Williams Nicole - Touching Down -

TOUCHING DOWN Copyright © 2016 Nicole Williams Smashwords Edition ISBN: All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trade-marks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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For Tara My sister from another mister. I’m lucky to call you my friend. Love you and thank you.

Title Page Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Epilogue Preview of Trusting You & Other Lies About the Author

ONE MOMENT YOU’RE soaring. The next one, you’re touching down, scraping rock bottom. I never planned on coming back here. The day I fled The Clink was both freeing and debilitating for a multitude of reasons I had no interest in revisiting. It had been the only home I’d ever known. It had housed the only people I’d ever loved. Still, I knew when I left seven years ago, I’d never be able to come back. That was the way it would have to be. So why was I coming back now? For another multitude of reasons I had no choice but to respect. That was what I kept reminding myself of as I turned onto the block that had been the one beacon of hope in this urban heart of darkness. Juniper Avenue was the official name, but all of us kids had only known it as Aunt May’s. All of us kids who’d grown up in one of the prison-like subsidized housing complexes stretched across the one-square-mile stretch of land known as The Clink. It was one of the toughest neighborhoods in the country—violence the way of the land, drugs the currency of the kingdom. Murder, domestic violence, drug use, unemployment, ex-cons—The Clink was known for every last one of them. It was basically a cesspool of humanity. My childhood home. If it hadn’t been for Aunt May, I never would have escaped The Clink. If it weren’t for her, none of us would have. That was why I’d come back. For her. To say good-bye. But I’d also come back to see him. To say what had been seven years coming. Aunt May’s funeral was my chance to make my peace with the dead. And the living. Just thinking about confronting him made my hands tremble, which made trying to squeeze my old Toyota into the parking spot tricky. As expected, the streets around Aunt May’s house were packed. Everyone from the corner drunk to the mayor knew who Aunt May was and would want to pay their respects to the person she’d been. The lives she’d saved from these streets couldn’t be counted on a hundred sets of hands. I was just one of those lives. He was one of the others. Even though he lived thousands of miles away now, I knew he’d be here tonight. I needed him to be here tonight because I’d run out of options, and one day, I’d run out of time too. Typically these streets were not a place a woman wanted to roam on her own at night, but tonight, I wasn’t worried. Tonight, in honor of this woman, the streets would be at peace. Tonight, the gangs would set aside their turf wars, and the criminals would play nice. It was The Clink’s version of an armistice.

After locking my car, I forced myself to take each step that brought me closer to Aunt May’s house. Each one became harder to take, until the one that would lead me up her front walk felt impossible. The sight of her house hit me harder than I’d expected. It looked exactly the same, from the lace curtains hanging in the windows, to the beds where her rose bushes had been put to rest for the season. Flowers didn’t grow in The Clink—mainly because people didn’t have any disposable income to spend on them or any patience to tend to them—but they grew here. They had always grown here, and something about realizing that now that Aunt May was gone, that might change, made my eyes burn. The house was packed with so many bodies, people were starting to trickle out onto the front porch. There was music playing in the background, friends were catching up, lovers were embracing, and it looked more like a summer party than a fall funeral. But that was the way Aunt May would have wanted it. She wouldn’t have wanted people to mourn her death—she would have wanted them to celebrate their own lives. From the looks of it, she’d gotten her way. Despite the dread clawing up my throat, a smile started to journey into place as I watched the scene before me. That first step onto hallowed ground became possible, and before I knew it, I was crossing the threshold of the front door. A few people nodded at me in passing, but it was too dark outside for recognition to settle into the brief exchange. I knew that would change when I stepped into the light of the house. How right I was. I could practically feel the whoosh of air crash over me as it felt like every head in the room twisted my way when I stepped inside Aunt May’s house for the first time in seven years. Some of the faces I recognized, some I didn’t, but it felt like every person recognized me. I was met with everything from eyes filled with accusation to brows raised in judgment, but I knew I deserved it. I hadn’t just been another one of the many children Aunt May set a warm meal in front of or provided a safe haven when there was no other safe place. I’d been one of her favorites. If you asked her, she’d say she loved all of us the same, but certain ones of us had been labeled her favorites. The truth of it was, it wasn’t because Aunt May held any more affection for us than the others; us “favorites” were the ones whose home lives were the most fucked up. The ones who spent more time with Aunt May than the rest because going back to our shithole apartment in one of The Clink’s Tower Apartment Complexes felt like playing a game of Russian Roulette each day. So yeah, I’d been deemed one of Aunt May’s favorites because my childhood had come right out of the Fucked Up Guidebook. He’d been one of her supposed favorites too, for the exact same reason. That was a big part of the reason we’d bonded as kids. Our connection had been forged in the fires of a proverbial hell on earth. Our bond built by our shared struggle to survive. We’d all paid a price for reaching adulthood. For some of us, the cost had been our innocence. For others, it was our soul. My price for being here today was both. And more. As my inspection moved from one person to the next, I felt my heart crawl higher into my throat, knowing he was close. Feeling he was close. That was when I saw him. He was in the middle of the living room, surrounded by a crowd of people and towering even more above the mob than I remembered. It had been seven years since I’d last seen Grant Turner. An entire lifetime had passed in that time. But instead of feeling the anesthetization seven years should have tempered the pain with, the sting felt seven seconds fresh. Time hadn’t dulled the pain; it had clearly only sharpened it. I’d barely had a moment to brace myself for the onslaught of feelings that came at me from

seeing him again, before his head finally followed the direction most of the others in the room had taken. Right toward me. His jaw set the moment he saw me, his posture going rigid the moment after that. Clearly, time had not eased any of his pain from my betrayal either. Then, as quickly as his attention had fallen on me, it fell away. He angled himself so his back was to me, putting up what I hoped wasn’t an impenetrable wall between us. I knew leaving the way I did must have hurt him. I knew it had to have confused and angered and betrayed him . . . but it had been seven years. Grant Turner wasn’t the same boy struggling on the streets of The Clink. His name was known by millions, his life a true Cinderella story. The troubled boy from The Clink became the man whose name was synonymous with professional football. His life had gone from microscopic to all-encompassing. I’d assumed he’d buried what had happened between us in some unmarked grave and forgotten about it and me years ago. I’d come prepared to remind him of who I was and then bridge the reason why I was back, but I had not come prepared to take on a scorned lover. I’d come equipped to explain myself, not to defend myself, but from the look on his face just now, I’d have to do both. Following his lead, most of the people in the room got back to doing what they had been before I showed up, seeming as content to ignore me as he was. My arm curled around my stomach like it was trying to keep me from breaking in half. Too much. Too fast. What had I been thinking, coming back after all this time? After the way I’d left? After the way I’d hurt Aunt May and Grant with my abrupt disappearance? What I had to tell him would be difficult to tell a closest confidant—how was I supposed to explain it to someone who clearly couldn’t stand me being in the same room as him? How could I expect him to listen to what I had to say once I worked up the courage to voice it? I looked over my shoulder, eyeing the door I’d just come through with a bit too much longing. I couldn’t leave. I’d come to make peace, and I was going to do just that. No matter how much it cost me. That was when I felt an arm slide through one of mine, as someone started to lead me into the kitchen. “Welcome to The Pariah Club. Your membership card’s in the mail. Here’s a new member tip —if it feels like everyone in the room is silently judging you, it’s because they are.” The voice was familiar, and when I matched it with the equally familiar face, I nudged my fellow pariah in the side. “How much are the annual dues?” Cruz tapped his chin a few times as he steered us through the herd of people that had overflowed into the kitchen. “Just your dignity, self-respect, and faith in humanity.” I felt a smile surfacing. Cruz’s gift of making people smile had transferred into adulthood. “What a bargain.” After Cruz had steered us into a somewhat private spot in the kitchen, he crossed his arms and waited with an expectant look on his face. I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but that might have been because I was still reeling from being plunged so suddenly into my past. “So?” he prompted, rolling his hand a few times at me. “Are you going to explain what happened seven years ago, or are you just hoping I’ll be content to pick up right where we left off?” My forehead creased. “Kinda hoping we can just pick up where we left off.” Cruz looked like he was considering that for a minute, which gave me the opportunity to catch my breath. Confronting The Clink, Aunt May’s house, and Grant all within the same five-minute span made me feel like the room was spinning. Not to mention the eyes I kept feeling zeroing in on me— everyone’s thoughts were almost as loud as their words. At least with Cruz, I knew I was safe from the judgment. Safe because he’d been a lightning rod

for it, growing up as one of the few openly gay kids in The Clink. Being one of the only out-of-thecloset gay boys living in a neighborhood where testosterone and overt male bravado ruled the streets hadn’t been easy for him. He’d survived it though, his humor and ability to laugh at himself his saving grace. “Lucky for you, I’m one of those people who’s okay with forgiving and forgetting. Even when a good friend bails without so much as a good-bye or an occasional call to let her worried-sick friends know she’s okay.” Cruz’s brow carved higher into his forehead. “But I know someone who isn’t so into the forgive-and-forget philosophy.” My gaze followed Cruz’s into the living room, where it was impossible to miss Grant’s imposing frame. His back was still to me, almost like he was acutely aware of where I was and determined to keep his back pointed my way. My shoulders fell. Once upon a time, we’d been each other ’s everything, and now, I felt as though we had nothing left of what had been so grand and beautiful. “He was really angry with me, wasn’t he?” “Oh, cupcake, angry is for guys who wear polo shirts and walk miniature doggies. Angry is not for the likes of Grant Turner.” Cruz and I exchanged a look. The realm of average human emotion had never been quite appropriate for Grant Turner. From the time he’d moved to The Clink with his dad all of those years ago, I’d known that. There’d been an intensity about him, a spirit that wound deeper into his core than most. “So you’re saying he was really angry after I left?” Cruz smiled tightly, patting my arm a few times. “He was the human equivalent of Chernobyl. How about we leave it at that because that’s as fitting of a metaphor as I’m capable of right now?” My heart ached as I imagined the pain I’d caused him—for the one-millionth goddamn time. “That was forever ago. He’s moved past it, I’m sure.” “Sure, sure,” Cruz agreed, waving in Grant’s direction. “Just look how at moved on past it he is.” My eyes stung from watching how Grant seemed to prefer the company of everyone besides me. It felt like yesterday when the opposite had been true. I wouldn’t cry though, no matter how badly my eyes burned. I’d dried myself out years ago. “I never meant to hurt him,” I whispered. “I never meant to hurt any of you.” Cruz wound his arm through mine again. “I know that. Aunt May knew that. Hell, even Grant knew that.” Cruz paused, his face turning toward mine. “But that doesn’t mean you didn’t hurt us.” My body leaned into his, almost like I needed his support because I was unable to stay upright on my own. It was odd the way our roles had shifted. Back then, it had been Grant and me who Cruz leaned on for support, and now, I was leaning on him. “I’m sorry.” My words came out louder than I’d intended, drawing the attention of a few people close by. If Cruz noticed my louder-than-needed apology, he didn’t show it. “Apology accepted.” His arm wound around my back when my head dropped to his shoulder. “Do you think apologizing to Grant will be that easy?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. “Has anything been easy where Grant Turner and you are concerned?” I didn’t have to give that a moment’s consideration. “No. Nothing ever has been.” It never would be either.

THE STARS DIDN’T use to shine in The Clink, but tonight, a few were popping through the haze of the city lights to blink down at me in Aunt May’s backyard, stretched out on the grass she’d taken such care to foster. My first time feeling grass between my bare toes had been on this lawn. Living things, such as grass and flowers, hadn’t been a part of my world until Aunt May entered it because people who didn’t feel alive had no interest in keeping something else alive. Whether that be a house plant or a human being. My eyes fought the urge to skip back to the looming apartment complex hovering a few blocks over. The Towers Apartment Complex was where I’d been conceived, where I’d been brought home from the hospital, and where I was expected to die if statistics had anything to do with it. Thankfully, I’d given my middle finger to statistics. After excusing myself from Cruz for some fresh air, the first thing my eyes had been drawn to when I stepped onto Aunt May’s back porch was the giant concrete structure to the left. Almost as if something inside me was trained to find it, aware that some part of me still belonged there. God knew I’d left plenty of myself behind in those filthy rooms and dark halls. I knew she wasn’t there anymore—I’d gotten a message a year ago from a police officer who’d called to let me know my mother ’s body had been found deceased inside the same apartment she’d been dead inside of for years. Her body had finally followed her soul. That should have been a relief to those who’d known her and her tortured existence, but the news had come when I was struggling to come to terms with some news of my own. Instead of being happy my mother had finally found peace in death, I found myself wanting to curse her for it. I found myself battling feeling as though I’d been cheated and wronged. I found myself wanting to curse my mother ’s dead body instead of lay it to rest, so instead of returning that phone call from the police detective, I let it go unanswered. I’d let the city take care of my mother ’s body, excusing my actions as it being more concern than she’d ever shown me. Then I’d sealed the door on all my memories of that woman, and tried to cope with the news of my own loss. The news I was still struggling to cope with. Just as I was twisting around on the lawn so I wouldn’t be tempted to glance back at the Towers, I heard the back door whine open, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps moving across the porch. As well-loved as Aunt May’s house had been, it was old. Everything whined and creaked and moaned, from the doors to the floorboards to the windows, but I’d only ever known one person large enough to make the back porch sound as though it were about to collapse.

Instead of making the most of this golden opportunity to get him alone, I pressed my body harder into the grass, almost like I was trying to become one with it. Not once in the two hours since I’d arrived had Grant’s attention turned my way again, and as desperate as I was to clear the air with him, I was just as petrified. Not because I was scared of what he’d say or how loud or animated he’d get—because, hell, a person couldn’t be as close to Grant Turner as I had and be someone who scared off easily—but because I was terrified of how he’d respond. Not in words, but in action. Would he be receptive to what I had to tell him, or would he shut down the way he’d been shutting me out all night? Either way, I couldn’t find out until I approached him. As I worked to conjure up my courage, I heard the back door open again. It was almost immediately followed by a sigh. It was a familiar one, leading me to believe that whoever had just joined him on the back porch wasn’t exactly a welcome addition. “What’s a big, important guy like you doing back here all alone?” The woman’s voice was so cloying that it made my stomach turn. “I needed to be alone.” Grant’s voice spilled out into the dark yard, making the skin on my arms prickle. It had been years since I’d heard his voice, but it sounded exactly the way I remembered it. The tenor was different, but the voice remained unchanged. “Grant Turner never needs to be alone. You ought to know that by now.” The woman’s voice dropped a few notes, insinuation coating every word. She must have been wearing heels with the way her footsteps echoed across the porch as she moved. I withheld an eye roll and bit back the jealousy rising in my throat. Grant had never been short for applicants when it came to sharing his bed, even as a young teen. I was sure with the notoriety of his name and the dollar signs attached to it, that line of women had gone from impressive to staggering. “I wanted to be alone.” Grant’s tone took on a sharp edge. “And why in the world would you want to be alone when you could have any woman you want?” A few more heel strikes struck across the porch. “Even the one in front of you. Right here. Right now.” “Bridget . . .” There was a warning in his voice. “No.” Bridget Plummer. I remembered having to chase her away back then, when she’d come sniffing around Grant with her big tits, tight ass, and loose reputation. On the surface, I had nothing on Bridget Plummer. I had curves, if you counted the angles of my knees and elbows, and I had a makeup routine, if you considered chap-stick a “routine.” Not to mention, I wasn’t the girl who apparently gave such good head, her name and reputation spanned the entire state. Bridget Plummer was on one end of the female spectrum, and Ryan Hale had been on the opposite end. I guessed that still proved true, years later. “Why not?” Bridget asked. “You’ll never know what you’re missing out on unless you have a little taste.” My stomach roiled at the thought of Grant taking her up on her offer. There was no way I could just lay there, quiet and still, as he fucked her over the damn banister or wherever it was she had in mind. But how awkward would it be to pop up and excuse myself, the former flame of the guy whose hands were at his fly while some other woman crawled all over him? “My answer was no the first time you offered. My answer was no seven years ago when you offered again. My answer ’s no right now. How many more times are you going to ask before you figure out that I’m not interested in a relationship with you?” It was childish and immature, but I grinned up at the night sky. “Who said we need to be in some kind of committed relationship to fuck?” she said, laughing a

few soft notes. “Clearly, you don’t know anything about the man you’re propositioning.” Grant’s footsteps creaked across the porch again, but I couldn’t tell if he was moving away from her or toward her. It almost made me want to sit up to find out, but I stayed where I was. “Please, don’t ask me again, Bridget.” “This isn’t about her still, is it? The little bitch who left you without so much as a ‘so long’?” Grant’s footsteps stopped suddenly. “This has nothing to do with her. This has to do with you. And this is my answer. Again.” He paused just long enough to make the silence uncomfortable. “No.” A moment later, the back door screamed open, followed by the sound of Grant disappearing inside before slamming the door. Bridget hung out on the back porch for a good while after that, managing to polish off half a pack of smokes, before going back inside. It was getting colder, so I drifted inside a couple of minutes later, not sure what to think of the conversation I’d just overheard. I wondered why he’d turned her down, if it was because he had someone else in his life now, or if he truly wasn’t into the idea of boning Bridget Plummer. Even though I might have wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out a few times in my life, I could get why a guy would want to bone her. A lot. Especially no-commitment-required boning. After that, I had a full-circle moment of realizing how ridiculous I was being for giving this topic so much thought. Whoever Grant chose to be with didn’t concern me anymore. At least that was the story I was attempting to sell myself as I wove through the house. For some reason, it felt like the crowd had only grown since I’d shown up. Seeing how many people had turned out for Aunt May’s funeral was great, although the skeptic in me wondered how many were here because word had spread that the New York Storm’s Grant Turner was here. The music was still pumping through the house, and it looked like someone had called in a huge order of pizza because people were staggered around pizza boxes, drinks in hand, as the vibe of the party turned more joyful than mournful. I stopped in front of the fireplace, where a picture of Aunt May sitting on her front porch with her front door wide open had been set beside the urn containing her remains. As I examined her picture, I saw that she’d aged in the years after I left, but her eyes were still young and full of life. “I’m sorry I left the way I did,” I said to her picture, swallowing as I stared at the first friendly face I’d known in life. “But now you know why I did it. Why I had to leave. Now you know.” My hand molded around the base of the urn. “If you have any suggestions for how I can explain it to him, I’m all ears. You always had good advice for me, and I could really, really use some now.” My fingers brushed down the urn. “I hope you’re enjoying your funeral. I hope you know how much you meant to me. How much you gave to me.” My voice caught in my throat, so I had to clear it to get out the last bit. ‘This is all for you, Aunt May.” After waving at the packed room, where smiling faces shared memories of the special lady we were remembering tonight, I slipped down the hall in search of a quieter spot. Cruz was back in the kitchen, talking with some people I remembered from The Towers. He waved me over, but I shook my head and kept going. I needed to be alone. Again. Not even five minutes after being alone for an hour on the back lawn. This whole night had been more daunting than I’d guessed. And I hadn’t even confronted Grant yet. Thankfully people had stopped staring at me like I was leading the race for the top spot on their shit lists, but I could still feel the heaviness of accusation following me around the house. Pushing on the handle of the first door I reached down the hall, I slipped inside the room and had the door shut and locked a second later. Leaning into the door, I closed my eyes and attempted to regain my breath. I hated feeling weak. Especially here, where I’d never felt weaker, and the same place I’d learned to be strong.

Maybe this wasn’t the right place to do this. Maybe I just had to figure out another way to confront Grant. Maybe . . . When I opened my eyes, I let out a little yelp, surprised to find I wasn’t the only person who’d barricaded themselves in Aunt May’s bedroom. My yelp was cut short when I realized who it was in here with me. “Oh, god. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in here. I’ll leave.” My hand was fumbling for the handle when Grant’s head tipped back over his shoulder. Not enough to look at me, but enough that I could see the rigid angle of his jaw. “At least this time you’re letting me know you’re leaving.” His words hit me the way I guess he’d intended, making me feel both guilty and angry. Grant had been hot-headed, but he hadn’t been the only one. The few arguments we’d had during the span of our relationship had been talked about for weeks by those who overheard them. However, I’d done some growing up in the years since and learned that shouting was rarely the way to get a person to see your point of view. “Since I’m here and you’re here, this is as good a chance as any for you to say whatever it is you’ve been wanting to say to me. I’m not going anywhere, so just let me have it.” I held my arms out at my sides and shoved off the door, knowing Aunt May had had a hand in this. Next time I asked for her help, I’d better be prepared to accept whatever form of help she sent my way two seconds later. “You left. You made your choice. I don’t have anything to say to you.” He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his back to me, holding something. He was in a light dress shirt that stretched across his wide back. The stitches looked like they were about to give out from the way his body was tensed. “I’d like the chance to explain why I did what I did.” I fought the tug to move closer, the familiar ache of separation that was alleviated the moment some part of me was touching some part of him. “You don’t need to explain anything, Ryan. That was forever ago. I’ve moved on from it all.” When he shoved off of the bed, the mattress coils squeaked. Being locked inside a room with Grant made him that much more imposing. “But I’d like to—” “Ryan, please. Enough.” That was when he finally looked at me straight on. The intensity in his eyes made me step back. “You left me. Now please, just let it go. I’m good.” Moving toward the dresser, he set something down beside a collection of photos in an array of frames. Then he headed toward the door. “Please just do me a favor and forget about me again the way you’ve forgotten about me for the past seven years.” As he moved by me, his eyes slid to mine for a short moment before they flitted away. “I never forgot about you, Grant. Not once.” “Actions speak louder than words. That’s what Aunt May always said.” The moment the door opened, he moved out of the room. “And your actions were pretty damn deafening.”

AFTER GRANT LEFT, I didn’t know what to do. So I just stood there in the middle of Aunt May’s bedroom, staring at the sunny yellow walls like I was waiting for a message to suddenly appear. One never came. It was close to midnight by the time the sounds of the party dimmed to a near silence. As I turned to leave the bedroom, something caught my eye on the dresser—whatever it was that Grant had laid down earlier before storming out. Moving closer, I could tell it was another picture frame, now lying facedown. The photos on the dresser were as eclectic as the frames they were in. Everything from a photo of young May on her graduation day to photos of us Clink kids standing around her Christmas trees with stockings clutched in our little hands. When I flipped up the one Grant had been holding, I froze. It was a picture of the two of us, taken the night of his senior prom. May had stationed us on the front steps of her house to snap the photo, right after surprising me with a formal dress she’d managed to find at a consignment shop. It was the nicest piece of clothing I’d ever owned, and I remembered breaking down into tears when she gave it to me. I remembered everything about that night. From the look on Grant’s face when I’d come out of Aunt May’s room in that dress, to the way he’d held me to him as we danced, to the words he’d whispered into my ear. I remembered everything. Including the gossip I’d overheard inside the girls’ bathroom later that night as some seniors chatted about the only reason a guy like Grant Turner was with a girl like me—because I was a whore just like my mother. When I stepped out of that bathroom stall, giving them each a big smile as I slowly washed my hands, the looks on their faces were priceless. When I emerged from the bathroom a minute later, Grant was waiting for me with that same anxious look he had whenever I disappeared behind a door he couldn’t follow me through. Grant hadn’t liked me going into rooms he couldn’t get into ever since he found me that summer I was nine. He’d been thirteen at the time, and after that day, Grant Turner had been my hero. The real kind. His role in my life might have changed as he got older, but his status of hero never had. Shoving him up against the wall, I’d kissed him until neither one of us could breathe. I kissed him like I didn’t care what people thought anymore, because right then, I didn’t. When those senior girls stumbled out of the bathroom a few minutes later, they huffed like I was confirming their conclusions. The ironic thing about that night was that it was the first time Grant told me he loved me. It was the first time I said it back. If that made me a whore, then by god, I was good with being a whore.

