapter 25 flashes back to Scotland and moves forward at intervals through Maya’s return to Texas. As time passes, she realizes she’s not interested in having sex with anyone but Conor, but she also cherishes their emotional connection. One night before a camping trip with friends, Conor calls, saying, “I just wanted to listen to you exist” (225). Generally, whether they’re talking about their families or wanting kids, the conversations are full of laughter and banter. The last part of the chapter is a few weeks before Conor stops talking to her, where they discuss their views of love. Conor argues love means protecting people, even from himself. Maya counters that love means showing people everything about oneself, even the less desirable parts.

Late after the bachelorette party, Maya texts the girlfriend of the guy she flirted with, who she saved as “Hans” in her phone to make it look like she’s texting a guy. The men return from their pub crawl, and Conor comes to find Maya. When her phone lights up with a text, he glares at it and grills her about whether she’s planning to meet up with this guy. Maya says she won’t if he tells her why they only talked on the phone and never met up in person over the last three years. Conor struggles to answer, and Maya watches him, thinking that she never agreed to “play nice” (234). Conor says it was just how things worked out. Maya calls his bluff, insisting he felt comfortable emotionally with her but was too scared to let that comfort become physical. Conor denies it, even though it’s clear she’s right and that he wants her. Finally, he snaps at her to go inside to her room. Maya knows he’ll follow her, so she goes.

Conor comes up to Maya’s room and is overtaken by the sight of her in her bathing suit. When Maya argues it isn’t that revealing, Conor says it’s not about that, saying, “you remind me constantly, loudly, indecently, of all the little things that make you you” (239). He slides one hand between her legs, bringing her to an orgasm but refusing to let her touch or kiss him. Afterwards, he puts her to bed and leaves.

The next morning, Maya wakes to Nyota ranting outside. The wedding dress boutique sent the wrong dress and is refusing to send a replacement because it’s a bad time to send anything to Sicily. Maya realizes the day is not overcast. Rather, “a tall column of ashes and lava erupts from Mount Etna” (249). As a result of the volcano erupting, all flights into Sicily are canceled until further notice. Eli asks Maya to take care of the dog while he spends hours on the phone trying to handle wedding logistics. Maya wanders the villa for 20 minutes but, even with Conor’s help, can’t find the dog.

One of the boys who works at the villa saw the dog run down the beach a few hours ago. Conor and Maya follow the dog’s tracks on a land scooter. They find the dog stranded on a small island. At low tide, the island is connected to the mainland by a sandbar, but during high tide, one can only swim across. Before thinking about it, Maya and Conor start removing their clothes. They realize what’s happening at the same moment, and after some intense staring, they swim to the island.

The island is overgrown with vegetation that makes it difficult to follow the dog. The dog seems to view the chase as a game and keeps running away. Maya calls after him, which does nothing, and she’s sure the dog knows, thinking, “I’m his peer, and any demand I might make of him is little more than a polite suggestion” (262). The dog leads them to a cave, where Maya and Conor find another dog, who seems lost and starving.

Maya and Conor conclude the dog is a stray they must bring back. Before they can head out, thunder booms overhead, and it starts raining. They hunker down to wait out the storm and rinse off in a pool of water. Maya teases that she likes Conor nearly naked with his wet shorts plastered to his body. Conor turns the situation serious, confessing he likes everything about her before laying her down and performing oral sex on her. Maya climaxes and concludes, “this is how people die and still ask for more” (270). After a second orgasm, Maya begs Conor to let her perform oral sex on him. He refuses because he doesn’t want to take advantage of her. Maya argues he thinks about their power imbalance more than the imbalance actually exists. Conor shrugs this off and just holds her in the water, which is nice until Maya feels the sharp sting of a jellyfish in her leg.

Back at the villa, the Italian attendant insists the best remedy for a jellyfish sting is urinating on it. Maya is skeptical, and Conor opts to retrieve the antibiotic cream from the first-aid kit instead. Eli and Rue immediately take to the new puppy and decide to adopt him, as he and their other dog are inseparable. Since the two are leaving Sicily to go on their honeymoon, Maya offers to import the puppy back to the United States because she has free time. Eli teases that she doesn’t have time because she has decisions to make about her future. Suddenly, Maya needs to get away because she still doesn’t know what she wants to do but is too embarrassed to tell her brother. She finds Conor and haltingly asks him if he—or Eli—would be disappointed if Maya didn’t make the choice they wanted her to make. Conor pauses in applying the cream to Maya’s jellyfish sting and says, “I doubt that there’s anything in the entire universe that would make me think less of you” (277).

Eli, Conor, and Maya take the puppy to the vet, who clears the dog for shots. When the vet asks if Eli will really take the dog to America, he says he has to for his fiancée. The vet looks at Maya questioningly. Eli corrects the vet and jokingly says Maya’s his daughter. From the corner of her eye, Maya catches Conor’s wince, and Maya can’t blame him because “even the most long-standing of jokes hits different, when you just spent a good chunk of your morning going down on your best friend’s not-daughter” (278). Back at the villa, it’s revealed that Maya formally turned down both the job offer from California and position at MIT, which shocks Eli. He questions her choices, and Maya feels like he doesn’t trust her ability to make her own decisions.

Maya storms off but is stopped by Conor. He reminds her about her own desire to breathe through her anger. Maya gets herself under control and continues the conversation. She doesn’t want either position right now. Instead, she got a job as an elementary school teacher in Texas because she wants to be near home and to help kids get excited about science. She hopes Eli isn’t disappointed, and he reassures her he isn’t because he only wants her to do what she loves.

With the wedding falling apart under the eruption of Mount Etna, the party heads out for a wine tasting. Since Maya thinks that all wine tastes like moldy grapes, she avoids wine tasting by circulating amongst the crowd. Eventually, she winds up watching Mount Etna with Conor, who she suddenly realizes hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since they arrived in Sicily. Conor gave up alcohol a few months ago because he didn’t like who he was when he drank. Maya thanks him for helping her argument with Eli earlier and hugs him. Conor pulls her close just as Avery arrives, and the look on her face “shifts from amused, to confused, to hurt. Betrayed” (292). Back at the villa, Eli pulls Maya aside to talk about Conor.

Eli is concerned about Conor because Conor looks at Maya “like he could become unhinged really quickly” (296). Seeing Maya and Conor together has made Eli realize how much Conor has done for Maya in the last three years, and he’s afraid Maya will break Conor’s heart. Maya confesses she has feelings for Conor and tells Eli that Conor broke off their friendship ten months ago.

Ten months earlier, it’s been two weeks since Maya talked to Conor. His company is in a transition, and he’s been traveling a lot. When he finally calls, he tells her he’s seeing someone and that he’s breaking off his friendship with her so his new girlfriend doesn’t get the wrong idea about them. Maya is crushed. She tries to argue that she loves him and attempts to force him to admit he has feelings too. Conor doesn’t. He’s convinced Maya needs to meet someone her own age and not be held back from having age-appropriate experiences because of him, finally saying that “the kindest thing I can do for you at the moment is to free you from me” (309). Angry and devastated, Maya hangs up.