My hand started trembling, so I set the picture back down before it fell and shattered. If Grant had moved on as much as he’d have me believe, why was he sitting in a room by himself, clutching an old picture of us? My thumb brushed the picture. I longed for the past at the same time I never wanted anything to do with it. There were happy memories, but there were more unhappy ones. The bad ones outnumbered the goods ones by a hundred to one. When I left the room, I kept the door open, just the way May had left all of the doors in her house. As I wandered through the rooms, I found them empty. Mostly. A few stragglers had fallen asleep on the couches, and a few more were still outside, chatting on the porch. For as many people as had been here earlier, the house was in a fairly tidy state. A few empty pizzas containers and empty bottles were scattered around the tables, but no one had gone full-on party all over the place. It was almost like they knew better, even though May wasn’t around to remind us all to clean up after ourselves. “Hey, you. I thought you’d disappeared on us all over again.” Cruz hip-checked me in the kitchen, his bowtie undone and his sleeves shoved up past his elbows. I shook my head as I started to collect a pile of pizza boxes to throw away. “Just needed a few minutes.” “Eh, try a few hours.” Cruz checked his flashy watch and tapped it. “You had me worried. Don’t disappear on us like that again, Ryan. For real. That would be a shit thing to do after coming back into our lives.” The boxes I’d been piling up tumbled out of my arms. Before I could crouch to pick them up, Cruz was already there, sliding them into a big black garbage bag. “I got this. I’m spending the night anyway, so get your beautiful butt out of here. But not before you give me your phone number and address and I have a chance to microchip you so that if you do disappear, I can track your ass down.” Cruz gave me a look as he continued to shuffle boxes into the bag. “Yes, Mom,” I replied, pitching a few bottles into the garbage can. “I’ll leave it all on the notepad on the fridge. But if you microchip me, it will be your ass you need to worry about.” Cruz’s chuckle echoed through the house as I scribbled down my information. I frowned when I examined what I’d written. My handwriting would barely pass third-grade penmanship. The shuffling of garbage came to a standstill. “Did you and Grant get to talk?” “Well, we saw each other, but I’m not sure what passed between us could be classified as talking.” My face pulled up as I relived the scene in the bedroom. “At least not constructive communication.” “He’s hurt. Give him time, mama. He’ll come around.” Cruz said it like it was so simple, so obvious. To me, there was nothing obvious about it. Was Grant still hurt? Or had he moved past it like he’d told me? Would he come around? After tonight’s ordeal, I didn’t think so. “Are you sure you don’t need any help? I can stay a while longer,” I said, checking the time on my phone. No missed calls or texts from one of my old friends who’d done me a serious favor tonight— no missed anything from anyone. I’d keep checking it every few minutes though, just in case. “I’m sure. Besides, Raoul’s getting off work soon and promised to stop by and help clean up, so I have to save something for him to make sure he means it.” Poking my head out of the kitchen, I lifted my brows at him. “New boy-toy?” Cruz grinned. He actually grinned. “New boyfriend.” “Serious?” I asked. “Most serious I’ve ever gotten.” “I never thought I’d see the day that Cruz Sandoval got serious,” I said, shaking my head. The last

I remembered of Cruz was him either getting into too many relationships or avoiding them altogether. “Hey, that’s what happens when you disappear for almost a decade. Things change. People change.” I stopped when I reached the front door. “Yes. They do change.” An image of the young Grant I remembered flashed to mind. He’d changed. But I guessed I’d changed even more. It was inevitable given my situation. “Want me to lock the door behind me?” Cruz peaked a brow at me as he carried a handful of bottles to the garbage can. “The last time this door was locked was when Aunt May bought the house back in eighty-eight. I’m not about to break that open-door streak, are you?” My fingers fell from the lock on the door handle. “Unlocked it is. Good night, Cruz. Thanks for letting the newest member of the Pariah Society hang with you.” Cruz winked. “Anytime, cupcake. Anytime.” After closing the door, I started for my car. Now that the adrenaline from the night had worn off, I felt exhausted. The kind that made taking one more step a feat of willpower and strength. The streets were still quiet, and most of the cars that had been lined up and down the street were gone. A few were still staggered here and there, but The Clink was quiet for once. With the handful of stars just barely showing through the city lights and the hum from the streetlights, it was almost peaceful. Almost. A place like this could never truly embody peace because too much tragedy had been birthed here. I could just make out my Toyota up ahead, but it took every last reserve of strength I had to make it that last half block. It didn’t help that I’d hardly slept the night before, too anxious from anticipating what would transpire tonight. Before I made it to the car, I could tell something was wrong. It was tilting—the side next to the curb was lower than the other. A sigh rumbled in my chest. How many cars with slashed tires had I passed in my years here? Too damn many. Add one more to that list. So much for that perceived armistice . . . but then again, it was after midnight, so it was officially a new day. On with things in The Clink as usual: gang wars, drug deals, vehicular theft, and tire slashing. I had a spare in the trunk, but I didn’t have two. Not that I could have changed a tire with the level of exhaustion I’d reached anyway. Just as I was pulling out my phone to find a local, hopefully affordable towing service, I noticed someone move out of the shadows. This wasn’t the time of night or the zip code a person wanted to experience someone creeping out of the shadows, but this shadow was a familiar one. A shape I’d never feared. A figure I knew I never could fear, no matter what the past contained or where the future went. “How many times have I reminded you not to take to these streets at night alone?” Grant’s frame loomed just beyond the streetlight’s reach, but I could see him as plain as if it were day. Growing up here, you learned how to see in the dark. It was the only way to survive. “Probably a thousand,” I answered, trying not to act thrown that Grant was standing ten feet in front of me when I thought he’d stormed away hours ago. “Make it a thousand and one then.” The faintest of smiles pulled at one side of his mouth. “Don’t walk alone at night here. Don’t go anywhere alone here. It’s not safe. Never has been and never will be.” The irony of me surviving seventeen years in The Clink hit me then. I’d survived hell only to struggle through the supposed free-land ever since. “It’s not safe for cars, at least.” I waved at my two flat tires. How much was that going to cost? “Probably just a couple of young kids trying to prove how tough they are.”

“In The Clink? No. I don’t remember anyone being like that.” I looked at Grant to find he was still doing that almost-smile of his. I could remember him really smiling only a few times. At least the kind of smile that other people did—the type that reached their eyes. A minute of silence passed between us. After what had been said in the bedroom and how he’d spent most of the night ignoring me, I had no idea what he was doing here now. Seemingly willingly. “What are you doing here, Grant?” I asked, not quite as eloquently as I’d been planning. I blamed that on the time of night and my waning energy. The skin between his eyebrows creased for one long moment before his expression cleared. Tilting away from me, he motioned at my car. “I called you a tow truck, but I wasn’t sure where to send it to get new tires. I wanted to make sure it was close to wherever you’re staying, but I wasn’t sure where that was.” He cleared his throat. “Or even if you were staying.” My chest tightened, hearing the boy I remembered in the man before me. “I’m staying over in the Pearl District. On Carson Street.” He nodded like he knew where that was, but I wasn’t sure if he did. When we lived here, we rarely left The Clink’s boundaries, then he’d gone to college in College Station to stay close to me, then onto big cities with big teams. “Thank you for calling a tow truck. You didn’t have to do that though.” I shifted, already owing Grant a debt I could never pay back if I spent the rest of my life trying. A debt that had grown. Again. “Yes, I did. I wouldn’t leave a stranger alone and abandoned on these streets at this hour. I sure as shit wouldn’t leave someone I used to love in the same condition.” As he said it, his tone changed. It took on that sharp, removed pitch I’d heard for the first time earlier tonight. The words “used to” hit me. Hard. Not because I hadn’t accepted years ago that Grant used to love me, but because it was the first time I’d heard him say it. The first time he’d confirmed it. It stung like a son of a bitch. “I’ll let the tow company know to drop it at an auto shop close by you.” Grant pulled a phone out of his pants pocket and started punching in a text. “Do you know how much it will be?” I tried to remember how much I had sitting in my checking account, guessing I’d need to transfer some from savings for the check to clear. When Grant’s head turned toward me, his brow lifted, I added, “Just so I can have the check ready when the truck gets here?” “It’s already taken care of.” “No, I can’t . . . you couldn’t . . .” Grant pocketed his phone and turned back to face me. “You can. And I did. So either say thank you or fuck you or whatever you like, but it’s done.” My head shook. “I can’t let you do that.” “Why? Because you broke my heart when we were kids?” He tipped his head at me. “It’s okay. I survived. Now, let’s get out of here before my tires are next.” He started down the sidewalk but stopped after a few steps to wait for me. “I was just going to call a cab.” Grant huffed. “Yeah. Good luck getting a cab to show up at this address at this time of night.” I chewed on my lip, realizing he was right. Cabs didn’t come here at night unless the driver was looking to score. It had been so long, I’d forgotten the rhythm of the land, the unwritten rules. “I could ask Cruz.” My thumb went over my shoulder as I wondered what the hell I was doing trying to get out of this. I needed to talk to Grant, and the ride home would be the perfect time to do just that. “Ryan, damn, can we not do this? I’m here. I’m not leaving you alone here, so would you just let me drive you home without having to go ten rounds? I’m beat and would like to crawl into bed

sometime tonight.” Taking another minute, I came up beside him. “Okay.” “Thank god,” he muttered, giving me a light nudge as we started down the sidewalk. It was the closest we’d been all night, and being close felt surprisingly easier than keeping our distance. That was probably because that was all we knew. The closer we’d kept to each other, the safer we stayed. The closer we stayed, the lesser the likelihood of us getting ripped apart. “Thank you, Grant. For all of this. I know I’m the last person you have reason to be charitable to.” As we passed a burnt-out streetlight, Grant slid closer. Just close enough to have me within arm’s reach, though not as close as he used to. “Not the last.” His head shook once as he looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Maybe the second to last though.” When I noticed him fight a smile, I gave him a shove. It was like trying to move a concrete barricade. That hadn’t changed. “When did you develop a sense of humor?” His shoulders lifted as he checked over his shoulder. He was the size of a tractor—no one was going to mess with him. People had stopped messing with him when he packed on twenty pounds of muscle the summer he turned fifteen. “When I realized life was too damn tragic not to laugh at it from time to time.” A wave of sadness hit me, but I was used to them. I’d gotten lots of practice pushing them aside. There was only one car on the street in front of us. It was a familiar one, though only faintly. It had been a shell the last time I saw it, but that wasn’t the case anymore. “You finished it.” “Someone had to.” Grant pulled a key out of his pocket and punched a button that turned off the security system. “It’s beautiful, Grant. Wow.” My pace picked up as we approached the old truck. “I never would have guessed that hunk of junk could become this.” “Yeah, me either.” He unlocked the doors and swung the passenger one open. “It’s amazing what hard work and stubborn-ass determination can do.” “It saved this piecer from getting scraped.” I admired the outside of the truck, running my hand against the gleaming black paint. “Barely.” “Barely?” I glanced back at Grant, who was staring at the truck like he was seeing something else. “After my dad died, I arranged to get rid of everything of his. From his boots to his truck. I didn’t want any of it.” Grant shrugged. “Then I realized this truck was the one good memory I had of my old man. The one time he’d tried to do something constructive with me. The one time he’d been interested in bonding with his son instead of alienating him.” My teeth sank into my lower lip. “You chose to hang on to the good.” He considered that for a moment before nodding. “I guess I did.” After he closed the door behind me, I wondered if he’d adopted that policy in other areas of his life. If he had, it would make everything easier. “You don’t drive this back and forth to New York, do you?” I asked. “I store it here so I have something to get around in whenever I come back.” As he slid into driver ’s seat, he glanced at where I sat on the other end of the bench. “Buckle up.” I pulled the belt over me and buckled it into place. “Still trying to keep me safe.” I’d said it teasingly, but it was clear from his expression that my safety wasn’t anything he took lightly. “Old habits.” “Die hard?” I filled in as he fired on the engine. His hands curled around the steering wheel. “Die never.” As Grant pulled away from the curb and set us on the road that would take us out of The Clink, I

settled into the seat and took a moment to admire him while his attention was focused on the road. He looked the same. Older, but the same. Same short brown hair, same dark eyes that could say everything or give away nothing depending on the situation. Even the way he sat stretched out behind the steering wheel was the same. Grant had always been big for his age, never quite fitting into anything, so whenever he was somewhere with space, he stretched out as wide as he could, like he was trying to make up for all of the times his knees had been crammed into the seat in front of him. He’d gotten bigger since I’d seen him last, but I supposed that was a side effect of playing in the pros. He had a body made for work and power, a body a woman couldn’t help admiring and considering the possibilities that came with it. Grant’s body had been the talk of the female population wherever he roamed, but it was his face I’d grown to appreciate more. The face that was an afterthought to others was the highlight to me. His face would never walk runways or drop mouths—his nose had been broken too many times, his jaw was too square, his eyes too wide-set. He was more boy-next-door than male model. But when I looked at Grant’s face, I saw beauty and happiness and safety. Looking at him had always felt like home, and this time was no different. Grant had been my safe place in a world of darkness. As outlandish as it was, he still felt like one of those safe places. He caught me staring at him, so I angled forward in my seat and focused out the window. “Did you hear about my mom?” His head bobbed. “Yeah, I was at her funeral.” My brows pulled together. “She didn’t have a funeral.” There hadn’t been money for one, not to mention a lack of people who’d actually show up to mourn her passing. “Actually, there was.” Grant shifted in his seat. “It was just a small one. Nothing big.” I exhaled sharply. A year later, and I still couldn’t think about my mom without getting pissed. So much for letting the dead rest in peace. “Who paid for that?” When he took a moment to speak, I knew the answer before he said it. “I did.” One of his shoulders lifted. “We would have invited you, if anyone knew where you were. Which nobody did.” There was enough accusation in his voice to be detected. Not too much, but just enough. “I can’t believe you actually spent money to give that woman a funeral.” My pulse picked up, my stomach twisting just thinking about the woman who’d birthed me. “You despised her even more than I did, and I was the one she gave a boy’s name to since she didn’t figure out I was a girl until I was a month old. I was the one she made sleep on the floor on top of newspapers for a week after I wet the bed because I’d heard her getting the shit beat out of her by a drug dealer she was in the hole with. I was the one she slapped instead of hugged, the one she forgot about for days when she was on a serious bender, the one she kicked out when she caught me making out with you and accused me of being a whore . . . by a woman who exchanged sex for drugs.” The floodgates had opened, and I couldn’t seem to stop my words now that they’d started. Beside me, Grant didn’t say a thing. He didn’t even flinch as I grew louder. “The same woman who invited the kind of men into the house who should not have been let close to a little girl. The kind of men like the one you saved me—” “Ryan, enough,” Grant suddenly interjected. “I know.” I took a few breaths to cool the fire burning in my veins. “Then why did you go out of your way to do that for her?” His grip tightened on the steering wheel, his massive hands looking almost capable of ripping it right off. “I didn’t do it for her,” he said around a heavy exhale. “I did it for you. Because I thought that’s what you would have wanted.” He gave me a sideways look, then looked back at the road. “I did it because as messed up as your mom was, she brought you into the world. And that was enough of a

reason to go a little out of my way to make sure she left this world with some dignity.” His confession left me speechless. One part of me wanted to snort over the idea of dignity applying to my mom. Another part of me wanted to melt into a puddle. He’d done it for me. Because she was my mom, the person who’d brought me into the world. Forget how she had, who she had with, or what had come after. For Grant, the fact that she was my mother was enough for him to want to pay her the respect I wasn’t sure she deserved. Not after what she’d done. Not after what had almost happened because of her. Not now, with the knowledge that would forever impact my life . . . and others. My stomach twisted as my mind started to get lost in that maze. I couldn’t think about this. It never led to anything constructive. I needed to change the subject before everything I needed to tell Grant came out wrong and I ruined any chance of getting him to understand. “So, football . . .” I started. “I’ve heard of it,” he teased. “You made it.” “You sound surprised.” Grant looked at me while we were stopped at a red light. “Not surprised. I always knew you’d make it big one day.” A single chuckle came from him. “You and no one else.” I wanted to tell him me and everyone else, but I didn’t want to get into another pointless argument. Not when we were getting closer to the Pearl District and I’d still gotten nowhere telling him what I needed to. “Do you love it?” “Yes,” he answered right away, then tipped his head. “And no.” My forehead folded. There were few things Grant had ever loved, and football had been one of them. “Why no?” He was quiet. Then he cleared his throat. “What about you? What do you do to pay the bills?” I wanted to laugh. What the rest of the world did to pay their bills was very different from what Grant Turner did to pay his. He could probably pay his monthly bills with the change rolling around in his truck. “Well, after finishing my GED, I went to dental hygienist school.” I continued to stare out the window, mindlessly playing with a loose thread on my sweater sleeve. Talking with Grant about the person I was today was so surreal. We’d gone from wild teens to responsible adults seemingly overnight, and this adult conversation was hard to wrap my head around. “Nice job. But I never would have guessed you’d want to become a dental hygienist. Not in a hundred years.” “What did you think I would have become?” He didn’t hesitate. “An actress.” An actress. God, I’d almost forgotten about that dream, that’s how distant it felt. It seemed like the dream of a girl from another lifetime. “I was on my own. I had to take care of myself and be responsible. I couldn’t take a chance on making it as an actress when I had rent to pay and groceries to buy. Someone at a career fair told me about the demand for dental hygienists, the salary and benefits, and that I wouldn’t have to be in school forever. That was all I needed to know for it to become my new dream career.” Grant rolled down his window an inch, just enough to let a little cool air into the cab. Grant had always driven with the window down or cracked, just like he’d always left his bedroom window, even in the dead of winter. Back then it had been to air out the scent of filth or cigarette smoke, but the inside of his cab smelled perfectly nice now. Like conditioned leather and the same soap I remembered him using. Another one of those old habits dying never, I guessed. “Do you like it?” he asked.

“Yeah, I did,” I said, clasping my hands together, knowing this was as good a segue as any. His head turned my way for a moment. “You’re not a hygienist anymore?” I answered with a shake of my head. “Why not?” he asked simply, though the answer was anything but simple. Why not? There were a hundred different ways to bridge the topic, but all I could think of was one —the blunt truth. I’d hoped to ease him into it instead of just laying it out there. Grant had dealt with plenty of harsh truths in his life, and so had I. That was the reason I wanted to finesse this one. So it was easier to accept when I spelled it all out. He’d just turned down Turner Avenue, and the motel wasn’t far. I didn’t have the time or presence of mind to do this the right way tonight. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” My abrupt question seemed to surprise him. Or at least unsettle him. His carefully composed expression fell just long enough for me to notice he’d been expecting any other question than that one. “Not much. My flight doesn’t leave for New York until the next morning.” Thank god. Knowing how crazy his schedule had to be, I’d been worried he’d leave tomorrow. “Could we get together? You know, to catch up?” “Ryan . . .” His hands slid down the steering wheel. “As friends,” I clarified immediately, guessing his hesitation was stemming from the fact that he’d been burned once by me and wasn’t eager for a repeat. “As friends and nothing more.” He let that settle in the air for a minute as he pulled into the parking lot of the motel I pointed at. After he pulled into a spot, he inspected the motel the way he had the dark streets back in The Clink— like he was gauging their level of safety. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t his responsibility anymore. I wanted to tell him that I’d been keeping myself safe for years and he could let go of the fear of something happening to me. “This is where you’re staying?” His gaze drifted to the front desk, where a middle-aged man was scratching his head and watching something on a small television. “For now.” “This isn’t a very good part of town.” He looked over his shoulder out the back window, scanning the streets. I scanned the same streets with him, lifting a brow. I clearly wasn’t seeing what he was when he looked around. “I spent seventeen years in one of the worst neighborhoods in the country. This is paradise.” His eyes darted along the two floors of rooms, probably checking for burnt-out lights and figures lurking in the shadows. “Are you staying alone?” Instead of going with the truth or a lie, I answered in a different way. “Grant, I’m fine.” When my hand dropped to the handle, he twisted in his seat toward me. “What time were you thinking tomorrow night?” A wash of relief flooded me. He wasn’t shutting me out. At least not yet. “Seven? If that works for you?” Grant didn’t take a second to check his calendar or to think about it. “That works for me. I’ll pick you up here since I’m not sure if your car will be done by then.” My car. I’d almost forgotten about it. “That would be great, thanks.” When I swung the door open, Grant went to open his. “Let me walk you to your room.” “No,” I replied immediately. When I noticed the surprised look on his face, I gave him a little smile. “I’ve been taking care of myself for seven years now, and I’ve done a pretty good job of it. Besides, it’s not your job anymore. You’ve already done more than enough tonight.”

His jaw went rigid, but he nodded. “Fine. But wave from the door once you get inside.” Pulling the motel key from my purse, I nodded. “I can manage that.” I stood outside the truck door, not moving. I needed to say good-bye, but I couldn’t get the word out. I hated good-bye and the whole meaning behind it. It didn’t matter if it was the temporary kind or the permanent kind, because really, we didn’t have any control over it. Life made that decision for us. “I’m sorry.” The words that spilled past my lips bubbled up from deep inside me. “I’m so sorry for what I did. For how I hurt you.” I couldn’t look at him as I said everything—it was hard enough getting it out without choking on each word. “You were the one person in the world I never wanted to hurt, and I was the one who hurt you more than any one person ever deserves. I’m so sorry.” While I couldn’t do more than glance at him, I was all he seemed capable of looking at. Leaning across the seat, he waited for me to meet his stare. He kept waiting. The moment my eyes finally met his, he said, “That was another lifetime, Ryan. Another fucking life. We’ve both moved on, and that’s behind us now. Let’s leave it there, okay?” I nodded, but my heart knew the truth. It wasn’t behind us. It wasn’t a different life. The only way to move forward was to delve back into the past.

THE NEXT MORNING, I was up with the sun, as was typical. I was exhausted most of the day, but as soon as I crawled into bed, I couldn’t sleep. Sipping my watered down motel room coffee, I scanned through a list of rental houses in the area. I wasn’t sure I wanted to settle down here, but I couldn’t stay in a motel indefinitely either. Now that Aunt May was gone, I didn’t have anyone else who felt like family. Grant was the next closest person, which was sad. The next closest person in my life was someone I hadn’t spoken to in seven years. So I figured this was as good a place as any to find a little house to rent and settle into. At least I knew some people who lived in the area, had the inside knowledge on the best takeout, and was confident the cost of living was within my budget. At least for the moment. Where Grant was, up in the heart of New York City, I didn’t even want to know what a little house would cost to rent. I probably couldn’t even afford a coat closet there. As I scanned the rental listings, I bookmarked a few to check out, then I wandered to the front door to soak up a little bit of sunshine in my bathrobe before the rest of the world woke up. The perks of becoming an insomniac included being awake to witness the sunrise. Before the past year, I’d maybe watched a handful of sunrises, but now, I’d watched ninety-three. Ninety-four, counting the one I was about to witness. The motel was a fairly quiet one, but it was clean and had nice big rooms, complete with a full kitchen. Plus, it was affordable, which was something I had to consider every time I pulled my wallet out, even if it was only to buy ice cream. I’d saved up a fair amount, but now that I wasn’t working, that number would only shrink. I needed it to last as long as possible. As I started unlocking the two chain locks before undoing the deadbolt, I smiled, thinking about how Grant would have at least approved of the locks on the motel’s doors. He’d looked so concerned last night when he dropped me off—like this place wasn’t fit to sit out a life sentence in. Grant had always taken over protection to an extreme, but he had legitimate reasons for it. With the stuff we’d seen on a daily basis—with the stuff we’d both gone through—there was no practical way to stay safe unless a person was overprotective. It didn’t help that Grant’s and my first meeting had occurred when a troubled, pissed-off-at-the-world teenage boy was saving a terrified nine-yearold girl from the scum of the earth. The same scum her mother had invited into their apartment, only to pass out from the drugs said scum had shot into her veins. No doubt his whole plan was to get me alone. Grant’s overprotective streak had been birthed from a place of necessity, but I’d gone so long

without it that last night felt especially intense. I’d doubted he’d changed any, but I had. I’d figured out that all of that protection was only an illusion, because it couldn’t save us from what we were all ultimately running from. As soon as I swung the door open, I stepped outside into the chill of the morning air. Closing my eyes, I tipped my face toward the sun, ready to let it warm me, when I suddenly got the impression I wasn’t alone. Not even a little bit. I heard the explosion of noise come to life a second before my eyes popped open. It only dialed up a few decibels, as people holding cameras and microphones came charging across the parking lot toward where I was hovering outside of my motel room. In my bathrobe. Hair a cyclone on top of my head. Drool probably still dried on the side of my mouth. The surprise of it all froze me in place for a minute, but then I heard a name being shouted by one of the people now waving their microphones and cameras in my face. His name. Shit. Of course. Why else would a million reporters be hanging outside of the Starlight Motel at six o’clock on a Tuesday morning? Someone must have recognized him or his truck last night and tipped off the press. Damn. I hadn’t even considered all that came with Grant being who he was today. I mean, yeah, I knew he was an icon, but I hadn’t really considered the spillover into other facets of his life. Like the nation’s media camping out outside the motel room of the woman he’d been caught dropping off the night before. With a dozen questions a second firing at me, I was finally able to move. Flying back into the room, I slammed the door closed, relocked every last dead bolt and chain, and raced to where my phone was sitting on the table. My heart was hammering as I punched in a number. It wasn’t one I’d programmed into my phone. It wasn’t one I’d called in years. It wasn’t one I was sure was even still in operation. It was a number from my past, one I thought I’d long ago forgotten until the numbers came rushing back. There was a click on the other end. Just when I was expecting an automated message about this number no longer being in service, his voice greeted me instead. “Hello?” He didn’t sound like he’d been asleep. “Grant?” I exhaled with relief. “It’s—” “What’s the matter, Ryan?” In the background, I heard some noise like he was moving around quickly. “I don’t know.” Too much adrenaline was coursing through me, my heart still throbbing. “There’re people, lots of them, outside.” I could only speak in broken thoughts and sentences. “What people?” The background noise came to a sudden quiet. My mind searched for the word. The very word that was on the top of my mind, but I couldn’t pull from the hard drive. Moments like this drove me crazy. They made me feel like I’d already lost my mind, and that only made finally latching onto the word that much more difficult. “Ryan?” Grant’s voice was sharp, worry making it so. “The press.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I knew I’d arrived at them. “They’re here. Dozens of them. Asking me a bunch of questions about you.” There was a minute of silence, the only noise the sound of my heart echoing in my eardrums. Then it sounded like he’d lowered the phone before popping off a few colorful words. “I’ll be right there.” His voice was surprisingly collected. “Just stay where you are. I’ll come around back and call you when I’m outside.” “Wait . . . no. Grant?”

But I was too late. The phone had already gone dead. When his text came saying he was waiting out back, the clock on the wall suggested that fifteen minutes had gone by, but it felt like I’d just exhaled and Grant was here. I could still hear the buzz of the media out front, and I could just make out the faint rumble of his truck out back. When I’d checked into the motel two days ago, I’d been apprehensive about having two ways to get in and out, but in this instance, it felt like more of a blessing. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t leave. Cinching the tie of my robe tighter, I moved toward the back door quietly. I unlocked the door and opened it to find Grant’s truck about as close to the building as it could get without damaging it, the passenger door already thrown open. “What are you doing in a bathrobe?” Grant looked fresh from a shower and was in an old pair of jeans and an inside-out T-shirt. He didn’t have any shoes on. He’d obviously left his hotel in a hurry. “Never mind. Just jump in and let’s get out of here.” When I stayed where I was, silent and still, his brows pulled together. “Ryan, come on.” My body gave a sudden tremble, which Grant must have interpreted as me being too nervous or scared to move because he started to slide down the bench to come help me. “I can’t leave,” I whispered. “It’s fine. We can get you some clothes later, but we need to get out of here before they figure out we’re back here.” Grant kept sliding out of his truck. “I’m not leaving, Grant.” My voice wasn’t a whisper this time. “I can’t.” He stopped moving, his brows drawing together. “Why not?” My lungs filled. “Because I can’t.” When I looked into the motel room then back at the truck, Grant’s expression went blank. One moment later it cleared, his brows drawing together. “I am one dumb fucker, aren’t I?” He huffed as his head shook. “You’ve got someone in there with you, don’t you?” He only waited a moment. “Don’t you?” My silence must have confirmed it for him. Or maybe it was my expression. “Grant—” “Don’t, Ryan. Just fucking don’t.” He scooted back behind the steering wheel, glaring out the window. “You called, and I showed up two minutes later like the idiot I am.” My mind was struggling to find the right thing to say to him, the right way to explain everything, but nothing would come. “Good-bye, Ryan,” was all he said, refusing to look my way before gunning his truck down the back alley, passenger door still wide open. I couldn’t say it back. I wouldn’t. Not yet.

“THANKS FOR COMING over.” Cruz smiled at me as I carried a couple of cups of tea into the living room. “I was planning on being here either way, so no problem.” “After this morning, all of those people and cameras and questions, and then Grant . . .” I handed him his cup before settling onto the couch beside him with mine. “I guess I just needed someone to talk to.” “I’m a great someone to talk to.” He winked at me and took a sip. It was just after nine. Cruz had already been here for a couple of hours, just hanging out, playing card games and telling jokes and drinking cheap motel coffee like this was all he wanted to do on his Tuesday night. Cruz was one of the few people in the world I trusted, which was why I’d invited him here tonight. The television was tuned to a local news channel, but I’d turned down the volume a while ago when I felt confident they’d moved on past the image of the young woman standing outside of her motel room in a bathrobe the morning after Grant Turner had dropped her off. Cruz rose from the couch to peek through the curtains. “It’s weird how they were all just here, and then they were all just gone.” “I’ll take weird if it means them leaving and staying away.” I drew my legs beneath me and leaned my head into my hand to get comfortable. I’d survived the day by staying sequestered in the motel room, which was no small thing. “Think they lost interest?” My eyes drifted toward the television. “Or they found some other woman Grant was dropping off at another hotel.” “He should have at least called or texted to let you know he wasn’t coming tonight. You guys had plans to go out.” Cruz turned from the window and leaned into the wall. He’d shown up to hang out in a vest and wool slacks, like GQ could come knocking any moment. “He was pretty clear earlier this morning with his good-bye. It was one of those final, you’redead-to-me kind of farewells.” “Still—” “I’m the one who hurt him, Cruz. It was me, not him. He had every right to drive away the way he did this morning, after what I did to him then and what he assumed this morning. It’s fine.” “No, it’s not fine.” He crossed his arms. “You two need to talk. How’s that going to happen if he doesn’t show up when he says he’s going to?”

My eyes cast down as I remembered the way he’d looked this morning. “He did show up. I didn’t have to ask or anything. He just got in the car and got here. He did show up.” Cruz waved at where I was spread out on the couch, wearing jeans and a sweater, when I was supposed to be out with Grant, explaining seven years of my life. “And then he left because, go figure, you two seem destined to spend the rest of your lives victim to some serious miscommunications.” “It’s fine.” “No, it’s not fine. You two need to talk. Need to.” Cruz looked me in the eye, not blinking. “I know. We will. You know Grant. He needs a few days to cool off, then we’ll talk.” His head fell back against the wall, and he shook it. “He’s flying back to New York tomorrow morning. You know, that big city where he lives and plays football for one of the best teams in the country? Oh, yeah, and then there’s the fact that he’s one of the best players in the country and barely has enough free time to scratch his balls during the season. So how do you expect him to have time to fly back down here to have a chat with you that you two should be having right this very moment?” Cruz had to catch his breath at the end of that, but he never stopped staring me dead in the eye. “I’ll figure something out.” “You better. Or else I’ll tell him. Because Grant is a good person, Ryan. He deserves to know. And you need to tell him. Soon.” I sighed, knowing he was right. “Speaking of . . .” Cruz lifted his chin at the television before wandering over and dialing up the volume. I heard his voice before I saw his face. Grant was on the television, giving an interview to a roomful of reporters. A caption at the bottom of the screen said it had been recorded earlier and that it was an impromptu interview he’d surprised the local press with. He’d changed from his inside-out shirt into a long-sleeve Henley and had on a New York Storm hat. The press asked various questions about his season and how he was feeling coming off a torn ACL from last season, but not a single question circled around the woman he’d dropped off at The Starlight Motel the night before. Not one. Which was not a coincidence, since I recognized a good handful of those reporters from earlier this morning, waving their damn mics in my face. “Well, I guess that explains what the mass exodus was about.” Cruz crashed onto the couch beside me and nudged me. “I guess it does.” A reporter had just asked him how it felt to be the best tight end in the pros today when someone pounded on the front door. Cruz’s head whipped in my direction. “Are you expecting anyone?” I checked the time as I shoved off of the couch. “No.” I moved toward the door and checked the peephole. My breath left me in a rush when I saw who was waiting outside. “Or maybe . . . I am.” “Who is it?” Instead of answering, I unbolted the door and opened it. “Speaking of . . .” Cruz made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Hi,” I said, feeling shell-shocked that Grant was standing in front of me when I’d just been watching him on television. “You want to come in? Cruz and I were just having some tea, if you want some too?” Cruz whipped his head at me and waved outside the door, like he was “subtly” trying to suggest we leave. Grant was still staring at the ground, his forehead creased. “I’m sorry I left the way I did earlier. I’m sorry I said the things I did.” Grant stuffed his hands in his front jeans pockets and lifted his

shoulders. “Everything just happened so fast, you know? You calling all panicked, me getting here and finding you in your bathrobe, figuring out what was going on . . .” His jaw locked up for a moment before he popped it loose. “You have every right to have a life. It’s been seven years, and I’d be a fool to think you don’t. I guess that realization just finally got around to hitting me this morning.” Grant’s head lifted just enough, and his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry.” My head shook. “It’s okay. I should have stopped to think before calling you this morning. But I didn’t, and that’s life, so let’s just forget about the should-haves and move on.” Grant seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “Okay.” He gave another nod as his eyes scanned the room behind me, almost like he was checking for someone else. “Did you still want to talk? I know it’s later than we planned on, but I’ve got eight hours before I need to be at the airport.” From out of nowhere, Cruz appeared with my purse, a jacket, and dropped a pair of shoes at my feet. A true master of subtlety. “But don’t you need to sleep sometime between now and then?” Grant’s shoulder lifted. “That’s what the airplane’s for.” As I slipped into my flats, I glanced at Cruz, who was back on the couch. “Do you mind?” Cruz lifted his teacup and pointed it at the television. “I’ve got a terrible cup of hotel tea and six static-y channels to surf. Of course I don’t mind.” Grant chuckled and stepped aside as I started to walk through the door. “If you get bored, you can play with my makeup.” Cruz stabbed his index finger in the air. “Don’t tempt a diva, honey.” Even after my laugh had come to an end, I hovered by the doorjamb, biting my lip. “I’ve got it, Ryan.” Cruz sighed, waving at us. “Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.” Thanking him with a smile, Grant and Cruz exchanged a good night before I closed the door and locked it. I waited outside the door until I heard Cruz get up and lock the chain locks too. Now that it was just Grant and me, I had no idea what to say. What to do. Or where to go. This gettogether had been all my idea, and I hadn’t planned a single part of it. Not to mention that after what had happened this morning, I’d been under the impression our meeting wouldn’t happen. “Do you mind if we stop by Mickey’s?” Grant stayed beside me as we made our way to his truck parked in the lot. “It’s a tradition of mine to stop there every time I’m in town and pack as much grease as I can into my arteries, and I haven’t had a chance this trip yet.” My relief was palpable. At least now we had a destination. “I feel like by saying yes, I’m signing off on your request to give yourself a heart attack.” “But . . .” Grant nudged me gently as he came around the truck to open my door. “But I haven’t had a Mickey Burger in seven years. I don’t care what health experts say, that just isn’t healthy.” A soft laugh rumbled in his chest. “We’re all going to die someday. Might as well live it up in the meantime.” My smile felt more forced than real. Hopefully it didn’t look that way. “Might as well.” After pulling out of the motel, the drive to Mickey’s only took a few minutes. Growing up, Grant and I had made a handful of trips to the greasy burger-and-fry icon that had been around since the 20s. Aunt May had been the first to introduce us to Mickey’s, bringing us on our birthdays to celebrate. It had felt like such a special thing back then—getting to order food from a menu and tell the person behind the counter what you did or didn’t want on your burger. It was the first time I’d ever had a milkshake, and I blamed Mickey’s for my adult addiction to all things of a blended-ice-cream-andmilk variety.

“I saw the interview you gave earlier,” I said as Grant tucked his truck into a parking spot. He jacked his brows a few times. “How did I look?” “Like you were trying to save the day without looking like you were trying to.” I rolled to a stop as we headed toward the restaurant. I knew why he’d given that “surprise” interview to the local media, and I wanted him to know I knew. “Thank you for doing that.” His arm jutted out in front of me as a car started to back out of a spot. “Since it was my fault they were there harassing you, I figured it was my job to take care of it.” Grant didn’t drop his arm until the car was rolling forward. “How do you think they saw us? It was late. You were only there a minute. And The Starlight Hotel doesn’t strike me as the kind of place the media makes a habit of canvasing for pro football players hanging out at while they’re in town.” Grant led us onto the sidewalk, a smile starting to form when the first whiff of grease and heart disease hit us. “Who knows? The press is everywhere—that’s the motto I’ve adopted. When you least expect them. Where you don’t expect them. They’re everywhere.” Hearing him talk about it made me think about what it would be like to be followed everywhere you went. I was living about as far from New York City as a person could get, and even I could barely turn on the evening news and not hear something about the Invincible Man, the name he’d earned growing up on the tough streets of The Clink and the name he’d carried into pro football. No one could take him down. Nothing could take the knees out from under the invincible Grant Turner. “If you knew the media would chase you the way they do, would you have still gone into the pros?” He nodded. “Absolutely. I love football. It’s a part of me. The media part of that world sucks ass, but you have to take the bad with the good. Nothing comes for free, and playing the media game is the price I have to pay to play the game I love.” I considered that as we roamed around the front of the building. Mickey’s was busy any day, night, or time, and this no exception. The parking lot was packed, and so were most of the booths and stools inside. Already, heads were starting to turn inside the diner, recognition lighting up faces. It wasn’t exactly like Grant Turner blended in with the general population. “Seems like a steep price to pay,” I said, remembering how overwhelming the media storm I’d woken to today had been. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that every single day, every single place I went. “It is,” he said matter-of-factly. My eyebrows pulled together. “Then why do you do it?” “Because I love football.” “Yeah, but you hate the media chasing you.” Grant tipped his head at me like I wasn’t getting it. Maybe I wasn’t, but I couldn’t imagine putting up with something so awful because I loved doing something. “But I love football even more.” Saying nothing more, he swung the glass door open for me and motioned me inside. I’d passed through the doors to Mickey’s dozens of times, but never had it felt like this. Like every eye in the place was at on me. Or at what was right behind me. It was usually really noisy inside, conversations and laughter filling the place, but now all I could hear was the jukebox playing an old Beach Boys song and the spit of burgers sizzling on the grill in back. Kids were gaping at Grant as if Superman had just flown his spandexed ass out of the sky, women were admiring him in a way I was all too familiar with, and everyone else had been struck with a serious case of hero-worship. Even back when we’d been teenagers, Grant’s name held a certain degree of awe in the area. He was setting records in high school football as a freshman, and even then, I think most of us knew we were watching a great in the making.

But now, the prodigal hometown hero had returned, and all at once, it felt like every last diner in Mickey’s was reaching for their camera phones and digging around in purses for a stray pen. “Shit. Should have gone with the drive-thru,” Grant whispered to me, putting on a smile for the crowd. “Too late for that now, Invincible Man.” He gave me an unamused look when I glanced back at him. “Well? What are you going to do now?” I asked as bodies started rising out of chairs. Giving me a look that suggested I was clueless, he tipped his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, everyone! I’ve got a box of signed jerseys in the bed of my truck!” Grant pointed out the window where his truck was gleaming in the parking lot. “Help yourselves!” In twenty-four years of life, I’d never seen a herd of people move so quickly. Never even close. In less than a minute, the restaurant had cleared out, even most of the employees, and people were tearing through a couple of boxes in the truck bed. Turning around, I was met with a victorious-looking Grant. “You keep a pile of signed jerseys on you all the time?” “Only when I want to step out in public.” He shrugged, moving for a couple of empty stools at the end of the counter. “I don’t travel anywhere without a few signed somethings on me. Or, in this case, a bunch of signed somethings.” I kept staring out the window at the mass of people around his truck. Surprisingly, they were all working together, instead of every man for himself. “Because you don’t want to get mobbed by your adoring fans?” I guessed. “Because I’m thankful for my adoring fans,” he said, settling onto a stool. It made me smile, seeing him propped up on that tiny thing. He’d been too big for them when he was fifteen, but now he looked like a lion trying to balance on top of a Barbie chair. “Do you need a menu?” He pointed at a stack of menus down the counter. “Do I ever?” Smiling, he motioned at the waitress who had just stopped in front of us. “Then take it away.” “Your usual?” I asked him. He nodded. “Always.” After I rattled off our order to the waitress, she turned to Grant as she stabbed her pencil behind her ear. “Nice to see you come in here with somebody beside you for once.” After patting his hand resting on the counter, the waitress disappeared into the kitchen. I didn’t recognize the waitress as one of the regulars that had been here before I left, but she obviously knew Grant. I turned in my stool to face him. “How many artery-packing trips have you been making here, Grant Turner?” He’d made it sound like he came every once in a while, but maybe he was more of a regular than I’d guessed. “I make it a point to make a stop at Mickey’s every time I’m in town. Sometimes two stops per trip.” His gaze wandered around the diner like that should have been obvious. “How often are you in town?” “In the off-season, I’m here a lot more, but I try to make it back once a month or so.” My eyebrows lifted. I had no idea he came back here so often. If anything, I’d guessed the opposite now that he’d made it big. This area was not the kind of place a person thought of nostalgically. Then I realized why. “To check on Aunt May.” “To check on her . . .” He cleared his throat, hesitation sweeping across his face. “And to check on the football program I started in The Clink a few years ago.” “The football program?” He swallowed, studying the wall across from us. “I had a couple of football fields made and hired

a few people to hold practices and games for the kids in the community, free of charge. Their equipment, gear, snacks, everything, it’s all taken care of. Boys, girls, toddlers, teenagers, there’s a place for them to get out of their homes and play ball.” Grant shifted on his stool, still unable to look at me. “Francis’s grandson is one of the kids who plays on one of the league teams,” he said as Francis returned with a couple of milkshakes. “This boy is an angel. A real-life angel. My James was getting into a whole heap of trouble before Mr. Turner started the Football For All program.” Francis winked at me as she set a strawberry shake in front of me and a vanilla one in front of Grant. “A real living, breathing angel among us.” Grant snorted as Francis patted his hand again before she wandered away. “If I’m an angel, then humanity is screwed.” “Here, angel,” I teased, which got me an eye roll, “milkshake switch.” Grant didn’t say anything as I switched so the strawberry was in front of him and the vanilla in front of me. “So you started a free football program for kids, hand out free jerseys to your adoring fans, gave my mom a funeral she didn’t deserve, and took care of an aging woman until she passed.” I circled my straw around my shake a few twirls. “Where did the troubled, hot-headed boy I grew up with go?” Grant stared at the wall. “He’s still right here. He’ll always be a part of me.” I didn’t know how my hand found its way into Grant’s, but it did. It was a reflex, reaching out for him when the past seemed like it was right smack in front of us. His large hand enveloped mine, looking like it had almost swallowed mine whole. The warmth radiating off his skin transferred to mine, spreading into my core. I’d always known I carried a piece of Grant with me, but I didn’t realize how many pieces until I felt them all resurfacing from the sensation of his touch. I could feel his presence everywhere—in the depths of my lungs, the tips of my fingers, the hollows of my heart. Our greasy baskets of burgers and fries arrived a few minutes later. Diners trickled back in sporting new jerseys, swinging by to thank Grant and wish him luck at his next game. The jukebox played song after song until most of the restaurant was empty and the open sign flashed off. The whole time, Grant’s and my hand stayed joined. “We should probably let them close up.” Grant shoved off the stool, pulling me up with him, which was a good thing since I felt like I’d swallowed a bowling ball’s worth of fries. When his hand unwound from mine to pull out his wallet, he casually slipped a large bill from it and tucked it beneath one of the empty baskets. “Big softie,” I muttered, waving at Francis and a couple of the cooks as they called good night to us. Grant kept a straight face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I laughed as we walked out to his truck. Not a single jersey had been left behind, but someone had taken the time to collapse the boxes and tuck them neatly into the bed of his truck. We didn’t say anything as we left the parking lot, and our silence continued as Grant headed back to my motel. It was just after midnight, and I knew I had precious minutes left to tell him what I had to. There’d been moments at dinner when I’d had an opportunity, a brief moment of silence between conversations, but each time, fear paralyzed me. I knew Grant was confused, because I’d been the one who’d asked for this whole thing to talk and yeah, sure, we’d talked, but not about anything more deep than how the winters up in New York had taken him a while to get used to and our speculation that Mickey’s had changed something in their fry seasoning. The conversation had rolled between us easily—it always had—but we’d talked about everything besides what I needed to actually talk with him about. When he pulled into the motel’s parking lot, I checked the time yet again. He was going to be on a plane, traveling back to New York, in less than six hours. Who knew if I’d ever see him again? Who

knew if he’d ever want to see me again? Tonight had gone smoothly and I knew we’d both enjoyed being together, but I also knew we could both feel the pain of the past. I could see the scars on him as plainly as I could see them on myself when I looked in the mirror. When Grant came around to open my door, his eyes met mine and I almost said it right then. The words were forming on my lips, then a tremble rocked my body and I practically fell out of the cab. I would have if Grant hadn’t been there to break my fall. “Whoa, easy. Too many milkshakes for you it looks like.” Grant kept his arms around me until he was sure I’d regained my balance. “Good thing you had a DD.” I had to force the smile because I didn’t feel like smiling, despite the joke. My whole life, I’d prided myself on being strong. Well, my whole life since I’d met Grant and he’d shown me how to be strong, both on the outside and the inside. But here, when I most needed to be strong, I could barely muster up a thimble-full of courage to draw on. Grant walked me to the door, and he lingered there as I fumbled with the key. “So we’re okay?” When I turned around, I found him rubbing the back of his head, staring at the concrete at my feet. “We’re, you know, friends?” It was right then that I felt it. The strength I thought had abandoned me. It reminded me of why I needed to do this, what was riding on it, and suddenly, the words came easily. “I need to show you something,” I said, my voice unwavering as I knocked on the door and waited for Cruz to come unlock the arsenal of locks. Grant’s face creased with confusion as he checked his watch. “It’ll only take a minute,” I said, although I knew it wasn’t so simple. When Cruz pulled the door open, he didn’t look surprised to see Grant standing behind me. Cruz looked a bit surprised when he inspected Grant’s face though, like the expression on it didn’t match the one he thought he’d find. “Everything went just fine,” he said, pulling on a corduroy sports coat. “So I’ll be on my merry way to leave you kids alone.” “Thank you.” I gave him a hug in passing. “I appreciate everything.” Cruz and Grant shoulder-bumped each other in passing. “Oh, don’t get too thankful. It will cost you.” Firing a wink, Cruz flashed a wave and headed for his car. When Grant stepped inside and closed the door, he hung close to it, looking almost uncomfortable. “Listen. Ryan. I don’t know—” “Come here.” I held my hand out for him and waited. Grant studied it with the same look of conflict I’d seen on his face so many times, like he was debating which choice would cause him less pain because either way, he’d come out gutted in the end. A moment later, his hand slipped around mine. Cruz had left a few lights on in the living room and kitchen, but the hall lights were off. As I led Grant down the hall, into the darkness, I could hear his breathing pick up. His steps behind me became more hesitant, but his grip on my hand tightened. It was as if one part of him was trying to leave while another part was vying to stay. When we came to the closed bedroom door, I set my hand on the handle. My hand was shaking again, but this time, it was for a different reason. I couldn’t go back now. I couldn’t go back ever. Opening this door was like opening a portal to a new world for us. All of us. The door opened with a low whine, and I stepped inside, guiding Grant in with me. It was dark except for the streetlights casting in through the closed window. Grant stopped in the doorway, still keeping hold of my hand. “Ryan . . .” His voice was low, thick with an emotion I wasn’t familiar with. Then he exhaled. “I

can’t.” It took me a moment to realize what he was getting at. When I did, I felt heat rush up my neck into my cheeks when I realized he thought I was inviting him into bed with me. Reaching over to where I’d set a night light on the dresser, I clicked it on. A cool glow of light spilled into the room, illuminating it just enough. My eyes drifted to the bed, my face softening as my whole body relaxed from seeing her sleeping peacefully. I heard Grant’s footsteps behind me. There was a moment of silence, then his breath stopped. Twisting around, I looked up at him, not knowing what I’d find written on his face. His eyes were trained on the bed where she slept, a myriad of emotions playing in his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t blink as he stared at her. “Grant,” I whispered a minute later, my hand squeezing his. My voice or my touch or both made him flinch, but his eyes never roamed from where they were stuck. “She’s yours?” His voice came from low in his chest, vibrating in his throat. Sucking in a breath, I nodded. “And yours.” His breath stopped again, his eyes sliding to mine. Something flashed in them. “Mine?” I reached for something else on the dresser. “Yours.” Then I held out the picture for him. A photo of her. His eyes dropped to the photo I was holding, realization settling in at the same time his head started to shake. “No,” he said, letting go of my hand. “No.” “Grant, she’s yours. Look at her.” I lifted the picture closer for him to see how she had the same wide brown eyes, the same mouth, and color of hair. “No . . .” He rolled his neck, shaking his head almost like he was in shock. “Look at her,” I demanded, holding the picture even closer. I knew this would be a shock, but I also knew if anyone could handle it, it was Grant Turner. He’d been through worse. He’d come out ahead of bigger curveballs. The sooner I got him to accept that this was his daughter, the sooner we could figure out what came next. “She’s yours. She’s your daughter.” Finally, his gaze landed on the photo. The skin between his brows drew deep as he studied it, his breath coming in labored pulls again. “What’s her name?” When his eyes moved from the photo to where she was in bed, he swallowed. “Charlie.” I smiled. “She’s seven.” Grant shifted, a pained expression settling into his face. “I have a seven-year-old daughter and this is the first time I’m finding out about it?” At first, it sounded like he was talking to himself, but then his eyes cut to mine. “You kept my daughter a secret from me for seven years?” He was still managing to control his voice, but I knew the look working its way onto his face well enough to know it wouldn’t stay that way. Squeezing between him and the door, I moved into the living room. He lingered in the bedroom for a minute before following, but he paused to close the door quietly. Instead of barreling into the living room and saying everything I could see firing in his eyes, Grant tucked the picture of Charlie in his pocket and stormed for the front door. “Where are you going?” I rushed after him. “I need to go.” He already had the locks undone and the door open. Where did he think he was going? I’d just told him he had a daughter. And he was about to walk out? This was not the way I’d planned this going. Not even close. “Stay. Talk.” My fingers curled around his arm, but he shook it off. “I can’t talk because I don’t want to say something I’d regret and right now” —his jaw ground together as he took a breath—“anything I say, I know I’m going to regret. Just give me some space.” “Grant . . .” I followed him a few steps into the parking lot.

“No, that’s not the way this works.” He spun around on me, throwing his arms out at his sides. He looked angry. Chernobyl angry. “You don’t get to hide my daughter from me, surprise me with her like this, then decide how this is going to work.” Something that felt like a sob lodged in my throat. “I’m sorry.” A sharp sound came from him as he put more distance between us. “Yeah, so am I. I’m fucking sorry I missed out on seven years of my child’s life. Sorry I spent those years missing the shit out of you.” He stopped, remorse settling into his expression with the anger. “Goddammit. This is why I need to leave, Ryan. Before I say anything else I regret.” Without another word, he disappeared inside his truck and tore out of the parking lot. I stood there for a forever longer. Waiting. Wondering. Doubting. Terrified that everything I’d tried to get right had gone all wrong.

SPACE. WHAT DID that mean? How much space? How long would he need that space? Did space mean he wanted nothing to do with either of us? Did it mean he needed time to get a lawyer? Or did it just mean that he needed some time alone to process the bomb I’d dropped on him? That was what I guessed it was. That was what I was hoping it was. That was what I needed it to be. Grant had stormed out of the motel on Tuesday night, and now it was Saturday. The waiting had killed me. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, but I’d have to accept whatever amount of time Grant needed. Because he was right. I didn’t get to call the shots after what I’d done. I didn’t get to decide how this was going to work. I didn’t get to orchestrate how he’d react to the news or how he’d respond to the future. I’d done enough, and god knew I’d done plenty of it wrong. It was his choice how this would work from here. I just hoped he wanted to be a part of it. “Mom, your phone’s ringing!” Charlie called from the living room where she was working on some math problems. She’d finished kindergarten in a public school back in Oregon, but with all of the changes, I was homeschooling her now that she would have started first grade. It worked out well though, since I wasn’t working and Charlie read at a fourth-grade level and was already doing thirdgrade math. “On my way.” I wiped my hands clean of tomato sauce splatter and hustled as fast as my body would let me into the living room. The call was about to go to voicemail, but I caught it right in time. I realized a moment after saying hello who the number belonged to. “Ryan?” My face flattened, my hand going to my chest when I heard his voice. Charlie didn’t know about anything that had happened last week, and I wasn’t going to tell her until I knew where Grant stood on it all. She knew she had a dad, of course, and she even knew who he was, but she didn’t know he was the reason I’d come back here. “I’m here,” I said after a minute, slowly making my way back into the kitchen, so the most perceptive child to have ever been born didn’t pick up on her mom acting strangely. “I was wondering if I could come by tomorrow night?” His words were slow and controlled, but I could just make out the emotion he was trying to keep from his tone. “I’ve got a game at one in Dallas, and was thinking I could stop by after? You know, if you’re still at the Starlight.” “We’re still here. That’s a long drive though,” was all I could think to say. I was just so relieved and surprised and pick-an-adjective that he’d called. That he’d had his space and now he was ready . . .

for whatever came next. “I’ll take a flight.” “Do you think you can find one last minute like that?” I absently went back to the saucepan to stir the marinara, though I should have been beating myself over the head with the wooden spoon for discussing logistics instead of rejoicing that he was communicating with me, with words and everything. “I’ll charter a plane. It’s a short flight, but I might not make it in until later. Maybe seven? Eight o’clock?” There was a carefulness in his words, like he was picking each one deliberately. “We’ll be here.” On the other end, Grant cleared his throat. “Okay. See you then.” A moment later, the line went dead. I was still smiling into the saucepan when Charlie poked her head in the kitchen a few minutes later. “I’m all done with my math. Can we go to the park and play now?” Giving the sauce one more taste, I turned off the burner and decided dinner could wait. My sevenyear-old daughter asking me to take her to the park could not. I knew these moments would come to an end sooner rather than later. Dinner could wait. My daughter could not.

THE STORM HAD won the game, much to Charlie’s delight. Well, to Charlie’s and mine. We were both Storm fans and rarely missed a televised game. Granted, she probably knew more stats and strategy than I did, but half of her DNA came from a professional football player. The sport was, literally, in her blood. Since I knew Grant would be getting here late and there was a possibility that circumstance could prevent him from getting here at all tonight, I hadn’t told Charlie much. I’d told her we might be having a guest tonight, but that I wasn’t sure, and she’d pretty much said, “That’s nice, let me get back to the game.” I didn’t know if letting Grant walk in and allowing Charlie to respond however she needed to was the right way to do this. I wasn’t sure if I should sit her down and explain everything or keep it simple and let her fill in the blanks going forward. There wasn’t an outline in a parenting handbook for how a parent could explain a situation like Grant’s and mine, and believe me, I’d been looking. The librarians at the local library all knew me by name now. Charlie had always been an easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes kid, but this was introducing her to her father for the first time. This wasn’t having her try a bite of her broccoli to see if she liked it. “Why don’t you go ahead and eat, Charlie?” I eyed the plate in front of her, which she’d refused to touch, before checking the time for the tenth time in the past five minutes. It was after eight, and still, nothing. “I’m waiting for our guest,” she stated, crossing her arms and slouching further into the chair. “It’s rude to eat dinner before your dinner guest arrives.” I had to turn into the sink to keep her from seeing my smile. Charlie was an easy-going kid most of the time. When she dug her heels in, there was no unburying them until she pulled them out herself. This was one of those instances. “It’s almost your bedtime. You need to eat your dinner.” Absently, I washed a couple of cups, trying not to think the worst. Grant had always been a man of his word, and I knew he wouldn’t abandon that quality when his daughter was involved. “I’m not hungry.” Charlie pouted into her spaghetti. I knew better. The girl loved spaghetti. “Listen, sweetie, why don’t you just eat? Our guest told me he might not be able to make it tonight, so we might just have to do this another night. It’s getting late, and I don’t want you crawling into bed hungry.” “Why not?” Charlie eyed the meatball at the top of her spaghetti tower, those dark eyes going big. “Because you’ll wake up a grouchy bear and I prefer my snuggle bear in the morning.”

That managed a giggle out of her, and she reached for her fork. “If our guest does make it, then we’ll have dessert together instead, okay?” “So he’ll be our dessert guest?” Charlie sank her fork into the giant meatball and lifted it to her mouth. “Exactly. Now, how many seven-year-old girls do you know who get to have dessert guests?” “And instead of a dinner party, it can be a dessert party?” Her eyes were lighting up as her imagination spun its web. “I like the way you think, Charlie-Bird.” After drying the cups, I tucked them away and wandered into the living room to check my phone. Again. I exhaled when I discovered there were still no missed calls or texts. We’d watched the game earlier today and it hadn’t gone into overtime or been delayed. Nothing like that. Where was he? Nervous energy carried me to the door, my eye automatically squinting as I leaned into the peephole. What I saw outside made my stomach bottom out. “Charlie, when you finish your dinner, go put on your jammies. I’m just stepping outside to make a call.” I kept my voice as normal as I could or else I knew Charlie would pick up on it. “K, Mom!” she replied around a mouthful of meatball probably. As soon as I’d unlocked and opened the door, I stepped outside and closed it. I guessed he knew it was me, but Grant didn’t move. He just sat there, butt parked on the curb, with his knees bent and his head bowed. He’d backed his truck into the spot in front of him and the tailgate was lowered. Inside, there was a mountain of toys. Like Santa’s sleigh mountain. Everything from girl and boy toys, toddler, and teenage toys. “Grant . . .” I said softly, stepping up behind him, my eyes going from his hunched frame to the bed of his truck. “I have a daughter. A seven-year-old daughter.” His voice was tight and quiet. “And I have no idea who she is. Or what she likes. I don’t have a goddamned clue, and I should. I’m her dad. I should know this stuff.” I swallowed as I understood the reason for the wide variety of toys brimming in the back of his truck. “I don’t know anything about kids, Ryan. I don’t know how to be a dad. Shit, the only experience I have with dads is my old man, and if I know one thing about fatherhood, it’s that I don’t want to be anything like him.” “God, Grant.” I could taste my heart in the back of my throat as I watched him like this. Lost. Almost broken. “How long have you been sitting here?” His shoulders fell. “Long enough to realize I’m as big of a fuck-up today as I was before.” He wove his arms behind his neck. “Long enough to realize why you didn’t tell me about her before.” I thought I’d cried the last of my tears months ago, but I’d been wrong. One rolled down my cheek and spilled onto the ground at my feet. “I didn’t tell you about Charlie for an entirely different reason than me being worried you’d be a bad dad. I never once thought that. Ever.” “Then why? Why keep her a secret from me for so long?” Taking a breath, I tucked my dress beneath me and sat beside him on the curb. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was seventeen. Seventeen, Grant.” I paused to let that settle in. “And you were a senior in college about to become a first-round draft pick.” This time, I had to pause for myself. Talking about it made it feel as if I was reliving it all over again. Seeing the results on the pregnancy stick, feeling elation and sheer dread all at once, grabbing my phone while I was still sitting on the toilet, staring at the stick, so I could call him . . . only to realize what it all meant. Setting that phone down and keeping the knowledge of my pregnancy to

myself had been one of the hardest things I’d had to do. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d stayed up at night, scared and alone, my finger hovering over Grant’s number. “What would that have done to your career? To your whole life?” I whispered, wiping the next tear away with the sleeve of my sweater. “It wouldn’t have changed a thing. I still would have loved you. I still would have married you. I still would have played football and we could have been a family, instead of me living the last seven years thinking the best thing in my life left me without an explanation. If you had told me, I wouldn’t be here tonight, feeling like I owe you two everything and have absolutely nothing to give you.” For someone who’d just won a nationally televised football game, scoring two of the team’s five total touchdowns, he was acting the opposite of how I imagined a player would in his position. “You were twenty-one, and I was seventeen,” I said. “No matter how much we told people we loved each other, no matter what your plans were of marrying me, it still would have been seen as statutory rape.” I paused when he flinched. “You were about to be drafted. It felt like the whole nation was talking about the Invincible Man from A&M about to go on to become a pro football legend.” I scooted closer, nudging him. “Your football career would have ended before it even got started if anyone found out about you getting a seventeen-year-old girl pregnant.” “You don’t know that—” “Yes, I do. And so do you.” Raising my eyebrows, I waited for him to acknowledge me. It took him a minute, but when he did, a breath rushed out of his mouth. “I wouldn’t have given a damn. If I had to choose football or you, I would have chosen you. I would have chosen you every day since.” He rolled his jaw a few times. “That wasn’t your call to make, Ryan. You should have told me. You should have at least given me the choice.” “But I didn’t. I was young and scared and alone and I made the choice I did with the knowledge I had.” Tipping my head back, I gazed at the sky. No stars out tonight. Not that I was expecting to find any. “I know I didn’t make the right choice. I know that now, years later. But that’s the thing about hindsight—you don’t realize you screwed up until after the fact.” Beside me, Grant tensed. “I’m not trying to defend my actions. I’m trying to explain them. Trying to paint the picture of what was going through my head when I made those choices.” Grant nodded, almost indiscernibly, but enough I at least knew he was listening. “I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t there for her.” The heel of his shoe tapped the curb a few times. “I should have known. I should have figured out what happened. I should have gone after you. Found you. I should have been there.” A low rumble vibrated from deep in his chest. “I wasn’t there for you two.” My hand dropped to his knee and curled around it lightly. He didn’t flinch from my touch. He didn’t slink away from it like he had last week when I’d told him about Charlie. “That’s not your fault, Grant. That’s mine. All mine.” I felt him start to relax. A little. One muscle at a time unwound until he didn’t feel like a steel wall hovering beside me, but instead the man I remembered. “I know you would have been there for us. I know that.” His head lifted, his eyes roaming the mess of toys in the bed of his truck. “But does she?” One-half of my mouth curled up. “She will.” Patting his knee, I stood. “Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.” His head tipped back at me, a flash of panic racing through his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.” “Lucky for you, our daughter doesn’t have any trouble saying everything and anything. All you have to do is lend a listening ear and she’s happy.” “Ryan—” “Grant, she’s your daughter. You’ll figure it out.” I held my hand out for him and waited. “I know you will.”

I need you to. Looking over his shoulder, his eyes fell on the closed door. For a moment, he looked scared. Terrified. Then he inhaled and took my hand. He tipped his chin toward his truck bed, half of his face creasing as he inspected the cyclone of toys. “So? Which one?” Giving his hand a tug, I led him to the door. “You’re all the present she’ll want. Believe me.” Then I saw something barely poking out from the bottom of the toy pile. Wrestling it free, I lifted it in front of him. “But maybe this with the New York Storm’s Grant Turner ’s signature on it?” His brows pulled together like he was trying to gauge if I was serious. When I waved the football at him, he rolled his eyes and pulled a Sharpie from his back pocket. “So as a kid in The Clink, you never left home without your brass knuckles, and now as a man in New York City, you never leave home without your black Sharpie?” I teased as he signed his name with a measured meticulousness I doubted he signed the bulk of his autographs with. He gave me a look and finished signing his name. “I can’t believe the first gift I’m about to give my little girl is an autographed football.” Setting my hand on the doorknob, I started to open the door. “She loves football. Just like her dad.” When I opened the door and stepped inside, I heard Grant suck in a heavy breath. His hand in mine tensed, but he followed me into the living room, closing the door behind him. “Mom! Have you seen my solar system jammies?” Charlie’s voice rolled down the hall right before she emerged from it. She had a ring of spaghetti sauce dried around her mouth and a streak of it down her overalls. Probably from the giant meatball falling off her fork. It took her all of a half second to realize someone was lingering behind me, but when she did, her little mouth fell open and she came to a standstill. Grant’s hand gripped mine so tightly, I was confident he was cutting off the blood flow to it. “Oh my gosh.” Charlie blinked a few times like she was making sure what she was seeing was real. “Oh my gosh . . .” She repeated that a few times before she managed one small shuffle forward. “You’re . . . you’re . . .” Another shuffle forward, her eyes getting bigger with every second. Coming around beside me, Grant slowly crouched, so he was almost at Charlie’s eye level. I had to bite my cheek to keep a sob from sneaking out because I’d been imagining this moment for years, not sure if it would ever happen. “You’re . . .” Charlie lifted her arm, pointing at Grant. He nodded, a smile moving into place. “Grant Turner.” Charlie whipped her head back and forth, sending her ponytail flying. Grant’s head tipped, waiting as Charlie scooted a few feet closer. When she was right in front of him, she took a minute to study his face. Then she smiled. “You’re my dad.” Charlie didn’t see it—she didn’t know him the way I did—but those three words broke the Midas of a man crouching before her. I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in the resolve that settled into his brow. I saw it when his throat moved as he swallowed back emotion. This little girl had just become a permanent part of his life. He’d just learned he was a father, but right there, broken in half the way he was, I knew he loved her as much as I did. Would do anything to keep her safe. Give anything to make her happy. Would be there for whatever came. That was when I cried. Not a stray tear or two, but an entire river of them. Charlie would be okay. Grant would be okay. The two people I loved most in the world would have each other for the rest of their lives. That was all I needed to know to get me through the rest of mine.

“HOW’S OUR DESSERT guest doing in there?” I called from the kitchen as I started the process of cleaning up after Charlie’s sundae-making efforts. Puddles of ice cream and crumbles of toppings were scattered all around the kitchen, from the floor to the fridge handle. “I think he’s going to want seconds!” Charlie hollered over the sounds of spoons clinking against one bowl. “Yeah, definitely going to want seconds,” Grant announced above the familiar sound playing on the television. The sound of a football game. Back in Oregon, I used to record Grant’s late games if Charlie was in bed. She’d watched them again and again, until I swore the kid had every last play memorized. Where most kids her age grew up watching SpongeBob, Charlie grew up watching football. “Why didn’t you become a QB?” Charlie asked Grant as she crunched on something, probably the half bag of chocolate chips she’d dumped on top of the sundae mountain. Grant huffed. “Guys who grow up privileged and have daddies who take ‘em out back and throw the ball around with them every night become quarterbacks,” he answered, right before they both made a sound that suggested some player on the screen had just taken a massive hit. “They’re the opposite of me. It’s the boys who had to get fast and strong to survive who become tight ends.” “Kind of like Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory?” Charlie asked. Grant was quiet for a minute, probably amazed by the brain Charlie had. Moments like those hit me on a daily basis. “Yeah, kind of like that,” he said. “You get big, you get tough, you get fast to survive where I come from.” “That’s where Mommy’s from too. She told me that’s how you met.” Grant was silent, likely reliving the same memory of our first meeting as I was. It wasn’t a meetcute fraught with warm feelings and nostalgia. It was marred by terror and screams and blood. Our first meeting wasn’t a good memory, but Grant had saved me from a million more bad memories by shoving into that room the way he did, when he had. “That’s right. That’s where your mom and me met.” His voice gave him away. He was in that dark, filthy room again as much as I was. “Yeah, but Mommy’s small. Like, I’ll probably be taller than her by my next birthday.” I gave up on my cleaning efforts to lean against the doorway and be that fly on the wall as my daughter and her father got to know each other. The mess would be waiting for me tomorrow, but this moment was fleeting.

“What day is your birthday?” Grant asked slowly, unsurely. My traitor eyes got watery again as I realized how many of these questions there’d be. The simple ones any parent who’d watched their child grow up would know. “August 21st, silly. Didn’t you know that?” Charlie giggled. “That’s right. August 21st, the best day of the year. How could I have forgotten that?” That made her giggle again, before they both got back to the game. “Mommy and me watch your games all the time. You’re my favorite player, you know.” I slid a little around the corner so I could peek my head out at the two of them stretched out on the couch. Grant’s feet were kicked up on the coffee table, and Charlie was curled beside him, both of them spooning sundae out of the salad bowl Charlie had elected to make it in. From the moment Charlie had laid eyes on him, she hadn’t let him out of arm’s reach. It was almost ten and way past her bedtime, but tonight was special. Getting acquainted with one’s father warranted a ruined bedtime. “Well, that’s a relief. Because Lipinski and I would have to have words if I found out he was your favorite player.” “Quarterbacks are just a bunch of whiny attention-seekers,” Charlie announced without blinking, digging her spoon back into the bowl as she kept her eyes glued to the game she’d watched at least fifty times. It was one of her favorites—Grant’s rookie year playing for the Boston Americans, he’d managed to bring in a touchdown with two guys practically hanging off of him. I’d recorded a bunch of his games onto DVD for her, thinking she’d watch them once and move on. I should have known better. “Well, not all of them.” When Charlie’s head swiveled toward Grant, he lifted his hand. “Just most of them.” I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. “I’m glad you got traded to the Storm a few years ago. I didn’t really like the Americans, but since my dad was on the team, I kind of had to.” Charlie spilled some ice cream down her planet jammies. Of course. Because the kid couldn’t keep an article of clothing clean for longer than ten minutes. When Grant noticed, he picked up a napkin and reached over to wipe it up. For a minute, he stalled, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay, but then he pushed past it and wiped the ice cream smear off of Charlie’s jammie top. She didn’t seem to notice. She seemed as at ease with him as she was with me. “Well, thank you for your loyalty. As difficult as it must have been for you,” he teased. Charlie shrugged in a don’t-mention-it type of way. “You know, in the first game you played with the Storm, the camera zoomed in real close to your hands to show how you’d managed to hang onto a ball most players would have fumbled, and that was when Mom showed me I have the same kind of pinkies as you.” Grant’s forehead creased. “Pinkies?” “Pinkies. As in your little finger.” Charlie lifted one of her pinkies in the air. Grant studied it a moment before lifting his in front of hers. He’d probably never even noticed how his pinkies were crooked, both of them bowing in toward his ring fingers. But I had. I’d memorized everything there was to know about that man. Like he was seeing his pinkies for the first time, his gaze went back and forth between his and Charlie’s. “Neat, right?” As Grant continued to stare at Charlie’s fingers, he nodded. “Very neat.” While she got back to the game and the ice cream, he kept staring at Charlie. I could tell he wanted to touch her, to pull her to him or pull her under his arm, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry.” His throat bobbed.

Charlie shrugged. “I like my pinkies. I don’t mind that they’re crooked.” Grant’s hand brushed across his mouth, warring with a smile as much as he was with tears from the looks of it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here before.” Charlie turned her head toward him, twisting around so she was angled toward him. “It’s okay. Mom explained to me how sometimes families can’t always be together, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love each other.” I had to step back into the kitchen and lean into the wall for support. She remembered. I’d told her that years ago, when she first asked me about where her daddy was. She remembered. Families can’t always be together, but they can always love each other. Their love is always with us, a part of us, wherever we go. “That’s true.” Grant’s voice was thick with emotion. Charlie was really giving his tough guy exterior a walloping. “I wasn’t here, but I loved you and your mom every single day.” The spoon scraping sounds came to a pause. “You still love me?” Charlie asked. Grant was silent for a moment. “Very much.” “And Mommy?” she asked next, as innocently as she’d asked her previous question. She was immune to the double-edge of love’s sword, oblivious to Grant’s and my history. To her, we were a family. Grant’s voice drifted into the kitchen, surrounding me. “Very much.”

“WHAT HAVE YOU been feeding this kid?” Grant whispered as I pulled back the blankets so he could slide Charlie into bed. “I’ve dealt with defensive lineman daintier than this.” “I feed her monster-sized sundaes every night, of course. And she gets the giant gene from her dad’s side.” I stepped back to give him room to set her down. Charlie had crashed hard sometime after eleven, once she’d ridden out the high from her sugar rush. She and Grant had been in the middle of a debate about who the best football player of all time was, and he’d been in the middle of backing up his choice when she’d passed out. Her body smashed up against his, her head lolling onto his shoulder, snoring and everything. It had been too precious of a moment, and I’d grabbed my phone to snap a quick photo. The first photo of Charlie with her dad. I compared it to what some fathers had as their first photo with their child, infant in hand, seconds old, and a fresh surge of guilt and remorse settled into my veins. I hadn’t just denied Grant a relationship with his daughter—I’d denied Charlie a relationship with her father. Yes, I’d told her who her father was, and yes, I’d told her that he loved her very much and that one day, we might all be together, but that wasn’t a drop in the ocean of memories and experiences children who grew up with fathers had. Not a drop. I’d made a choice as a scared seventeen-year-old who didn’t want to get her older boyfriend in trouble and be the potential reason for resentment and disappointment. If I could do it all again, I wasn’t sure if I’d make the same decision or a different one. Neither choice would have been an easy one. I’d made the decision, but it was the three of us who had to suffer the consequences of it. I watched Grant place Charlie into bed like she was capable of shattering from a sudden movement. I watched him carefully tuck her in, the sheet first, followed by the comforter. I watched him hover beside the bed, staring at her like she was the most miraculous thing he’d ever witnessed. I watched a father fall in total and utter awe of his child. “She’s the best,” he whispered, stepping back beside me. “No argument from me.” I nudged him as I headed for the door. “She likes her nightlight on and that ratty, old one-eyed bear tucked in with her.” I indicated the well-loved bear on the dresser before I moved into the hall. I’d had seven years of tucking her in. He was owed this one all on his own. It was important he learned the routine.

Giving him a minute, I went into the living room to start cleaning up. Between the two of them, they’d managed to polish off the entire sundae, and Charlie had made sure to offer Grant a juice box when she’d gotten one for herself. He’d graciously accepted it and, surprisingly, sucked it all down, which I discovered when I picked it up to toss it away. “So? How are you holding up?” I asked when he emerged from the hall. He took the bowl from my hands and carried it to the sink. “Extremely well considering I just found out I have a daughter and discovered the real reason my girlfriend ran out on me all those years ago.” After clipping the bag of mini-marshmallows, I tucked it back into the cupboard. Holy sugar apocalypse. “You’re a natural.” Something on the small dining room table caught Grant’s eye. He wandered over to it and thumbed through the papers and books sprawled out. “Are you reading this or is Charlie?” He held up a library copy of White Fang. “That’s your daughter ’s weekly reading assignment,” I answered. “This is the other stuff she’s working on?” He skimmed through some math worksheets and writing exercises. When he got to a particularly impressive-looking division worksheet, his brows lifted. “It turns out you and I create really intelligent offspring. Kind of crazy, right?” Grabbing a file with last week’s lesson plans, I set it in front of him. As he flipped through the pages, he suddenly seemed to choke up. “Grant?” I asked gently. “She’s smart. She’s so goddamned smart.” He swallowed and smiled at the same time, lifting a worksheet she’d gotten twenty out of twenty correct on. “She didn’t turn out like me. She’s not like me. Thank god.” My throat burned when I realized what he was getting at. Grant had never thrived in school. Not because he didn’t give a shit, but because he just couldn’t get it. He tried, but it never clicked. Hell, every last child who’d come out of The Clink had struggled in school, but most of the kids just didn’t care. Grant did. He wanted to educate himself. To be considered a smart person. Coming up behind him, I stared at the same sheet he was. Then I set my hand on it and lowered it back into the file. “She’s loyal. She’s determined.” I came around, so I was in front of him. “She’s got a weird sense of humor and likes breakfast for dinner.” When he wouldn’t meet my eyes, I lifted onto my toes, so I was directly in his line of sight. I pressed my hand into his chest. “She turned out a lot like you.” I stood there for another minute, making sure that sank in, then I headed to the fridge. “Do you want something to drink? I can offer you a juice box or a juice box or a gee whiz”—I lifted a green box in the air—“a juice box.” Grant chuckled. “I’m good, but thanks.” “Next time you stop by, I’ll try to have an adult beverage in the fridge.” “The most adult drink I have these days is coffee,” he replied. “No more of the hard stuff?” I asked, closing the fridge. Half a smile formed on his face. “Unless you count the occasional juice box when I’m feeling crazy.” My eyebrows came together. “Really? You don’t drink anymore?” One of his shoulders lifted. “A guy’s got to grow up sometime.” He set the file down and came over to help me wipe the scatter of sprinkles off of the counter. “You did such a great job with her. All alone, being so young.” Grant’s brows came together. “How did you do it?” My shoulder lifted. “It was easy. I just thought about what my mom would have done, and I did the

opposite.” Half a smile crawled into place. “I know it wasn’t easy.” “No, it wasn’t. But it was worth it.” He dumped a handful of sprinkles into the garbage can. “How in the hell did you put yourself through dental hygiene school with a baby?” “Sleep? I didn’t get any.” I smiled at him and took a seat at the table for a minute. It had been a long day and a draining one. My body felt done. “I had some help from a couple of neighbors, and the school I went to had a daycare program so I could take Charlie there while I was in class. We worked it out.” “And I was making millions of dollars every year and could have set you and Charlie up, so you didn’t have to worry about a thing.” He shook his head and leaned into the counter. “It’s okay. I made it. It was important for me to see that I could do it. It was important to know that I could take care of myself because I knew that the only reason I made it out of The Clink was because of you. You got me out of there so I could make it out here.” Grant’s eyes landed on mine. “You could have told me. If you were worried about me getting in trouble for getting a minor pregnant, you could have told me and we could have kept it quiet.” “No, we couldn’t have. You and I both know you wouldn’t have been content to make occasional visits to see us and drop a few large bills on the way out. You would have wanted it all. That’s who you are. I knew that if I told you, that’s what I’d have to be prepared to accept.” He stared off to the side, crossing his arms. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have been content to come in and out of your lives like that. But I’m not saying the way you went about this was the right way either, Ryan.” His body tensed, pulling his T-shirt across the carved planes of his chest. “One minute I’m pissed you cut me out the way you did, and the next one I’m thrilled you let me back in. I feel like I’m on a damn roller coaster over here. So while I’m upside-down, why don’t you just lay the rest of it on me now?” My heart stalled, but I played it off. “What do you mean?” His eyes cut to mine. “Don’t play me for a fool. Just tell me.” Now my heart was hammering too fast, like it was trying to sprout wings so I could fly out of here and escape Grant trying to corner me into this conversation. Despite knowing this very conversation was the one we needed to have. As soon as I opened my mouth, he sighed. “What’s going on, Ryan?” he shoved off of the counter and came toward me. “I know you reached out to me now for a reason other than it being the right time. What’s wrong?” What’s wrong? That question kept playing in my head, again and again. What’s wrong? Everything. Nothing. Something. The courage that had been evading me came rushing back all at once. “Gentle version or harsh reality?” He huffed. “Harsh is the only reality I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t know what to do if someone tried to soften the blow, so just give it to me straight.” He slid his hands into his pockets, taking a deep breath. “I can take it.” Harsh. It was the only version of reality I’d known too. Inhaling, my eyes found his. “I’ve got Huntington’s.” For a minute, his expression was a blank slate, giving nothing away. Then he licked his lips and pulled out the chair beside me. “What does that mean?” he asked slowly, his voice lower than normal. “I’ve heard of it, but right now I couldn’t tell you if it’s a damn cold virus or more along the lines of the bubonic plague.”

I stared at my hands curled in my lap. Ever so slightly, they were trembling. Not enough to draw the attention of anyone else, but enough to remind me of what disease was coiled into my genetic code. Enough to forewarn me of what was to come. “More the latter than the former.” Grant collapsed in the chair, then scooted it closer. “Explain it to me. Before I lose my mind thinking the worst.” I meant my smile to be reassuring, but it didn’t fool him. His face fell at the same time it lost a few shades of color. “Jesus Christ . . .” “It’s a neurological disorder,” I said, trying to speak as objectively about a topic I felt anything but impartial about. “A degenerative one. There is no cure.” His eyes narrowed at the floor, but the rest of him remained unchanged. “How long have you known?” I sucked in a breath. “I found out about a year ago. I guess there were signs that I should have picked up on before, but I just wrote it off as random clumsiness, my mind being distracted, that kind of thing.” “What are the symptoms?” He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “What’s this bastard going to do to you?” My stomach folded whenever I thought about the path this illness would take me down. So I didn’t think about it—at least as much as I could. The only time I’d talked about it had been with my neurologist, shortly after I’d been diagnosed, but I knew I couldn’t dodge Grant’s questions. “The first symptom is usually chorea, the involuntary shaking of the body. That’s what I’ve been mainly dealing with.” My eyes dropped to my hands. They’d stopped trembling, but I never knew when they’d start again. Feeling control over your body one moment and having no control over it the next was a maddening experience. To one minute feel as though your body was your ally and the next your enemy. “From there, it starts messing with people’s memory, speech . . . eventually, it trickles down into every neurological function in the human body.” I summed it up as honestly and as simply as I could. He’d learn the gory details soon enough. Even if he wanted the harsh truth, my goal was to ease him into it. If one could be eased into finding out a person they cared about had a disease such as this one. “Will you have to be in a wheelchair? Eventually?” He stared at the chair I was sitting in, seeing something else. “Yes. Eventually, I won’t even be able to swallow on my own. My body will be a shell.” His hands curled into fists. “Your mind?” I slid my hair behind my ear, tasting the familiar bite of bitterness on my tongue. “I’ll wish it was gone, but no, the mind of a person with HD is usually the last thing to go.” Grant’s back was rising and falling higher from his breath, still glaring at the linoleum. “So you’ll be—” “Trapped inside of my own body with no way to communicate?” I interjected. “Yes, that’s the way it will be in the end.” A rush of air blew past his lips. “Son of a bitch.” “Exactly,” I whispered. “But it’ll be years before that happens, right? Decades?” His eyes lifted to mine. “You’re young. Strong. That won’t happen until you’re old, and by then, the rest of us will all be there with you. Hell, by then there might be a cure.” My heart ached from hearing Grant go through the same questions, clinging to the same hopes I’d had when the doctor had read me my proverbial death sentence. After the initial shock of it, I’d asked questions. Dozens of them. Each one circling around some semblance of hope that this awful disease wasn’t as truly heinous as it seemed.

At the end of that meeting, I’d learned that I was right. Huntington’s wasn’t as bad as it seemed—it was worse. “That’s true, it can take years for someone with Huntington’s to get to those final stages of the disease. Most people can make it to their fifties or sixties before it gets really bad.” Grant was in the middle of exhaling when I continued, “But I was diagnosed at a very young age. Most people don’t learn they have it until they’re in their forties or older. Finding out you have Huntington’s in your twenties is extremely rare. So my symptoms have been advancing quicker than the average HD patient.” I had to pause to take a breath, to take a moment to confront a reality I didn’t want to face. “What does that mean?” Grant asked. “What the fuck does that mean, Ryan?” Still, he was holding onto hope. Still, he wasn’t allowing the word to settle into his consciousness. “It means I’m not going to make it into my sixties. Or my fifties.” More than anything else, these were the hard words to speak. Because as I said them, I envisioned each milestone that came with that passage of time. “What are you trying to tell me?” Grant scooted closer until he was barely balanced on the edge of his seat. “Just give it to me. I can take it. You don’t need to ease me into this.” My eyes locked on his. I saw enough strength there for me to borrow some. “I’ll be lucky to make it into my thirties.” Grant’s throat bobbed like he was swallowing an apple whole. “And even if I do, I won’t be the same person you’re sitting in front of now.” His jaw set, the muscles in his neck going rigid. Still, his eyes never wandered from mine. “Are you telling me this bastard is going to kill you, Ryan Hale?” My hand lifted to his face. It took a moment before settling against his cheek, testing to see if he was okay with me touching him. Testing to see if I was okay with touching him. “I’m saying it’s going to make me wish it would, but no, Huntington’s won’t kill me. At least not directly.” His jaw worked beneath my hand, I guessed from him biting his cheek. “But something else will, whether it be a common cold or pneumonia or a swallowing hazard or a fall. This disease will drag me to death’s door, knock on it, then run away to leave something else to finish the job.” That was when I saw it—the anger buried inside Grant Turner emerged. The kind of anger most people never came close to experiencing. The kind a person learned from living one cruel reality after another. The kind learned so early on in life it became a part of them—something they always carried, no matter what measure of peace they eventually found in life. That was when I saw the boy of my childhood in the man sitting before me. Surging out of his chair, he sent it crashing to the floor. He was across the room in two strides, his arms winding around his head as he paced the kitchen like a lion recently caged. “Goddammit.” He whacked the doorway with his elbow as he passed it. “GODDAMMIT!” “Please, Grant . . .” I spun in my chair, my eyes shifting to the dark hallway. “She doesn’t know.” Mid-step, he rolled to a stop. I swallowed and shook my head. “Charlie doesn’t know.” His arms fell back at his sides, looking like they were suddenly too heavy to hold up. When he exhaled, his shoulders dropped like they were trying to fall to the floor. “Oh god. This is why . . .” His finger moved between his chest and down the hall, another piece of the puzzle snapping together. “I had every intention of bringing you two together one day, but yes, fate forced my hand in making it sooner rather than later.” My eyes burned, but they stayed on him. “I wanted you two to get used to each other, to form a bond, to be a part of each other ’s lives, because one day, you’re going to be her life. Her whole life.” I spoke each word slowly, purposefully. This, above everything else, was the most important part for him to understand. This was the whole reason I’d come back. “I know this is a lot to deal with, and I know how much I’m asking of you and that I have no right given the way I

cut you out, but will you consider it? Will you think about it?” His eyes, which had been glaring holes into the floor, lifted. The anger was still there—as impressive and searing as always—but there was something else too. Resolve. Determination. They were emotions I was just as used to seeing in Grant Turner as anger. “There’s nothing to think about.” His head shook. “If the time comes for me to take over, I’ve got it.” Something squeezed inside my chest. “When. When the time comes.” He took a deep breath and nodded. “When it comes, I’ll be there for Charlie. I’ll be there for you.” Before I realized it was coming, I choked on the sob that had risen in my throat. I’d known how relieved I’d be if Grant agreed to look after Charlie once I couldn’t, but I never could have prepared myself for the weight that lifted from me. The way my lungs felt capable of filling instead of feeling like they were constantly fighting collapsing. The way the thought of my death seemed less daunting. “Being a single parent, it’s not easy.” I turned in my chair to face him. “Are you sure you don’t want to give this some thought first? I didn’t have a choice in the matter, but you do.” “Charlie is my daughter. That isn’t a choice. She isn’t a choice.” The edge had drained from his voice, the same fading from his expression. As quickly as the beast had broken from its cage, Grant had locked it back up. He’d grown up a lot in seven years. Probably as much as I had, and I’d been the one raising a child. “Besides,” he continued, “you did it for seven years, having her when you were a teenager and putting yourself through school when she was a toddler. You did the hard part. I can manage the rest.” He worked up a smile, but it felt as contrived as the one I tried to return. “You do realize she’s going to become a teenager, right?” My eyebrow lifted. Grant held his smile, huffing. “No, she’s never turning into one of those.” “Good luck with that,” I teased back. Pushing off of the wall, he crossed the kitchen toward me. “I’ve got it, Ryan. So put that concern aside. It’s one less thing to worry about. I’ve got Charlie. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.” When he stopped in front of me, my smile was all real. “Thank you,” I breathed. “You have no idea . . .” He nodded as he looked like he was working something out. He turned a few circles, rubbing at his forehead. “Fine. Okay. You and Charlie are moving up to New York with me,” he said as if it was all set. “There are good doctors up there. I can take care of you. We can all be together.” My face flattened. “Grant, no. This isn’t why I did this. I wanted you to meet Charlie and form a relationship so when the time came for me”—I had to look away—“to go somewhere else, she wouldn’t be alone. I wanted you to be a part of our lives whenever you could fit us in, not for us to take over your whole life.” Grant flattened his hands on the table and leaned over so he was looking me straight on. Then he leaned in closer, until I could smell the faint scent of aftershave clinging to his skin, until I could see the flecks of bronze in his dark eyes. “You’re coming with me to New York.” “No. We can’t.” He cocked a brow, not blinking. “You didn’t give me a choice when you ran away and took our daughter with you. I’m not giving you a choice with this.” “Grant, slow down. You just found out you have a daughter. You just met her for the first time tonight,” I said, having a difficult time meeting his eyes with him so close. Having a difficult time keeping my breath even and my heart from overreacting. “Let that sink in before you make any sudden decisions. Just slow down. I’m not dying tomorrow.” Grant didn’t find any humor in my joke. “She’s my daughter. You’re her mother. I don’t need to slow anything down.” He spoke each word slowly as he stared into my eyes. “You’re both moving to

New York.” My body shook from a sudden spell of chorea, and at first, Grant’s face pulled into a wince. Then he pushed through it, his jaw setting with determination as he moved closer. He was showing me that he wasn’t scared. Proving to me he wasn’t. Today, maybe, but in a year, five years, would he still feel the same? When I had to be strapped to a wheelchair so my limp body wouldn’t slide out of it, when my food had to be liquefied so I didn’t choke on it, when words stopped forming and I couldn’t even control my muscles enough to form a smile, would he still feel the same? Would he still have the same look of resolve? I knew enough about Grant Turner to know the answer. “Why are you doing this?” I asked after a minute. “Despite whatever ’s come between us, you have always been and will always remain the closest thing to family I’ve ever had.” He leaned in the slightest bit closer, making my lungs catch when I felt the warmth of his breath on my mouth. “You’re the reason I have Charlie.” “Well, I can’t take all of the credit. You were there too.” As something that almost resembled a smirk pulled at his expression, my eyebrow lifted. “You’re not dying, Ryan Hale.” His eyes burned with the ardency of his words. “You might be hot shit, but not even all of your power and influence can change what’s going to happen.” His head cocked like he was challenging me on that. “I survived eighteen years with an abusive dad. I graduated high school and college with half a brain. I made it seven years without going back to the booze. I think I’m more than capable of kicking death’s ass.”

“I DON’T KNOW why everyone complains about airplanes being so uncomfortable. I could sleep in this seat every single night,” Charlie announced, reclining in her seat beside me for the hundredth time. We were almost to New York, and the novelty of her first flight still hadn’t worn off. “Well, not everyone gets to sit in seats as nice as the ones Grant got us.” As the flight attendant came by again with a snack basket, I shook my head. Charlie went with the opposite response. “What do you want this time?” I fought my smile, guessing she was making her fourth or fifth snack basket selection. Usually, I was more conscientious about what I let her eat, but this was her first flight and I was indulging her accordingly. Plus, it was strange the way death made a person reevaluate the way they lived. Did that extra junk food really matter in the end? The answer was no. It didn’t. “Pretzels, please,” Charlie decided after a moment’s deliberation. “Again?” I thanked the flight attendant as he handed the bag of pretzels and a napkin to me before moving to the next aisle. “A dozen snacks to choose from and you pick your third bag of pretzels?” “Yeah, but these are airplane pretzels. They taste better.” Charlie shrugged, taking the bag from me and ripping it open. Trying to prove her point, she held one out for me to try. My appetite had been poor lately and was totally gone whenever I flew, but I still let her pop the pretzel twist into my mouth. “You are so very right, Charlie-Bird. Airplane pretzels are the bee’s knees.” She gave a little giggle. “You’re so weird, Mom.” “You’re welcome.” As Charlie worked on her fresh bag of pretzels, I let my mind wander. It was so rare that I had a few minutes to just “be” that it felt like a luxury whenever I had the chance, even if it was just a few stolen seconds. I was usually too preoccupied planning for the future to let myself settle into the present, especially now, but ever since Grant had agreed to take care of Charlie when I no longer could, the future wasn’t so pressing. Now that she was taken care of, the future only held the promise of the long and painful process of losing myself, one independence at a time. The future was already written for me and there was nothing I could do to escape it, so I devoted myself to escaping worrying about the future instead. After Grant had left the next morning to head back to New York, he’d immediately taken care of everything that had to do with getting Charlie and me moved. From having a cab pick us up two days later for our early morning flight, to having a moving company take care of my belongings we

couldn’t bring on the plane, to getting our first class tickets and arranging for transportation once we landed in New York. The only thing I’d had to do was pack our suitcases and show up. “Hey, Mom?” “Hey, yeah?” I turned my head toward her, smiling when I found her clutching the football Grant had given her like she did her old, ratty teddy bear. “What do you think I should call Grant?” Her question required some thought before I could answer. “What do you think you should call him?” She crunched that question out with a pretzel. “I think I should call him Grant, because I just met him, and he is Grant Turner, arguably the best player in professional football today.” The corners of my mouth twitched. “Arguably.” “But he’s also my dad, so I think I could also call him Dad and be in the clear too. It’s a hard call.” She leaned into the window, staring out of it like she was waiting for an answer to appear in the clouds. “Well? What do you want to call him?” Charlie breathed against the window, fogging it up. “Dad.” She shrugged. “I want to call him Dad. I don’t want to be one of those kids who calls their parents by their first names. That’s just weird.” When she glanced over for support, I raised my hands. “Heaven forbid.” Her nose scrunched up a little. “Do you think he’d mind?” My hand found hers and wound around it. “I know he wouldn’t.” I didn’t feel the tremor hit me until it was rocking my body. It came out of nowhere, hard and violent. Most of my bouts of chorea had been more isolated—manifesting in my hands or feet—but this one spasmed through my whole body. Charlie’s hand slipped through mine in the process. Even though the shaking passed quickly, it wasn’t quick enough. She looked over at me, blinking with worried eyes as she looked ready to leap onto her chair and start screaming for a doctor. “Mom?” “I’m okay.” I forced a smile, exhaled a slow breath. “I’m just cold.” Charlie’s eyebrows pinched together as she ran her palm up and down my bare arm. “No, you’re not. You’re warm.” She had a point . . . “Sometimes I just get a little nervous flying. I’m okay. Don’t worry.” I leaned over to kiss her forehead, pasting on the unconcerned look every parent had mastered. The one we learned so we didn’t scare our kids when we ourselves were shitting our pants. “You told me flying doesn’t make you nervous,” she argued, still looking at me like she was worried. “Well, I changed my mind. Especially when I’m fairly confident you just consumed the last bag of pretzels on this plane when there’s still thirty minutes left of flight time. The other passengers might mutiny. Make us walk the plank right out into the clouds.” By the time I was done, all concern had been drained from Charlie’s face. Instead of her frown of doubt, she was grinning. “Mom? You’re weird.” I wound my arm behind her neck and pulled her to me. “You’re welcome.” LA GUARDIA AIRPORT WAS far less harrowing than I’d envisioned. I’d only flown once before— into the Portland airport—and when people talked about flying into New York, they described elbowto-elbow terminals and mile-wide luggage carousels. It was far more manageable than I’d guessed. If only every challenge in life could follow the same

example. I’d just managed to snag our last piece of luggage from the carousel and was scanning the overhead signs in hopes of finding one that would indicate what direction the taxis were in. I had the address of the place Grant had arranged for us to stay at, and I was looking forward to getting there and kicking my feet up after a long day of travel. “Okay, Charlie, I want you to hang onto my sleeve and not let go. I don’t care if you rip it off, just don’t let go, okay? We need to find where the taxis are.” I glanced down at Charlie, who had a totally unaffected look on her face, like she was a jet-setter already at the ripe old age of seven. When I looked back up, I noticed a half circle of people holding signs with names on them. One of them had R. Hale listed on it. I knew there had to have been hundreds of R. Hales in the States and any number of them dashing around one of the biggest airports in the country today, but the man was looking at me with expectation on his face. “Miss Hale?” he said when I took a couple of steps closer. I shrugged like I wasn’t sure if that was or wasn’t my name. “And the other Miss Hale?” The man smiled down at Charlie. “Actually, it’s Miss Hale—” I cut Charlie off before she could say anything more. I’d given her both mine and Grant’s last names when she’d been born. To the hospital staff on the other side of the country, the last name Turner didn’t mean a thing, but here in New York, the name Turner could come with a degree of recognition. I guessed this man somehow knew Grant was involved in having us picked up from the airport, so I didn’t exactly want my daughter announcing her last name as Hale-Turner. We didn’t need the media finding out about Grant Turner ’s love child. We had enough to deal with at the present moment. “Let me get those for you.” The man folded up the sign and tucked it into his pocket before reaching for the suitcases. “I’m sorry, but who arranged for this?” I asked as politely as I could. “Mr. Turner did,” he answered as if it should have been obvious. “If you’ll just follow me, we don’t have far to go.” When he started weaving through the crowd shuffling through the airport, I followed him, holding onto Charlie’s hand as though someone was going to come along any second and try to rip her away. “Are you a driver?” I asked. His head shook. “No, I’m the manager at the local Mercedes dealership.” My forehead creased. I guessed that explained why he had on a Mercedes-Benz polo shirt. “Can I ask why Gra—”—I caught myself and cleared my throat—“Mr. Turner would have you meet us at the airport?” When he glanced back at me, it felt like he was trying to gauge if I was messing with him. When he saw I was serious, he pulled something out of his pocket right before he came to a stop outside at a loading area. “Because Mr. Turner wanted me to drop off your car for you.” He propped the suitcases up before motioning at the glossy white car in front of us. It was nice. Like, the kind of nice you see speeding down the road and take a second look at, but never the kind of nice you imagine you’ll ever get close to—let alone close enough to drive. “I don’t understand,” was all I could say as the man held out the keys for me. When I didn’t move to take them, Charlie sighed and took them instead. “Mr. Turner purchased this car last night. Everything’s been taken care of. There’s an extra key inside, the owner ’s manual, and your title and registration will arrive in a few weeks.” I shifted, staring at the car with confused eyes. “Grant Turner purchased this?”

The man was trying so hard not to give me a funny look, but I guessed I deserved one. What he was saying was fairly obvious, but I was having a difficult time wrapping my head around it. Growing up, Grant hadn’t been able to afford a new pair of shoes. And now he was spending god only knew how many thousands of dollars on a Mercedes-Benz? “That’s correct. Grant Turner purchased this for a Miss Ryan Hale, with instructions to meet you here today to drop it off.” Another person with the same Mercedes emblem on his polo shirt was sitting in the driver ’s seat. Mercedes. I equated that brand with doctors and movie stars, certainly not the Ryan Hales of the world. My current car was twenty years old and had just passed the two-hundred-thousand-mile mark. The seats were fabric and threadbare, more of the paint chipping off than still on. “He bought this for me?” Charlie shook her head at my question, but the kind man remained patient. It was just a strange thing to find out someone had bought me a car out of the blue. A nice car. “He did, and might I add that he made a very fine choice.” The man shouldered up beside me like he was telling me a secret. “An S-series sedan. The nicest vehicle we had on the lot.” Charlie crept closer to the car, her eyes going big when she saw the backseat. She had enough space back there to do cartwheels. “Safe too?” I asked, the mom in me surfacing. “You’d be hard-pressed to find something safer.” The man moved to open the back door. “Mr. Turner wasn’t sure if your daughter would still be in any kind of car or booster seat, so he picked up both just to be safe. They’re in the trunk, but I’m going to go off of my grandparent knowledge and guess she’s a booster?” The man lifted his brow at me, waiting for my confirmation. “A booster,” I breathed, feeling so many emotions all at once that I couldn’t sort through them to decide which was the most dominant. Overwhelmed, grateful, surprised . . . even sadness, though in a lesser degree. Sadness because, as grand as this gift was and as good and as decent of a spot as I knew it had come from, it was one I wouldn’t get much, if any, use from. “Mr. Turner guessed you wouldn’t want to navigate through New York City traffic on your first day here, so we arranged to have Jeremy here drive you and your daughter to your destination. If that is acceptable to you?” While he went around to the trunk to pull out the booster seat, Charlie leapt into the backseat like she was diving into a ball pit. “This is awesome!” After I’d wheeled the suitcases back toward the trunk, the man exchanged the booster seat for the luggage. “Jeremy will drive you to the address Mr. Turner gave us, and I will meet you all there to pick him up. Is there anything else I can do for you right now, Miss Hale?” The booster seat in my hand, the brand-new, fancy car purring in front of me, my daughter ’s future secured and settled on—I couldn’t imagine anything else in the world I needed right then. “Thank you for everything.” I smiled before ducking into the back with Charlie and getting her booster situated. She was playing with buttons and mirrors and lights—there felt like there were a hundred of them —and squealing over every last one. “First Mercedes?” The driver, Jeremy, glanced back at us in the rearview mirror before pulling away from the car. Charlie and I exchanged a look. She didn’t know what a Mercedes was and I hoped she never grew up to care about those types of things, but she did know this was different from the old car we’d been puttering around in, sometimes chanting positive words when it took a few tries to start. “Yes,” I answered finally. “My first.”

“You sure are lucky, ma’am.” Relaxing into the backseat, I looked at Charlie. She was swinging her legs, clutching her football, and staring out the window at the big wide world of New York City, her new home. She already looked like she belonged here. “Yeah, I really am.”

“IS THIS A mansion?” Charlie reached across the seat and gave me a little shake when the car rolled to a stop. The traffic would take some time getting used to. It had taken us close to an hour to go fifteen miles. “What do you mean?” I asked absently, scrolling through the email my doctor in Portland had sent me with a list of neurologists in New York City who specialized in Huntington’s. There were a lot, which was awesome, except I knew none of them could change my prognosis. “Man. Sion.” Charlie turned my head, so I was looking out the window she was gaping out of. I gaped with her. I thought we’d stopped at another endless traffic light, but we hadn’t. We’d stopped in front of a house. Or as Charlie liked to call it—a Man. Sion. “Well, is it?” Charlie rolled her window down and stuck her head out as far as it would go, inspecting the structure before us. “Yes, this is a mansion,” I answered, leaning toward the driver. “Did we make a wrong turn?” Jeremy gave me a funny look. “Nope. We’re here.” “We’re here?” I repeated. “Where’s here?” Tapping the navigation screen with the address on it, he read, “Fifteen-twelve Legacy Lane.” Then he opened the door and stepped out. “Oh my gosh. This is it? This is where we get to live?” Charlie had her seat belt undone and was shoving out of the door before I’d regained muscle memory. I double-checked that the address Grant had texted me a couple of days ago was the same one listed on the car ’s navigation, was the same one hanging above the wide double doors at the front of the house. It was. “Is this . . .?” I managed as I slid out the same door Charlie had. She was busy sprinting around, checking out the different flower beds dotted around the property. “Grant Turner ’s estate? Yeah, it sure is.” Jeremy was lifting our luggage out of the trunk but paused a moment to inspect the place. “Not too bad for playing football, right?” I smiled but didn’t answer—I was still trying to recover from the car, the mansion, and that Grant had brought us here instead of to a house he’d rented for us. Hell, I was still trying to catch up on the last couple of weeks and all that had happened. Moving from Oregon to Texas to New York. Telling Grant that he had a child, introducing them, admitting the reason why, agreeing to move up here with him. Life was going too fast, and it made me panic. I didn’t have my eighties to look forward to the way most of my peers had—I had years left in my hourglass. Months of actual enjoyable life where I

was still mostly in control of my body and mind. If life kept moving at this rate . . . I wouldn’t think about it. Dreading what was coming didn’t change the inevitability of it. It didn’t change the future, but it could lessen the happiness I had in my present. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Hale?” Jeremy asked after he’d wheeled our suitcases up to the front door and handed me the second key to the car. Besides Grant Turner in front of me right this moment so I could ask him what the hell he was thinking? “No, thank you so much.” I smiled as he walked down the driveway toward the manager ’s car, waving good-bye to Charlie. She was still frolicking through the front yard, beelining toward the massive fountain she’d just caught sight of. Unbelievable. A fountain practically the size of a tennis court. I didn’t know why that was what hit me the most when everything else staggered around the estate was just as impressive, but it did. Grant and I had been almost hauled away by the cops one night when we jumped into a public fountain outside of The Clink, and now, he owned one twice the size of that one. I didn’t hear the door open behind me, but a woman stepped out onto the stoop where I stood, watching my daughter roll the legs up on her overalls once she’d reached the fountain. “I’m Mrs. Kent, Mr. Turner ’s housekeeper.” “That’s got to be an impossible task.” I smiled at the elderly woman watching Charlie the same way I was—with amusement and delight. “It certainly was in the beginning, but he’s gotten better.” I looked at her from the corners of my eyes, remembering Grant’s version of “housekeeping.” It had been putting the dirty dishes around the sink’s general area. “Well, he uses the hamper now in any case.” Mrs. Kent’s comment made me laugh, despite being spun for another loop that Grant had a housekeeper. One who had a friendly face and wore an apron that looked starched and everything. I felt like I’d just been dropped off at Wayne Manor instead of Grant’s home. “Is it okay, Mom?” Charlie shouted, one foot already in the fountain. My instinct was to shout absolutely—it was an unseasonably warm day and life was short—but I glanced at Mrs. Kent first. “In my opinion, a fountain like that is for more than just admiring.” She winked at me before grabbing the luggage handles and rolling them in through the doors. “I’ve maybe been known to dip my toes into it a time or two myself.” After I’d given Charlie the thumbs-up, she didn’t hesitate to finish crawling inside. The fountain came to her knees, but she’d only managed to roll her overalls up to her mid-calf. Instead of worrying about getting her clothes wet, Charlie did Charlie and dropped the rest of the way inside, fully submerging herself. As she did, happy shrieks and splashes echoed across the expansive yard. She was already making herself at home. She already seemed happy here. As much of a relief as that was, I still had to talk with Grant. About a list of things—the car and him bringing us to live in his house at the top of that list. As I pulled out my phone, I noticed movement from the next stretch of land over. Neighbors. They were out on their lawn, not trying to be subtle about checking out what was going on next door. The lots of land were big enough that I couldn’t make out what they were looking at exactly, but when I guessed their gaze shifted my way, I made sure to give them a big, overdone wave. They didn’t wave back. Great. Already making friends with the neighbors who’d just witnessed my daughter splashing around a decorative yard feature in her clothes. Not that I gave a crap what others thought, but it made

me realize we wouldn’t be able to keep our presence in Grant’s life a secret for very long. The media had been bad in his hometown; I couldn’t imagine what it would be like up where he lived and played. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out who I was and who, in turn, Charlie was. It wouldn’t be long before our names would be linked to Grant and judgments would be made and assumptions drawn. It wouldn’t be long after that before they figured out what was happening to me. Whether it happened through digging the way the media did or people figuring out that my dropping things and stumbling weren’t due to acute clumsiness, it wouldn’t be long before the nation would know what was wrong with me. I had to make sure Charlie heard it from me before she stumbled upon it in a headline. Thinking about having that conversation made my stomach fold over, but I knew I’d have to tell her. The only reason I hadn’t told her yet was because I wanted her to have as many possible days or weeks or months as a child who didn’t carry the weight of knowing her parent was sick. I wanted her to have as many worry-free moments as I could afford. I wanted the best for my daughter. I always had and I always would. Every decision I’d made had been tied to that reason. After a few minutes, I accepted that the novelty of swimming in a fountain was not going to wear off anytime soon, so I took a seat on one of the front steps and let Charlie enjoy herself. Mrs. Kent came back a couple of times to check to see if I’d like a drink or anything to eat, but I thanked her and said I was good. Another half hour had rolled by when a truck came passing through the gate at the street. Unlike the old one he and his dad had worked on restoring back in Texas, this truck was newer. It wasn’t anything flashy or lifted or anything like that—it was just a simple, everyday type of truck. I guessed it was Grant since he said he’d be finishing up practice about this time, but I wasn’t sure until I saw him stick his head out the window when he broke to a stop in front of me. I was upset at him. At least a little. And I had some big things to work out with him. But damn if I couldn’t help my smile when his formed. “If I wasn’t sure before, now I know she’s my daughter.” Grant checked his rearview mirror, chuckling as he watched Charlie spray a stream of water from her mouth like she was one of the marble fish spitting water into the fountain. “She’s all you,” I said. “So?” Grant’s brows lifted as he shoved out of his door. “What do you think?” I cleared my throat. “I’m still trying to decide what I think. Especially when there’s so much to ‘think’ about.” His forehead creased into a couple of lines. “Okay, I think I remember that tone. Actually, I could never forget it. That’s your I’m-pissed-but-I’m-trying-not-to-show-it voice, right?” “You remember.” Grant closed the truck door and started toward me. Slowly. “Impossible to forget.” “Why didn’t you tell me the address you gave me was your home?” I scooted over to give him space to take a seat beside me on the stair. My voice sounded more tired than pissed. “Because I figured you wouldn’t be happy if I did. I was right.” He lifted his arm at where I sat when he paused at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s not that I’m not happy. I just feel kind of tricked.” “I wasn’t trying to trick you.” My eyebrow arched. “Then what were you trying to do?” Rubbing the back of his neck, a sheepish look cast over his face. After a minute, he sighed. “Okay, fine. I was trying to trick you. A little.” He sighed again. “Do you not want to be here?” His gaze

shifted to where Charlie was still splashing around in the fountain, oblivious to who had just pulled into the driveway. “I don’t think I have enough mental capacity to arrive at an answer to that question yet. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you bought me a car. A nice car.” Grant nudged me. “That car ’s pretty badass, right?” “The car. The house.” I nudged him back, but he barely budged. The result of him being a wall of muscle and brawn. “Not too shabby for some kid from The Clink.” He chuckled. “There are still mornings I wake up and don’t have a clue where I am or how I got there. Feels like I fell asleep in one world and woke up in another some days.” “I know the feeling.” We sat like that for a minute, smiling as we watched Charlie having a grand time. Then Grant turned so he was facing me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that the place I arranged for you two to stay was my home. I should have, and I knew I should have . . . but I didn’t.” His eyes drifted toward the front doors. “When I bought this place, I always imagined that one day I’d be able to enjoy it with my family. You and Charlie, you’re the only family I’ve got, Ryan.” His jaw popped as he worked it loose, still staring at his house like he was seeing something I couldn’t. “I let the idea of you guys being here with me get ahead of my better judgment. If you want to go somewhere else, I’ll understand. Or at least I’ll pretend to understand. Shit, I’ll even act understanding.” When he peered at me, his half-smile was in place, the storms of contemplation having passed. “How big of you,” I teased, sliding out of the cardigan I’d slipped on earlier, anticipating it being cool up here in New York City, but it had turned out to be a warm day. I didn’t miss the way Grant looked at me, the way his throat bobbed when I slid my hair over my shoulder. I also didn’t miss the way my stomach felt when I realized he was watching me that way. The way I remembered him looking at me when he’d wanted me. The way he’d admired me, taking his time looking before touching. God, it had been years since I’d felt that stomach-bottoming out phenomenon I was now. Years since I’d been looked at the way Grant was appraising me right now, because no one could look at me and make me feel the things he did. No one in this life at least. With a long exhale, he acted like he had to make himself look away. “Before you make your final decision, let me add a few things that might help sway your vote.” “In your favor, no doubt.” His dark brow lifted. “No doubt.” He let that punctuate the air before continuing. “I’ve already moved into the pool house, so you don’t have to feel strange about ‘sharing’ a house with me. You know, in case that, and how you were going to explain that to Charlie, was one of your concerns. I thought it would be easier to just live in totally separate structures.” He’d moved into his pool house? Wait. Grant Turner had a pool house? “What? No way. We are not kicking you out of your house, Grant—” Before I could continue, he cut me off. “Already done. This behemoth is too damn big for one person anyway. I get lost, so the pool house is a better set-up for me anyway.” “Grant, no—” “And let me just throw in that Mrs. Kent prepares nutritious, well-balanced meals every day, there’s a library inside that’s a perfect place for Charlie to do her schoolwork in, and the city’s best neurologist specializing in Huntington’s office is a ten-minute drive away.” When he was done listing things off on his fingers, he gave me a victorious smile, like he already knew my answer but was just dying to hear me say it. I sighed, knowing my answer already too. I just wasn’t quite ready to give in. “Anything else?” Grant motioned at the fountain Charlie had moved on to playing a mermaid in. “I’ve got a swimming fountain.”

My smile came naturally, which was a nice change. Most of them had been the forced kind lately. “Sold.” Beside me, he visibly relaxed. Almost like a weight had been lifted that had been capable of crushing him. “Good,” he exhaled. “And you’re wrong about us being the only family you’ll ever have. One day that will change. One day you’ll meet someone amazing, and you’ll have more amazing children with her.” My throat bobbed as I swallowed, my eyes getting blurry as I watched the child he’d created with me. Grant had always been special to me. It might have taken the world a while to see it, but now the rest of the planet knew how wonderful he was too. “Nah, I don’t think so.” He sniffed, shaking his head. My head leaned back into his broad shoulder as we watched Charlie. At the same time the motion was familiar, it was foreign. Time had blurred the sensation, making it sharper. “Why not?” His chin tucked over my head at the same time I felt his arm come around behind me. I felt his throat move against my head when he swallowed. “Because how do you go and fall in love with someone new when you left your heart with someone else?”

“WHY DID YOU used to dress like that?” Charlie’s voice echoed from the massive living room into the equally massive kitchen. Grant had given us the grand tour a few hours ago, but I still couldn’t remember where the elevator was that would take us to the second and third floor. You know, if the stairs were too big of an inconvenience. “Because I had to look tough, that’s why,” Grant answered as I counted down the timer on the microwave. “Why did you have to look tough?” “So I wouldn’t get my as . . .”—a quick clearing of his throat—“so I wouldn’t get my butt kicked. That’s why I had to look tough.” “You don’t dress like that anymore.” “That’s because I don’t have to worry about getting my butt kicked anymore.” “Why not?” Charlie asked as the microwave timer went off. “Because now I’m the one who does the butt-kicking. Every Sunday on the field.” Her laugh chimed through the house. “But instead of clothes that look ten sizes too big, you wear spandex that look ten sizes too small.” Halfway back into the living room, I choked on my laugh. Both from Charlie’s words and the wounded look on Grant’s face. “Hey, the spandex came as a package deal with the contract. I don’t have a choice.” “Sure, you don’t.” I winked at Charlie as I moved into the room. “That’s why you’re wearing spandex right here as we speak.” Grant’s wounded expression turned on me. Then he pinched the tights in question. “These are compression tights. My trainer makes me wear these after an intense practice. Again, no choice in the matter. Package deal with the contract.” This time, Charlie winked at me. “Sure, it is,” she said in a sarcastic tone that made her mama proud. “Two against one. Why do I feel like I’m witnessing a trend emerging?” “Trend is already fully emerged.” My shoulder lifted as I approached where the two of them were stretched out on the couch, flipping through what looked like a photo album. “Sorry.” “Compression tights,” Grant repeated. My eyes dropped to his Lycra leggings, and I shook my head. To be fair, he had on a pair of athletic shorts over them, but still. “Whatever, Superman.” Charlie giggled, flipping another page in the album.

Grant sighed, rubbing at his shoulder. “After today’s practice, I’m not feeling so ‘super ’ or made of steel.” I lifted what I’d just pulled out of the microwave and crawled beside him onto the couch. It was one of those huge, sprawling couches with recliners and cup holders built into it. Very much of the bachelor persuasion, which followed the theme of most of the house. The most feminine touch was the flowers growing in the beds outside, making me wonder if a woman had ever lived here with him or even shared a night every once in a while. The lack of incriminating evidence in his bedroom and bathroom indicated that none had . . . not that I’d checked. “Old war wound acting up?” I said, getting him to sit up just enough so I could drape the warm compress over his shoulder. Grant’s head tipped back toward me, his eyes finding mine. “Best battle I ever fought.” We held each other ’s stare for a minute, long enough for me to be transported back in time to when we’d been nothing but a couple of kids that society had turned its collective back on. I saw the same mix of strength and rage in his eyes as I’d seen back then. He saw the same mix of courage and fear in mine, I guessed from the way his forehead pinched together. “Sweet Jesus, what is that?” Grant practically moaned a minute later, his whole body relaxing. I wrestled with a smile as I adjusted the warm pad a little higher up on his shoulder. “Witchy voodoo medicine.” “So much better than those top-of-the-line doctors and physical therapists the Storm keeps on the payroll.” Grant’s eyes closed as I gently rubbed his shoulder through the pillow of the compress. “What is it really?” Charlie’s attention turned from the album to what we were talking about. “It’s just rice inside a couple of pieces of fabric. Then you microwave it for a minute.” She shrugged like it was no big deal. “Mom and I made it.” “I love witchy voodoo medicine.” Grant sighed again. “You two should mass produce these things, and I can sell them to a bunch of guys I know who have too much money and too many muscle aches. They would eat these things up.” “What did you do to your shoulder?” Charlie asked, sitting up to look over at where I’d draped the warm rice bag on him. She’d changed out of her wet clothes and was in her pajamas. It was late again, and she was still up, but there had been lots of special exceptions lately. Lots of reasons to let bedtime slide a little. “I dislocated it.” “When?” I saw Charlie scan through her memory, searching for the game where Grant Turner had dislocated his shoulder. “When I was thirteen. Just a kid.” His tone was a note deeper, undetectable to anyone who hadn’t spent countless days with him. “How?” Grant paused a moment, checking me before answering. When I gave a slight nod, he said, “A fight.” “Who’d you get into a fight with?” Charlie had totally twisted around in her seat, fully invested in the story now. “A man.” My hand still rubbing his shoulder started to tremble. This time, it wasn’t from the Huntington’s. I managed to rein it in quickly though, before even Grant picked up on it. “Why did you get into a fight with a man when you were only thirteen?” Charlie’s big, innocent eyes blinked at Grant, waiting.

He didn’t know what to do; I could see it on his face. He didn’t want to betray his daughter by lying to her, but at the same time, he didn’t want to betray me by telling anyone what we’d agreed was my story to tell should I ever want or choose to. I made the choice, so he didn’t have to betray either of us. “Because he was helping me,” I said calmly, looking her in the eye. “Your dad got into the fight with that man because he was trying to save me.” “Save you from what?” Stalling to figure out a way to word my answer, I wetted my lips. “That man, he was trying to take something from me.” Charlie’s next question came before I was finished giving my answer to her prior one. “What was he trying to take?” Like Grant, I wanted to be honest with our daughter . . . but I didn’t want her to know the world as I’d known it. I’d done everything I could to give her a life wholly different than the one I’d been born into, and I wasn’t going to bring her into it by giving her a detailed account of my almost-rape at nine by a man three times my age, the very “boyfriend” my mother had claimed could do no wrong. “Something I didn’t want to give him,” I answered as evenly as I could, not missing the way Grant’s jaw was grinding, almost like he was trying to crush through a sheet of metal. “And Grant saved you?” she asked, looking between us. I nodded, unable to keep from seeing the look on his face when he’d barged into my room. Unable to keep from remembering the sounds and sights of that fight. Unable to keep from remembering the way he’d looked after, the way his hand had felt reaching for mine, the way I’d felt when Grant told me I was okay and that he’d never let anything happen to me, before he carried me out of that room and hardly let me out of his sights ever again. “He did,” I answered my daughter. “Is that why you fell in love with her? Because you were like a prince who rode in to save her?” Charlie’s gaze moved back to the photo album, which I could now see was filled with old photos of Grant’s and my life back in The Clink. The one she was staring at right then was the one of him and me at his senior prom. “No.” Grant shook his head slowly. “I fell in love with her because she saved me.” That answer made her smile. “Who did she save you from?” Grant’s head turned toward me. The storm in his eyes calmed instantly. “From myself.” “THIS KID GOES out faster than I do after the first day of summer training.” Grant yawned from down the couch, where Charlie had passed out in what I affectionately called her starfish position. Arms and legs straight out, taking up as much space as a seven-year-old’s body could. “Don’t know who she gets that from.” I handed him the popcorn bowl, saving the last handful for him. After we’d given her a detailed account of every single photo in the photo album, Charlie had managed to talk us into making it a movie/popcorn night because what was another hour and a half when you’d already blown through bedtime? She’d made it through half of the movie before she fell asleep just like that. One second she was awake, tossing popcorn into her mouth and commenting on Julie Andrews’s wardrobe, and the next, she was lights-out. “Hey, I’m still awake over here. When have I ever gone out like that? One minute wide awake and bouncing around, and the next one in a heavy breathing coma?” When he shifted to sit up, the rice pad fell from his shoulder.

“I can think of a few instances.” The tone in my voice gave away what I was getting at, but the arch in my brow didn’t hurt either. “That’s different. You wore me out. With all of that stamina and flexibility and creativity and yeah . . .” Grant’s face pinched up on one side. “Our daughter is sleeping two feet away. Sorry. I’m not used to being around kids and having to watch what I say. I’m used to being around giants whose brains have been cannibalized by their dicks and have no filter. And I just said dick. In front of a seven-yearold.” Grant groaned as he tipped his head back. “A sleeping seven-year-old who wouldn’t wake up to the sound of an ice cream truck playing outside of her ear. It’s fine.” As I sat up, I stretched to wake up my muscles a little. It helped with the chorea after being still for so long. “That’s part of the reason I was hesitant about us being here. You’re used to being alone. Doing your own thing. With us here, you’re not going to have a lot of breathing room. Bachelor life is going to take a definite hit having a seven-year-old running around and bathing in your fountain, instead of the Playmates you’re probably used to.” Grant huffed as he tossed the last few pieces of popcorn into his mouth. “That’s the exact reason I want you guys here. I’m sick of being alone. I hate the bachelor lifestyle. And the only Playmates that have tried swimming in my fountain are the same two I had security remove.” I felt my mouth fall open. The Playmates had been a random guess. “You had Playmates in your fountain and you called security to have them removed?” “They were only interested in me for my money. I don’t want to get mixed up with someone or someones so shallow.” He was smirking at me, loving the semi-shocked look on my face. “And what are you holding out for? A girl who loves you for you?” I fired back, wiping the shock from my face. “God, no. Nothing as far-fetched as that.” His head shook. “I’m waiting for a girl who wants me for my body. You know, something deep and genuine like that.” The level of seriousness he’d managed to express was a true testimony to how he’d honed the art of smart-ass. Fighting a smile, I replied, “You’re covered wrist to ankle in ‘compression tights,’ nursing a wounded shoulder, and your thumb’s three times its normal size. And you smell like you just finished a practice during the first week of summer training.” I curled my nose in his direction. “Good luck finding some poor martyr to want you for your body.” He jacked his brows at me a few times. “I certainly seem to remember a certain ‘martyr ’ who didn’t seem to have any hesitations when it came to my body.” The insinuation in his voice made me shift. To distract myself, I reached out to pick up Charlie, not realizing I didn’t know where I was taking her to bed until I had already wrestled all sixty pounds of her against me. “Whoa, muscles. Easy, I can get her.” Grant popped off from the couch and reached for Charlie’s limp body draped around mine. “No, I’ve got her.” “Ryan—” “Grant, really. I want to,” I said, winding my arms tighter around her. “It won’t be long before . . . I won’t be able to carry . . .” I couldn’t complete any of my thoughts, all of them too painful to finish. “I’ve got her. Just, would you mind showing me where I can put her tonight?” Grant watched me clutching Charlie, probably doubting if I could carry her on my best day without adding Huntington’s into the equation, but I had this. “Yeah, sure. Follow me.” He moved across the living room and waited for me in the hall. “Her bedroom’s upstairs next to yours.” I followed him down the hall. Thankfully he’d gone to the elevator instead of the stairs because I

could already feel the weight of her tiring me out. I’d carried Charlie to bed plenty of nights, but the space in a one-bedroom apartment was a heck of a lot different than the space in a mansion. “It’s nice there’s already an elevator built into the house. It’ll save us from having to install one when, you know.” Grant punched the up button a few times, sighing like he’d just said something he wasn’t supposed to. “When I’m confined to a wheelchair?” I said what he couldn’t. “Grant, when I get to that point, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want you two to have to see that all day, every day. When I have to go into a wheelchair, that will mean things are bad. My mind, my speech, it won’t just be my body malfunctioning.” When the elevator doors opened, Grant let me go in first. When he followed, his eyes were trained on the floor. “I want you two to remember me like this, not be haunted by me like that.” He took in a slow breath. “Ryan, I’d hire a nurse. A doctor. A hundred of them if I have to, but we’re not just shipping you off to some home. Get that out of your head right now.” My eyes narrowed on the elevator panel as I waited for him to punch in the floor number. I didn’t know if we were going to the second or third floor. Finally, he punched the three button. “No, you get out of your head the plan to keep me here, because that is not happening under any circumstance. This is my life, and I get to call the shots. There are good facilities for people with Huntington’s. With trained staff equipped to deal with patients with this disease specifically.” I didn’t know why I was explaining this to him. I shouldn’t have to. This was my choice. Not his. Mine. “What anyone needs when they’re sick is to be around the people who love them and want the best for them. That place is here.” Grant’s hand curled around the handlebar running around the elevator, his knuckles pressing against his skin. “I’m not ‘sick.’ I can’t ‘get better.’ There’s no hospital I’ll ever be able to check into where I can check out and be healed.” My voice shook, but my stare remained unwavering. “I’m going to get worse. Every day, I’ll be worse than the day before. Until one day, you won’t even recognize me. I’ll be a shell, an empty room. That is not how I want my daughter to remember me, Grant Turner.” I backed out of the elevator, so I didn’t have to break eye contact with him. “That is not how I want you to remember me.” “Charlie and I will remember you as the woman you are today, Ryan Hale. The strong, loyal, protective one standing in front of me right now. This is who you are, who you’ve been, and who you’ll always be—right up until the day you die.” He didn’t say anything more after that. He just turned down the hall and didn’t stop until he’d almost come to the end of it. Opening a door, he stepped inside, and as I walked in behind him, I noticed a soft glow of light spill into the room. Other than the glow of the nightlight, it was dark inside the room, but I was able to make out a few things. Like the three-piece matching bedroom set in white, the bed complete with four posters and a canopy. There was a desk lined up against one of the windows looking out front where the fountain was, and a tall bookshelf beside it held a few titles but left loads of space for Charlie to fill. A few footballs were propped up on her dresser, with names scribbled on them that would no doubt make her shriek when she read them in the morning, but there was a good assortment of “girl” toys waiting for her as well. Toys I recognized from the bed of his truck the night he’d first met her. In a week’s time, he’d figured out already which ones were more Charlie appropriate. “You already made her a room?” My voice sounded off as I moved toward the bed Grant was pulling the covers back from. He shrugged and stepped aside to let me lay her down. “Of course.” He didn’t say it as though it had been the right thing to do, but the only thing to do. He said it as

though a man who’d just found out he had a seven-year-old daughter had no other option than to invite her and her mother to come live with him, then make a room that was special and unique to who that child was. God, the ball in my throat that appeared out of nowhere would not be swallowed. Of all the bad decisions I’d made, of all the wrong choices, at least I knew I’d gotten this one right. At least I knew bringing my daughter and her father together was one of the few right things I’d done in my life. After bundling the blankets around her, I backed away from the bed. She was sleeping soundly in her new bed, in her new room, in her new house. I had a sudden flash of her being all grown up, my beautiful Charlie as a young woman, and the image of it choked me up loudly enough that Grant heard. “Crazy, right?” He came up behind me, close enough I could feel his chest hard against my back. “Her being here. You being here. I’m still trying to catch up.” “Me too.” My head tipped back enough to see that he was looking down at me. “But I don’t think I’ll ever catch up.” “Yeah, me either,” he said, pressing a little closer. “But you’re here, and our daughter ’s here. That’s enough for me.” That feeling was hitting me again—the familiar one from having him close. He was still hardwired to every nerve ending in my body, his touch to my every need. I couldn’t keep feeling these kinds of things. I couldn’t do that to myself again, but most importantly, I couldn’t do that to him again. Too much heartache and pain had been spilled in the name of our love, and reopening that book would only lead to tragedy. Just ask anyone who’s ever been in love with a person whose body and mind was consumed by Huntington’s. “You said my room is next door?” I stepped away from Grant and out into the hall. It calmed my mind, but my body remained stirred. “Yeah, it’s right here.” Grant’s shoulders were tense as he moved by me, opening the door next to Charlie’s. By the time I’d stepped inside, he already had the lights on and was moving around, closing the blinds after checking that the locks on the windows were sealed. “This is huge.” My eyes widened as I did a slow turn. “Our last apartment wasn’t as big as this one bedroom is.” “It’s the master bedroom. It’s supposed to be big.” His shoulder lifted as he opened up a few drawers in one of the large dressers. “I dug out most of my stuff from the dressers and closets, but there’re a few things left. Just toss ‘em into a box or something if you need any more space.” He moved toward closed double doors, pulled them open, and switched on a few lights. I thought it was another room, maybe an office or something, but no, it was a closet. Like the place where one hangs and stores their clothes. “There’s a chandelier in your closet.” I motioned at the crystal fixture sparkling inside the mammoth closet. “It came with the house when I bought it. It’s not like I’m a chandelier-in-my-closet kind of guy.” He shoved a few suits and dress shirts tighter against one of the racks on the wall. He’d cleared out the whole closet save for a few things. Which might have been the sweetest thing ever, but I didn’t need all of that space. I’d been able to stuff all of my clothing into a suitcase. Yeah, it was a big one, but even if I hung everything I owned, it might take up one-tenth of the closet space alone, not to mention the empty drawers. I’d been so distracted by the closet that what should have hit me first finally registered. “This is your room, Grant.” He turned off the lights in the closet as he stepped out. “Yeah?”

“Your bedroom.” “Yeaaah?” he repeated, clearly not seeing this as any big thing. “I can’t take your bedroom,” I said like it should have been obvious. Because it should have. For reasons. Lots of reasons. “But I’m in the pool house now. So it’s your room.” “But you can’t stay in the pool house forever.” Grant cocked his brow. “Have you seen the pool house? It’s hooked up. Believe me, I could spend my life a happy man in the pool house.” “Yeah, but this is your house. Your room. I can’t take it.” “Too late. Already done.” Grant wiped his hands together like that-was-that, but that-was-not-that. “No, Grant.” “How long are you planning on arguing this out with me tonight? Just so I have an idea of what kind of sleep I’m getting tonight so I can prepare myself for the amount of suffering tomorrow at practice.” He crossed his arms and waited. He knew my weak points, and he’d never had a problem extorting them. “Fine. Then I’ll sleep in Charlie’s room or one of the million guest rooms tonight until we can continue this ‘discussion’ tomorrow and get my room changed.” “Yeah, ‘cause waking up to your mom snuggled up beside you on your first night in a new place wouldn’t be weird. Talk about leaving some emotional scars. Deep emotional ones.” He made a clucking sound with his tongue, shaking his head. “You are diabolical. In every way a human being can be.” “You’ve known that for years. No need to act so surprised.” He shoved off the bedroom wall and smirked at me in passing, knowing he’d backed me into a corner. Temporarily. “Oh, just remembered.” He snapped his fingers and broke to a stop just before stepping out of the room. “The shower in the pool house is being remodeled. Would you mind if I hopped in the shower real quick before hitting the sack? Since I obviously smell so nice?” My stomach fluttered, but I kept my expression unaffected. “Be my guest.” “Well, technically you’re my guest, but thanks for letting me use my own shower.” He shot me a wide smile, messing with me, as he headed into the bathroom. My eyes narrowed at him. “Dia. Bolical.” “You like it,” he retorted with a wink. Yeah, I did. That was the problem.

HOW HAD I gotten here? New York City. Grant Turner ’s place. His room. Hovering by the dresser, trying to distract myself from the knowledge that he was in the next room, showering. How had I wound up here when my life had been going in a for years? For seven years, life had been moving in the opposite direction of Grant, and now, here I was, occupying the same small space as him. The impact of everything that had happened caught up to me, hitting me square in the chest. The past week, I’d been living on autopilot, dizzy from the rush of adrenaline, but now it had all caught up to me. Grant had taken everything better than I’d hoped he would. He hadn’t just stepped up to the plate— he’d made the plate his bitch, dominating it the way he dominated the field every Sunday. He’d shifted into the role of a father like it was a second skin, looking at Charlie with the kind of familiarity that suggested he’d been there for every one of her seven years. I’d always known Grant would be the kind of father I’d want my daughter to have, but I’d never guessed he’d forgive me so easily, that he’d be able to move on so quickly, as though he didn’t believe in holding grudges or being resentful. Instead, he treated me as he had all those years ago, as though nothing had come between us and kept us apart. He’d gone out of his way to take care of me. How had I gotten here? That was the question still cycling through my head when I heard the shower turn off. In the minute that followed, I did everything I could not to think about what was behind that closed bathroom door. What being a wet and naked Grant Turner. What being the only man I’d ever loved and the only man I ever would. My life was winding to an end, but his was only really getting started. There’d be more for him, despite whatever he said or thought. There’d be love, heartache, and more love. For Grant, I would be one of the many. For me, he was the one of them all. When the bathroom door opened, a fog of steam burst into the bedroom. It wasn’t a plume; it was a thick fog. “Do you have any skin left after that shower?” I asked, turning toward the dresser, so my back was to the bathroom. Grant fresh from a shower had always been a weakness for me, and I guessed nothing about that had changed. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

I saw him from the corner of my eyes, standing beside me. When my gaze shifted to confirm whether he had or had not scalded off his skin, my breath caught. “Why are you naked?” I blinked a few times to keep my eyes facing north. It was a chore though. I felt as though two metal weights dangled from my eyeballs and were trying to draw them downward. Grant chuckled, pulling open the bottom drawer. “I’m not naked.” “Why are you mostly naked?” When the fight against gravity became too much and my eyes dropped below his navel, I literally felt flames licking up my throat. Fuck me. That man had always had an amazing body, but now . . . I knew women who’d auction off their souls for a chance to be entertained by a body like that for a night. “Because I figured you wouldn’t prefer the alternative of me being fully naked.” Grant pinched at the white towel tied around his waist as he pulled a pair of light grey sweats from the drawer. “But since I can tell from your shock I was wrong, what the hell.” In one flick of a finger, the towel fell to the floor. “Grant!” It came out as more of a shriek than I’d intended, but he was standing two feet in front of me, fully naked. “What?” His voice was innocent, but his smirk was the opposite. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.” His muscles rippled when he shrugged, tugging on his sweats. “Just seven years older is all.” When he turned to pick up his abandoned towel, I got the full view of his back which, like this, looked as wide as the span of my arms. “And seven years bigger,” I muttered, still unable to believe he’d just bared it all like that. Actually, the more I thought about it, I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Grant wasn’t exactly modest. Glancing back at me, he winked. “Why thank you. Glad you noticed.” When I caught what he was getting at, heat settled beneath my cheeks. “That’s not what I was talking about.” “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t what you were thinking about.” He slid the waistband of his sweats around until he found a comfortable spot. Which happened to be a good half foot below his navel. “In your hurry to make me uncomfortable, you forgot to put on underwear.” I flattened my expression to give the impression that I was not half as shook up as he thought I was. The truth was, I was probably twice as shook up as he thought. “I don’t believe in them,” he said simply. “You don’t believe in what? Underwear?” I felt my forehead crease. “I’m anti-underwear these days.” “Anti-underwear?” “You know how some people are anti-gun or anti-abortion? Well, I’m anti-underwear,” he explained with a shrug. “But are you?” My arms folded and I looked across the room. “Am I what?” “Uncomfortable?” He moved a step closer, when he’d already been five steps too close. Now, it wasn’t just the image of him clouding my mind. It was the way he smelled. The sound of his breath. The feel of the warmth cascading off of his body. Sealing my eyes closed, I focused. I imagined the most Zen, peaceful place on the planet. “No,” I said as firmly as I was capable. “Liar.” I heard the twisted smile in his voice. After a moment, I felt him move closer. “Why do I make you uncomfortable? I never used to.” My eyes opened right into his. As dark as Grant’s eyes were, a person would never notice the flecks of light in them if they didn’t get close enough to see them. Up close, his eyes were more light than dark.

“You don’t make me uncomfortable.” I could hear the lie in my voice like it was a shout. One by one, Grant’s hands formed around the outsides of my elbows, his fingers circling around my arms. His body pressed closer until his chest touched mine each time he inhaled. “Then why are you trembling?” I’d been so focused on the other places my body was overreacting, I hadn’t noticed that I was, in fact, trembling. “It’s my chorea.” Grant’s head tipped, his eyes holding mine as his smile deepened. “Convenient. Blame it on the Huntington’s.” His thumbs skimmed the skin inside of my elbows, the remainder of his hands drawing me closer. “There’s nothing convenient about Huntington’s,” I said, attempting to sound stern. Instead, I sounded about as stern as a mewing kitten. “I know there’s not.” His eyes were playful, his smile holding. “At least until it comes to having to explain why your body starts to shake whenever I come close.” His head dropped, his mouth moving just outside of my ear. “Why do I make you uncomfortable, Ryan?” His voice, his body. His words, his touch. He was wrecking my resolve, one moment at a time, until I could feel the last of it about to crumble. “It’s been a long day, Grant.” “It has.” His head nodded beside mine. “Let’s keep up this trend and make it a long night too.” My heart started to echo in my eardrums as a growing ache pulsed inside me. The last man I’d been with was Grant. Having a child had a way of sending the guys running, not that that mattered anyway. I knew enough about the way Grant had made me feel when we’d been intimate to know that no one else could ever hope to live up to the standard he’d set. Sex with him hadn’t been just a colliding of bodies, but a joining of souls. It had transcended reality and given me a glimpse of the other side. “We should get to bed.” My voice was trembling now too. “We should.” His head dropped lower to my neck. He took in a long breath, like he was trying to take me inside him. “Yours or mine?” Despite my resolve, I smiled. “They’re all yours technically.” “They’re whatever you want them to be just as long as you say which one you want me to carry you into. Or feel free to point in the general area too. I can figure it out.” My body was spiraling out of control, but my smile continued to grow. As adept at making my eyes fall back into my head as he was, he was just as capable of making me smile at the same time. “I’m sure you could.” His face nudged against my neck, bringing goose bumps to the surface. “I could figure out a way to fix the global warming issue with a roll of duct tape if the reward was getting to crawl into bed with you again.” Right then, feeling the way I was, wanting him the way I did, I felt the same way. Like I’d do anything for the reward of having him climb over me in bed. But the voice in the back of my head chose that time to speak up, reminding me of the consequences if I let that happen. I knew Grant well enough to know we could never just do casual sex. We’d shared too much history and had too many memories tied to each other to ever pretend we could maintain a strictly physical relationship. Which meant feelings would come into play if we did this. Connections would be reestablished. Hearts would get reinvested and emotions involved. That was what one expected when they started down the relationship path, but this was different. Because I knew where this path ended. At the edge of a cliff. A cliff that I went over and he toed the precipice of.

And then all of those feelings and connections would be raw and open all over again. I’d caused Grant enough pain for one lifetime. I wasn’t going to be responsible for any more, especially when I knew that was all he could expect if he fell for me again. “I can’t do this to you again,” I whispered, lowering my eyes, so I didn’t have to meet his. “You can’t do what again to me? Let me fall for you?” He exhaled sharply, keeping me close. “I fell for you forever ago and there’s nothing you’ve done since that moment that has changed that. There’s nothing you could do to change that. When a person falls, they don’t just get up, dust themselves off, and keep going. If they fell right, if they fell good and hard the first time, there’s no getting up from that fall because they landed right where they were supposed to.” To keep the tears I could feel forming from falling, I closed my eyes. All that did was ensure their spilling. “No, Grant. I won’t let you do this.” His grip around my elbows tightened just enough that I could feel the impressive strength he possessed. “I’ve already done it.” “Then undo it.” “The only way to undo it would be for me to find some way to travel back in time to the moment you first looked me in the eye and told me you loved me. The first time anyone had told me they loved me. The first time someone showed me they loved me.” Grant’s voice seemed to echo off of the walls. “Fuck, Ryan, you were the first person who ever told me they loved a piece of shit like me. Do you know what that does to a person? It changes them. It becomes a part of them. It starts to define who they are and the choices they make. You changed me forever the moment you said those three words to me, and it’s because of those words I’m the man I am today, standing in front of you. I’m who I am because you loved me.” His body was growing tenser with each word, his eyes spilling over with emotion. I didn’t think he blinked once. “So don’t try to tell me you’re not going to hurt me again by letting me get close to you or fall in love with you again. Because I’ve been close to you for the past fourteen years of my life, even when I never saw your face for half of those years. I’ve been in love with you those same fourteen years, and I will die still being in love with you, Ryan Hale.” Releasing my arms, he backed away a few steps. Just enough so I could release the breath I felt like I’d been holding ever since he stepped out of the bathroom. “So don’t treat me like my love’s some kind of light switch I can switch on or off depending on my mood. Because my love’s like the goddamned sun. It never goes out.” He backed out of the room, his eyes never leaving mine. I just stood there, trembling and trying to keep the world from falling beneath my feet. “When I get back from the game in Seattle, I’m taking you on a date,” he announced matter-offactly when he stopped in the doorway. “What?” My eyebrows came together. I was having a tough time keeping up. He’d just spilled his soul at my feet and one minute later he was proposing a date? “Monday night, after I get back. I’m taking you on a date.” “Grant—” “Let’s say seven. I’ll make sure Mrs. Kent can stay late and watch Charlie.” “Grant—” “And I’m going to take you somewhere nice, so you might want to dress up.” “Grant—” “Perfect. Glad that works for you. Can’t wait.” Then before I could say anything else, he shut the door behind him. “Neither can I,” I whispered long after he’d left.

“MY DAD KICKS serious butt,” Charlie announced after throwing her arms in the air when the Storm’s number eighty-seven had managed to tackle a defensive lineman before he could sack the quarterback. She covered her mouth a second later and gave me a sheepish look when she realized what she’d said. “Oops, sorry.” “No, you’re right.” I motioned at the giant flat screen in the living room we were stationed in front of, fighting a smile as Grant celebrated with his fellow teammates by thumping their helmets together. “Your dad does kick serious butt.” Hearing me say butt made Charlie giggle. “I wish we could go to one of his games. You know, be there in the stadium cheering with everyone else. I bet that would be awesome.” I curled a little deeper into the sofa, trying to get comfortable. I hadn’t slept well the past couple of nights, and as much as I wanted to blame it on the Huntington’s, I knew it had more to do with trying to fall asleep in Grant’s bed. “Lucky for you, I think you just might have an in with someone who could score us some tickets to the next home game.” Charlie was quiet for a moment—I couldn’t tell if she was focusing on what was happening in the game or what I’d just said—and the next moment, her whole face lit up like she’d just realized something. “You think he could do that?” My teeth sank into my bottom lip to hold back my smile. “I think he could. Perks of being the star player on the team.” Charlie grabbed my arm. “Next Sunday’s a home game.” “It sure is.” “Will you go with me?” She started bouncing in her seat. I loved how Charlie knew who her father was, but was yet still ignorant to who he was. She knew he was an amazing football player, but she didn’t correlate that with privilege and the perks that came with it. I adored that she didn’t equate her parentage with being above the rules or going hand-in-hand with special exceptions. I knew this level of naivety couldn’t be sustained, but I hoped that in some measure, it always remained. I hoped that our daughter would always stay above thinking she deserved anything and everything just because of her name and who her father was. I hoped she desired to carve her name on life’s tree instead of settling into the grooves already cut by her last name. It was sobering to realize that all I’d get to have were hopes for Charlie’s future, because I wouldn’t be around, at least not the way I wanted to be, to really see the way it all played out. “So Mrs. Kent will get to watch me again tomorrow?” Charlie’s attention was back on the

television as the teams lined up. “Yeah, tomorrow night. If that’s okay with you.” I still hadn’t fully committed to going out with Grant, but I figured I should be prepared. He was the kind of guy who’d just throw me over his shoulder and throw me into his truck if I told him no, so at least the babysitting angle was covered. “It’s great with me. She plays as many games of Slap Jack with me as I want, she lets me have seconds on dessert, and she lets me build a huge fort. Mrs. Kent is like the best grandma ever . . . even though she’s not really my grandma.” Charlie’s nose curled up. “Does that make sense?” My arm wound around her and pulled her close. “I had someone like Mrs. Kent too. She wasn’t really my grandma, but she kind of was.” “That was the lady who died, right?” “Yeah, Aunt May.” Charlie glanced up at me. “Do you miss her?” My head bobbed. “Every day.” “You don’t seem sad though.” “That’s because I’d rather be happy remembering her than sad missing her.” Charlie gave that a moment’s reflection, combing her fingers through her ponytail. “Yeah, that makes sense,” she announced before getting back to the game. I held her close, hoping it did make sense. I hoped when it came to me, she’d be able to emulate my approach—not mourning that I was gone, but being happy that I’d been a part of her life. “Mrs. Kent might also have to watch you tomorrow morning for a while if Grant isn’t back yet.” Of course that was when a commercial came on and she was willing to give me her full, undivided attention. “I’ve got an appointment at ten. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back by twelve at the latest.” “What kind of an appointment?” She shifted, so she was facing me. “A doctor ’s appointment,” I answered, all cheery sounding, like I just couldn’t wait to meet with the neurologist Grant had told me about—and stood by the phone while I made the appointment, so I didn’t chicken out. I just couldn’t wait for another doctor to tell me that yes, I had Huntington’s, and sure, they were very sorry, but yay, there were new advances in research being made every day. None that would be of help to me in this lifetime, but it might be of help to others in another lifetime. Some of that might be able to do some good in my daughter ’s lifetime. Thinking about it made me pull her closer. Medical advances being made every day. I repeated those words in my head until the panic had slunk back into its dark cave. “Are you sick?” Charlie scanned me for any sign of a cold, even running her forearm across my forehead as I did her when she was fighting a bug. “No, just a check-up.” I looked away because the kid had a built-in lie detector. “Well, those are easy. Just as long as you don’t have to get any shots. Those are the worst, but at least they let you pick out a sticker when you’re done.” Her attention fired back to the television after the short commercial break. The camera was panning in on Grant, who was getting a stream of water squirted into his mouth as one of the coaches discussed something with him. Charlie pointed at the TV, giving a little squee. And saved by the image of her father being broadcasted nationally during prime time. “Hopefully, they’ll have good stickers.” Charlie leaned forward in her seat, nodding. “Yeah. There’s not much that can’t be fixed with a good sticker.” My chest squeezed. “Well, a good sticker or a really great hug.” Without warning, Charlie flung herself into my lap, winding her arms around me. She then proceeded to hug me so hard I could barely breathe. “How’s this?” she asked, managing to squeeze me even harder.

My chin tucked over her head as I squeezed her back with the same kind of fervency. “Charlie, this is the type of hug that could work miracles.”

IT HAD BEEN seven years since my last date. Seven. Years. That’s forty-nine dog years. So since it had been a whole twenty-five hundred’ish days since my last date, I was totally not nervous come Monday night. Not even the least bit. I tried to convince myself of that again as I wiped my armpits for the fifth time as I stood inside of the colossal closet, trying to decide what to wear. He’d said to dress up, but the fanciest thing I had was a simple black dress I’d bought a couple of years ago when a few work friends had set me up on a blind date with one of their friends. The tags were still on it because I’d backed out at the last minute. All I’d been able to see when I looked at that dress was Grant. I didn’t know why I hadn’t taken it back after canceling the date. Money had never been in abundance in my life, but for whatever reason, I hadn’t. The longer I stood staring at the dress, the more I came to wonder if the reason was tonight. Maybe that dress had been meant for Grant all along. When I slipped into the dress a few minutes later, I checked my reflection and surprised myself. I’d lost weight over the past year, so most of my clothes were a bit loose, but this one still fit well. I’d been small my whole life, one of the side effects of being born to a mother who’d been using during her pregnancy, but somehow this dress made my legs look almost . . . long, and it evened out the occasional bulge and roll that I had earned during motherhood. It was close to seven, so I hurried to finish getting ready, which didn’t take much time. Slipping on a pair of heels, pinning my hair up into something that semi-resembled elegant, and a few strokes of makeup finished my look. As soon as I was done, I hurried out of the room to keep myself from getting nervous all over again from acknowledging this was my first date in seven—seven—years. I heard Charlie and Mrs. Kent talking in the kitchen. They’d been busy making dinner earlier, but it sounded like they’d moved on to working on dessert. I could just make out Mrs. Kent going over the finer points of making a homemade piecrust. At least Charlie would learn to cook from somebody. In my book, cooking was a necessity, a survival mechanism, but I knew from getting to know Mrs. Kent that she cooked for pleasure. It was a foreign concept and one I’d never thought to look for in my daughter, but it was apparent Mrs. Kent and cooking had struck a chord with Charlie. For the thousandth time that day alone, I was reminded why reaching out to Grant had been the right decision. I’d just passed the kitchen when I heard the doorbell ring. My forehead creased as I started for the

front door. We weren’t expecting anyone, but that didn’t mean Grant wasn’t. My face ironed out with surprise when I discovered who was waiting out front. “Why are you at the front door?” I was used to him coming in through the back door, which was closest to the pool house. “And why are you ringing the doorbell to your own front door?” Grant didn’t say anything. He just stood there with a smile that suggested we were the only two people in the world in on some great secret. That smile was so hypnotic, it took me a moment to notice how nice he looked all dressed up, and what he was holding in one of his hands. “Because this is a date,” he said, opening the small plastic box. “And when you show up for a date, you come to the front door and ring the doorbell.” I tried to hide the way he was making me swoon by looking at me the way he was. I didn’t think I was very convincing. “And in what book does it say you have to show up to a date with a corsage in hand?” My eyes dropped to the ornate corsage he was pulling out of the box. He shrugged, opening the wristband for my hand to slide through. “My book.” After he positioned the corsage on my wrist, he kept my hand in his, admiring the way it looked. “I like your book, Grant Turner.” “That’s good. Since you’re on every page in that book.” He moved a few pieces of greenery around, fiddling with the ivory ribbon. “Besides, I owe you a corsage. I owe you a whole mess of corsages.” I shook my head. Grant had never had enough money to buy me a corsage for any of the dances we’d gone to in high school. Hell, we’d had to sneak into most of them because we couldn’t scrounge up enough between us to afford a ticket. He’d always felt so terrible about it, but I’d never felt like I was missing out on a thing. I didn’t need the right corsage when I had the right guy. “You owe me nothing.” Before he could reply, the sound of footsteps charging closer interrupted him. “Mom, Mom! Look what Grant . . . I mean Dad got me!” Charlie slid to a stop, giving Grant an apologetic look. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to it.” “It’s okay, kiddo. Trust me, Grant and Dad are the two nicest names on the long list of names I’ve had come my way. I’m happy with either.” Charlie grinned and glanced at me, tapping the new hat on her head. “Isn’t it great, Mom? The whole team signed it. Even the coaches too.” Leaning over, I took a minute to inspect the New York Storm hat she was wearing proudly. There was hardly any blank space left from all of the signatures scribbled on it. Of course Grant’s name was written ten times larger than anyone else’s, front and center. “Wow, that’s a treasure. I bet you could sell that online and put aside some money for college.” Charlie’s face blanched. “What? No way. I wouldn’t sell this for a million bucks.” “And I’ve already got her college fund . . . funded.” My head twisted Grant’s way, a single brow lifting. “What? She’s my only kid. I make gobs of money. Gobs,” he repeated when I started to sigh. “My financial planner recommended some education plan, so she’s all set. You know, when that day comes.” “In eleven years?” He held out his arms. “It’s never too early to plan for your child’s education.” I blinked, wondering where the hotheaded, living-in-the-moment boy I’d known had gone. I wondered if there was any semblance of that boy inside the man before me now. “Thanks again for the hat.” Charlie settled it lower on her forehead, rolling back and forth on her toes and heels.

“You’re welcome again for the hat.” “Bye, Charlie-Bird.” I gathered her into my arms and gave her a hug. “Love you.” “Love you back,” she replied when she’d wrestled free of my hug. Her eyes suddenly went wide like she’d just noticed I was wearing a dress. “Wow. Mom, you look pretty.” She pinched the skirt of my dress like she’d never seen anything so lovely before. “Why are you so dressed up?” “I’m not that dressed up,” I argued, not exactly eager to admit that Grant was the last guy I’d been on a date with. Forty-nine dog years ago. “Eh, yeah, you are,” Charlie fired back. “Your idea of dressing up is wearing something other than tennis shoes.” “I’m sure your mom gets dressed up when she goes out with her friends or on a date,” Grant added. Charlie’s face pinched together. “What’s a date?” And fantastic. “You know. It’s when a guy picks up a girl and takes her out to dinner or a show or something like that.” Grant motioned between himself and me like we were a physical explanation to the verbal one he’d just given. “Oh,” Charlie said, blinking. “Mom’s never been on one of those.” “And I think I just heard the timer in the kitchen. Better go check to make sure the lasagna isn’t burning.” Dropping my hands on her shoulders, I walked her back inside and halfway through the hallway before she could dish about any more of my private life. “Night, Dad. Have fun. On your date.” Charlie waggled her brows at me. “Your father and I are going out to talk. That’s all. This isn’t a date.” “Okay, thanks! We will!” Grant shouted from outside. Grumbling, I dropped another kiss on her head and watched her disappear into the kitchen. When I emerged out the front door, Grant looked amused. “What’s this about you not going on those date things?” His grin stretched across his entire face. “Oh, please. Let’s see how many dates you get to go on when you raise a child on your own for seven years.” I shot his smirk right back. “I thought it was common knowledge.” Grant came up beside me when I started down the walkway. “Is that why you visibly winced when your daughter just sold you out?” “Can we change the subject?” “No more talk of dating history?” “None.” Grant held his arm out for me as we wandered toward the driveway. He waited until I took it, then he asked, “Okay. So how many boyfriends have you had since me?” I shoved his arm aside, but my sigh only made him laugh. “It’s a good thing you showed up with this corsage. It’s buying you a little leeway.” “God knows this fuck-up needs as much leeway as I can get with you.” Grant came around in front of me to open the passenger door of his truck for me. “Grant, you are one of the best players in professional football today. You made regular visits to an elderly woman until she died, you started a free football league in one of the poorest places in the country, you forgave me for what I did, you accepted your daughter without giving it a moment’s thought, and you’re respected and adored by the entire nation. You are not a fuck-up. You are the opposite, and you should stop seeing yourself as the same kid who had to fight to survive The Clink.” He paused in the door after he’d helped me into the cab, looking at me sitting there like he was seeing something I couldn’t. “I don’t ever want to stop seeing myself as that kid. Never.” “Why not?”

“Because the best part of me is in that tough, cocky-as-shit kid.” My eyebrows pulled together. “What part is that? The ability to sleep with one eye open?” He shook his head slowly. “You. You’re the best part of me. The best part of that boy and the best part of this man. I’d rather be a fuck-up with that, than the golden boy without.” My heart stopped. I could actually feel it pulse to a stop. Right before it restarted with a vengeance. What did a girl say after that? What did she do? More importantly, how did she keep up with her agenda to keep things friendly, a thick line drawn between us to keep our hearts and souls safe? Grant answered part of my conundrum for me, closing the truck door a minute later. By the time he’d come around to the driver ’s side and slid behind the steering wheel, the fervent lines drawn on his forehead were gone. “When are you going to take your Benz out for a spin?” He lifted his chin at where the white gleaming car sat inside of the garage as he fired up the engine. “Mrs. Kent told me you had a cab take you to and from your appointment today.” How did I explain this? How did I explain it gently? As I warred with getting out the first word, Grant continued. “If it has anything to do with being nervous about driving in New York City traffic, I get it. I could go out with you until you get more comfortable if you want.” My head shook as my hands wrung at the hem of my dress. “It’s not that.” Grant shrugged as he pulled out of the driveway, waiting for the gate to open. “Then what is it?” Realizing there was no gentle way to put anything like this, I exhaled. “I don’t think I should be driving anymore. I’m not sure it’s safe.” I paused to take a breath, focusing on the dashboard when I could feel Grant’s focus on me. “Back in Texas, before we flew up here, I had a bad bout of chorea while I was driving.” I heard the breath hiss past Grant’s teeth when he realized what I was getting at. “Charlie was in the car, and even though I didn’t crash, it was only because luck or angels or something was on my side. I couldn’t control my body, Grant. I couldn’t do it.” My hands were shaking from the memory. “I shouldn’t drive anymore.” It wasn’t so much this first loss of freedom, of the many I knew were coming, that made the tears start—it was acknowledging what could have happened to Charlie as a result. I should have stopped driving weeks ago, maybe even months. I’d known that. Hell, my doctors had advised it, but I hadn’t listened. I’d been selfish and determined that I could hold off. I hadn’t been ready to give up this first form of independence, and it had almost cost me my daughter ’s well-being. She was already an unwilling victim, being the daughter of a parent with Huntington’s—what in the hell had I been thinking almost making her one of a vehicular accident? Grant had always hated watching me cry. Legitimately hated it. It was no different now. “Come here,” he said quietly, draping his arm around me and pulling me close until my head could rest on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re fine. Charlie’s fine. It’s okay.” His arm tightened around me the harder I sobbed. “I’m sorry about the car. I should have stopped to think. I should have known . . .” My head shook against his shoulder. “Don’t apologize. That is, by far, the nicest gift anyone’s ever gotten for me.” I wiped at my eyes and made myself smile. This was supposed to be a date. My first one in seven years. And I hadn’t even made it out of the driveway before bursting into tears. God, what had happened to me? The strong, crying-is-for-babies girl I’d been before? It was almost like being around Grant made me weak. Why else would I be crying so much? Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe being around him made me stronger. Strong enough to be vulnerable and express my emotions. Whatever it was—strength or weakness—I knew I felt better with him that I had before, when those silent tears had been shed alone.

“Even if all I ever get to do is sit in it and pretend to be driving, I’ll still enjoy it.” He kissed the top of my head, ringing his arm around my neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, holding me so tightly it was almost like he thought he was fighting some invisible force trying to rip me away. “I’ll hire a driver. Keep one on stand-by so you can come and go whenever you want.” My head had started to shake before he’d finished saying driver. “No, I’d rather call a cab or catch a bus when I need to go somewhere. That way Charlie won’t get suspicious. If you go and hire a driver to take me wherever I want to go, she’ll know. She’ll know something’s wrong.” My head shook against him. “No driver.” Grant was silent for a few minutes, nothing but the rumble of his truck and the sounds of traffic outside filling the quiet. When I heard him take a breath, I braced myself. “You’ll have to tell her sometime, Ryan. Sometime soon.” His hand on the steering wheel tightened. “She’ll figure it out—she doesn’t miss anything. Or else . . .” Another pause, this one longer. “Or else the media will find out and blast it the hell out there until every last hermit, loner, and recluse will know about Grant Turner ’s woman having Huntington’s. You don’t want her to find out that way. Trust me.” Lifting my head up enough I could examine his face, I quirked an eyebrow. “Grant Turner ’s woman? Is that what I am?” He shot me an amused look as he pulled in front of some nice building where an army of valets came jogging toward the truck. “You’ve always been my woman.” He shrugged and put the truck into park. I leaned back so we could unbuckle, and when I did, the heaviness of his words settled over me. “I know. I’ll tell her soon, but not yet. I don’t want her to find out from anyone else, but not yet.” I inhaled and tried not to think about tomorrow, despite tomorrow always being in the front of my mind. “I want her to have as many carefree days as she can.” Grant held onto the door when one of the valets tried to open it. “Just because she knows about what’s going on with you doesn’t mean her carefree days are over.” I forced a smile like I believed him, but I didn’t. I knew the opposite was true. I knew once she knew what her mommy had, and what that meant for her, the days of whimsy and carefree would come to a screeching halt. “Where are we?” I asked when Grant finally let his door be pulled open. He was already tipping the valet before he’d climbed out. “I can’t say the name. It’s French. Or Italian. Or something I can’t pronounce.” A laugh slipped out of me as the valet helped me out. “Have you ever eaten here before?” Grant had already come around to get me before both of my feet had hit the pavement. “No, but everyone in New York says this is the place to eat. The place to take a special person. It’s one of those four of ten or whatever star rated places.” I let him take my hand after I’d woven my arm around his, happy to let him lead us into the building. So far, the media presence had been non-existent in Storm country, however, this was also the first time Grant and I had been out in public together here. If Nowhere, Texas, was any indication of what was in store for us, I knew I’d have to grow a skin at least half a foot thick. “Well, I can’t wait to try this restaurant that’s name we don’t know that’s been rated a handful of stars and recommended by everyone who’s anyone in this great metropolis.” Grant peered over at me as a doorman swung the door open for us before we’d barely left the truck. “The sarcasm. Rein it in, wiseass.” The street was busy and people were starting to recognize Grant as we moved toward the restaurant. Shouts and cameras started filling the air around us, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He gave a wave to the crowd then pressed his hand into my lower back and urged me a little faster inside the

restaurant. “Can you go anywhere without having to worry about fighting off a mob of fans?” I asked after the doorman had sealed the door behind us. The din of noise behind us continued to grow. “It’s not like I can just blend into the crowd.” Grant lifted his chin at the hostess who was waiting for us. “Hard to blend in when you tower above the crowd.” I craned my neck looking up at him to prove my point. Sometimes Grant didn’t feel much bigger than me, and other times, he felt like a giant. This was one of those giant times. “Hard to blend in with this ugly mug.” He grinned at me as the hostess led us through the dining room. “Why do you think they insist we all wear helmets? For our brains’ sake? No, it’s to spare the viewers at home any unwanted nightmares.” Nudging him, I tried to ignore the way people were turning in their seats to watch us as we filed through the restaurant. “Good to know.” All teasing aside, Grant’s face was nowhere on the offensive spectrum. It was the face of my best childhood memories, and every scar, bump, and break had been earned in defense of himself or someone he cared about. When I looked at Grant, I saw beauty. Those men with pretty faces, teeth too straight, and hair too perfect didn’t know sacrifice like Grant did. With his hand still molded into the bend of my back, Grant led me through the dining room, not caring what people thought or saw. There was no going back after this. The pictures would be shared and spread until the whole city knew Grant Turner was entertaining some new woman. I wasn’t sure if it would make ripples or if fans were used to seeing new photos of Grant with another woman, but I hoped we’d at least have a few days before anyone put it all together. Who I was, what we’d been long ago, who the young girl living at his house with me was. “Is this private enough for you, Mr. Turner?” the hostess asked as she stopped in front of a table tucked into the back of the restaurant. “Works for me. Ryan?” When I moved toward it, Grant pulled out a chair. “Works for me too.” The hostess handed us our menus and waited for Grant to get settled before leaving. As I studied the name etched in gold leaf on the front of the menu, my forehead creased. “I have no idea how to say it, but I think it’s French.” Grant shook his head. “No clue. Let’s hope the inside’s easier to read that the outside.” As we were opening our menus, a waiter approached the table to fill our water glasses, and he asked if we’d like to see a wine menu. Grant waited for me to answer. “Um, I’m okay,” I answered, looking at Grant over the flickering votives scattered around the middle of the table. “Unless you’d like some.” Grant’s head shook. “I’m okay too. I’ll stick with water.” After the waiter left, I remembered how we hadn’t had a choice when it came to “sticking with water” on the few occasions we’d been able to eat out, since we’d barely had enough to pay for our meals, but I knew that wasn’t the case now. “So you don’t drink at all at all anymore,” I said, remembering our conversation in my motel that night he and Charlie met for the first time. Grant stared at the water cup for a minute before lifting it and taking a drink. “Not a drop.” I lowered my menu. Grant had started drinking around the same time most parents finally let their kids have a full can of soda, and it had never exactly been an occasional thing. Being a big guy, he could hold it better than others, but I’d spent more nights than I liked to remember encouraging him to ease up and switch to water. “When did this happen?” I asked finally.

Grant looked at me. “Not long after you left.” He looked like he was deciding what to say next. “Losing you . . . it put me in a bad place. Instead of dealing with it in a healthy way, I went with an unhealthy way.” My eyebrow lifted. “Drinking yourself into a stupor?” He rolled his head. “Pretty much. That was my life for the first couple of months after you left. I started drinking the moment I got up, and I didn’t stop until I passed out later that night. It was the only way I knew to block the pain, the only coping mechanism I’d learned.” I took a breath. “From your dad.” Grant nodded. “It took me longer to see that than it should have, but yeah, I realized I was becoming my old man, turning to the bottle to deal with my problems. I could have lost my football deal, my life, everything. I haven’t had a drink since that moment I realized who I was going to turn into if I didn’t stop.” So much of the man sitting across the table from me was new, and yet so much of the boy I’d known was still there. The best of him remained; the rougher patches he’d left behind. “I’m sorry,” I said again, wondering if those two words would ever feel like they were making headway in the forgiveness department. “I know. Don’t worry. I have all kinds of ideas for ways you can pay me back.” He bounced his brows at me, the look on his face giving away some of what he had in mind. It made my legs squeeze together tighter. Distracting myself, I got back to the menu. Only to realize, after scanning a few items, that I didn’t have a clue what anything was. Even the stuff written in English I didn’t understand. “Menus like this were created to make people feel stupid,” Grant muttered, shaking his head. “And inferior,” I added. His eyes lifted from the menu, a playful look in them. “And angry.” “And hungry.” For once I was hungry, but I had no clue if anything on this menu was capable of quieting a growling stomach. I’d heard portions in these kinds of restaurants were sized more for someone the size of a fairy. I was small, but I liked big portions, and I couldn’t imagine what Grant would do with a tiny meal. “What the hell is . . .” Grant’s eyes narrowed on something in the menu. “Es . . . car . . . got?” “The fanciest food I’ve ever eaten was the time I let someone convince me to try having an egg cracked over my pizza. I hated it.” I tried finding the menu item Grant was talking about, to no avail. “Egg on a pizza? That’s just wrong. They used to burn people at a stake for that.” “For good reason.” That was when the waiter reappeared, ready to take our order. Grant looked at me, waiting. I looked at Grant, waiting. Then both of us started to laugh. The waiter looked between us, confused. “Can I make a few suggestions? Or can I give you a few more minutes?” Grant managed to tame his laugh first. “Why don’t you just pick a few things that you think we’d like, and we’ll give that a try? Sound okay?” The confused look grew more pronounced. “Surprise us,” Grant added before the waiter could ask a question. After a moment, the waiter nodded, seeming to finally understand what we wanted before scurrying away like he was worried our brand of crazy might be contagious. “If anything rolls out of that kitchen looking like a cheeseburger, I’m calling dibs,” I announced, folding my napkin into my lap. “As long as you share a bite with me.” “Deal.”

Grant reached for his water glass again and drained the whole thing in a single drink. When he glanced at me, I knew all jokes about the menu were past. “How was your appointment today?” The turn in conversation was about as abrupt as it could get. For one minute, I’d almost forgotten all about the disease tearing apart my body, one nerve at a time. For one minute. It was one minute more than I thought I’d ever have. Grant had a way of making me forget about what was happening to me, and reminding me of who I was. He had a way of making me feel present and whole, instead of focused on the future and broken. “It went well,” I said, folding my napkin into my lap. “Dr. Goldstein is great. Thank you for arranging that. I know getting in with a doctor like him isn’t easy.” In fact, when I’d called pretending to be a new patient who wanted to make an appointment with him, I’d been told his next available appointment was nine months out. Grant waited a minute, brows lifted. Then he circled his hand. “Did he have any ideas for how to help?” My tongue worked into my cheek. “He changed a couple of my meds and the dosage of them.” Grant shifted in his chair. He looked like he was swimming in an ocean of nervous energy. “Does that mean . . .” “It means it’s a crap shot. It might help make the chorea better and give me more time as symptom-free as possible. Or it might make things worse and hasten the advancement of my symptoms. It’s like throwing darts at a wall, Grant. You don’t know what’s going to stick until you throw it and wait.” I paused to take a few breaths, reminding myself to keep my voice lowered. I didn’t need to announce to the entire restaurant that I had Huntington’s. I was hoping to save that secret from the media until the very end. Until it became impossible to hide. “No matter what new medications I try, or what new doses I go between, I’m going to get worse every day. That’s the way this thing works. It might be a little or a lot, but every day I’ll be worse than the day before. That’s going to continue to happen until something kills me.” The abruptness of the word hit him like a slap to the face. He visibly winced, his eyes darkening right after. Staring across the table at me, he leaned closer. “I’m not going to let that happen.” Each word was uttered purposefully, like he’d never known a truer thing. I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But I’d stopped believing in fantasy when I watched my mom pry a gold crown from her own mouth to support her drug habit. “It’s not something you let or don’t let happen.” I swallowed. “It’s kind of predetermined that way.” His fist hit the table, making the crystal glasses tinkle. He made sure I was looking at him before he said, “I’m not going to let that happen.” Other than my heart pumping hard inside of my ribs, I couldn’t feel anything. The confidence in his words, the look on his face that boded no doubt, the set of his brow daring me to challenge him— Grant believed he could save me. He believed he could save me like he had when we’d been kids. I almost believed he could, and god knew I wanted to believe he could, but this time, the threat wasn’t outside of me—it was buried into my very makeup. No amount of brute strength and pain tolerance could tackle what was threatening my life now, but if Grant wanted to believe otherwise, I wouldn’t stop him. I’d rather have him and Charlie hold onto hope up until the day they laid me in my grave. I’d kept none of it for myself, leaving it all for them. “There’s got to be something, Ryan. Somebody, somewhere, knows something we don’t, and I’m not going to rest until we figure out who and where that is.” I nodded and took a sip of my water. “Okay.”

He could tell I was placating him. It pissed him off too. His fist hit the table again. “It all comes down to money. Enough money can buy a person anything. Whether it’s a cure for AIDS or cancer or Huntington’s.” His voice had gone lower. “There’s a cure out there.” Of course there was a cure. The same cure that fixed us all of our ailments. Death. The great cureall. Instead of saying what I was thinking, I bit my cheek. A minute later, our surprise dinner showed up. As the waiter layered plate after plate on our table, I didn’t know whose mouth dropped farther— Grant’s or mine. “Anything else I can get for you?” the waiter asked, looking down proudly on the assortment he’d selected for us. Grant rubbed the back of his head. “Maybe an instruction manual?” He motioned at a bowl filled with what looked like shells. Snail-looking shells. “Sir?” The waiter ’s expression creased. “Just a joke.” Grant smiled and tucked his napkin into his shirt collar. The waiter backed away from our table again, like this time he was trying to tiptoe away from the crazy contagion before it noticed him. “Are you planning on shoveling your dinner into your mouth?” I pointed my fork at Grant’s napkin dangling from his collar. “I don’t know what the plan is honestly,” he said, making a face at a dish that looked downright dangerous with all of the pokey, needle-like things sticking out of it. Going from plate to plate, I attempted to figure out where would be the safest place to start. When I found myself back at the beginning, I started the journey over again. Across the table, Grant shoved out of his chair and pulled his napkin from his neck. “You want to get out of here?” He came around the side of the table and held out his hand for me. I gave the food another inspection. I knew that to plenty of people, this was probably the height of fine dining and that just getting up and walking away was a giant waste of food. “Come on. I’ll let our waiter box it all up and take it home, so it doesn’t go to waste. He obviously loves this stuff of questionable edible substance.” Grant cringed when he examined the table once more. “Let’s get you a cheeseburger.” “SWEET BABY JESUS.” I was moaning an hour later, alongside Grant. “Oh, God, that’s good,” he grunted, his body practically trembling. “Yes, right there,” I breathed, pointing at where I had in mind. “You like that?” His words were muffled from what his mouth was busy working over. “Yes,” I groaned, arching my back, “it’s so good.” “Once you have yours, I want mine.” Once I’d swallowed, I ran my tongue across my lips, not wanting to miss a bit. “Open up,” I purred. Then I brought a chunk of banana cream pie to his mouth and waited for him to finish his bite of hamburger. The spread we’d had laid out for us at the other restaurant had nothing on the one laid out in front of us now. Grant had driven us to an old-school burger joint in a quieter part of Brooklyn. Cheeseburgers in every variety, an assortment of fried sides—from waffle fries to giant onion rings to pickles—a tower of milkshakes, and the most recent additions, dessert. Or the plural version of that word. At first, Grant didn’t look like he knew what to think of the banana pie, but after getting past the

texture of it, his eyes grew big. He hadn’t finished the bite before he stabbed his fork into another. “No more fancy eight-star restaurants for us,” he announced for the dozenth time. “Who would want to eat that when there’s food like this?” I thought of the diners in that restaurant. Then I scanned the last two diners left in this one: Grant and me. “Sophisticated people.” Grant grunted then scooted the almost empty basket of onion rings in front of me. Those had been my favorite of this culinary masterpiece. When I snagged one and dunked it in a container of tarter sauce, Grant smiled at the corsage still on my wrist. Then his gaze crept a little lower to my hand, lingering on my fingers. It was a random coincidence that I’d held out my left arm for Grant to slide my corsage onto. I guessed it wasn’t a coincidence that Grant was staring at a certain finger on my left hand. “How many men after me?” His forehead creased as he asked his question, setting down his fork. His question surprised me. “What?” “How many men have you been with since you were with me?” I swallowed the bite of onion ring and set down what was left of it. Wolfing down fried food didn’t pair well with this type of conversation. “Like how many guys have I dated? Had as boyfriends?” My weight shifted on the counter stool I was situated on. “Had sex with?” Grant’s jaw tensed, but he relaxed it right after. He answered me by lifting a shoulder. I’d thought Charlie’s little “mom doesn’t go on dates” spiel would have answered any questions in his mind about these topics, but maybe it had only made him more curious. The longer I took to answer, the more he looked like he was bracing himself for a full-on dissertation. Little did he know my answer to his questions could be summed up in one breath. “I haven’t had any boyfriends since you,” I admitted, feeling kind of silly admitting it. At the same time, I felt strong. I’d never felt the need to fill a void in my life with a man. I’d never needed a man to define me. What Grant and I had had was special, and what we’d created together was even more special. I wasn’t about to let some shmuck looking to get a little piece of ass cheapen my whole experience with relationships. The corners of Grant’s mouth were twitching, but he didn’t let the smile form. “What about dates?” I leaned toward him. “I think our daughter managed to answer that question already.” He let the smile form then, allowing a couple of notes of laughter to slide out. “And I thought we’d agreed to move on from the dating topic earlier tonight.” Giving him the look didn’t faze him—it never really had. Even my most impressive Look. “Fine. No more talk about dating.” He lifted his hands in the air and pretended like he was getting back to finishing up the last few remnants of our gluttonous feast. When he just kept twirling the same fry in a gob of ketchup, I knew he hadn’t moved on yet. “How many have you had sex with?” “Grant . . .” “I need to know, Ryan. I know I don’t have any right to know. I also know you had a right to sleep with whoever you wanted.” He paused, his face looking like he was being tortured. “I just need to know.” My lungs felt like limp bags when I thought about answering his question. Not because I was embarrassed or ashamed or anything like that, but because he’d know once I told him. He’d know the reason why, and he’d know he was that reason why. He’d know I’d never really moved on from him, and I couldn’t have him knowing that because I needed to keep a careful distance between us. I needed to protect him, not from himself this time, but from me. But even though I knew all of that, I also knew that the truth had never been optional when it came

to Grant and me. Never a choice. The truth wasn’t what we picked when it was convenient. It had been the standard from the beginning, and if I had anything to do with it, it would remain the standard to the end. The truth. I’d told him almost everything I had to. Almost. The one last thing I was withholding would have to come out soon. “You were the first person I had sex with, Grant Turner.” He slowly twisted toward me, his legs spreading wide, tucking around the outsides of mine. His hands lowered to my kneecaps, like he was trying to show me that no matter how I answered, he still wanted to be here with me—eating greasy food in an old diner that had already locked its doors. One of my hands covered one of his. “And you were the last person I had sex with too.” It came out in one long exhale, my fingers braiding tighter through his with each word. He was quiet for a minute. And then another. When his silence continued, my eyes lifted to see what was the matter. His forehead was folded in half a dozen creases, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Are you saying . . .?” He leaned in closer, confusion settling deeper. “You’re the last person I had sex with.” I thought I’d spelled it out pretty solidly before. His face ironed out, blinking like he was just waking up. “Does that mean . . .?” I sighed. “I haven’t had sex in seven years? Yeah. That’s what it means.” Glancing behind the counter, I made sure the owner and cook, who’d generously agreed to let us stay late, were still way in the back and preoccupied with something other than the conversation happening at the two end counter stools. Grant leaned closer, his head moving just outside of mine. His breath was just rushed enough to notice. “Are you saying I’m the last man you’ve had inside you?” His words surprised me, sending a shiver winding down my spine. I didn’t want him to know that his question or his proximity or his labored breaths were affecting me, but they were. I was feeling very, very affected in certain locations of my body. “I think that’s the general definition of sex, yeah,” I answered, glancing down to make sure my nipples weren’t showing through the thin material of the dress. Thank god I’d gone with the thicker lined bra, because Grant’s eyes followed mine a moment later. When my gaze dropped to a certain spot on his body, I found his own arousal not so easily disguised. It made the inhale I’d been taking sound more like more of a gasp than a breath. He knew what I was looking at, he knew what was on display, and he didn’t do anything to adjust or hide it. He wanted me to know. He wanted me to see. Realizing that sent a rush of pleasure through my body, pooling between my legs. “I’m going to kiss you, Ryan.” His head nuzzled my neck. “I should probably ask permission, but fuck, I don’t want to, because I have to kiss you. Whether you think it’s a good idea or not.” My arms went limp, my legs following, but it wasn’t from the disease; it was from the sickness I had for this man. The one that crippled me. The one that paralyzed me. My eyes squeezed closed when his face came around in front of mine. “You don’t want to kiss me, Grant.” “Like hell I don’t.” His words were hot on my lips. “You don’t want to do this.” I shook my head, trying to pound some sense into one of us because my god, this man had worn the sense right out of me with a few words and touches. If I stalled long enough, I was hoping one of us would realize how foolishly we were behaving. “You might want what I am now, but you’re not going to want the me in ten years. In five years. I won’t let you take on that burden.” “Do I look scared?” He waited for me to open my eyes before continuing. “Do I look like I flinched?” His hand gently curved around the side of my neck. “Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”

My vision started to blur, but I held the tears back. “You don’t want to kiss me. I came back so you could have a relationship with our daughter, not so we could pick back up where we left off.” “I’ve got other plans, and it’s okay.” His eyes turned playful, a challenge settling in them. “Because you’re going to kiss me.” My mouth fought a smile. “What makes you so sure?” His brows bounced. “Because you’ve never been able to resist me when I give you a certain look. You know the one. Cocked brow, crooked smile, suggestive eyes? That look. Drove you wild every time.” I did my best to look unimpressed, but holy smolder, the look was pretty damn impressive. “Please. That look?” I tsked, waving at him dismissively. Before my hand had barely moved, he’d trapped it in his and tied it behind my back, right as his mouth crashed down on mine. He didn’t move in slow, he didn’t ease me into the kiss. He kissed me for the first time in seven years the way Grant’s and my relationship had always been—hard and deep. It wasn’t his kiss that surprised me most though; it was the way I kissed him back. It was the way I didn’t hesitate, as though I’d been as ready for it as he had been. His lips moved fast and desperately against mine, his tongue less requesting permission than demanding it when it invaded my mouth, tangling with mine in an achingly familiar way. The harder he kissed me, the harder his hands pressed into me, sinking into my flesh until they felt as though they’d become a part of me. All I could do was find some place to grab on and hold on because Grant’s kiss did not come to an end soon. It felt as though it never might. Then, as quickly as he’d descended upon me, his mouth retreated, marking a few last kisses along the seam of my lips. His hands stayed where they were though, one pressed into the bend of my back, the other still adhered to the base of my neck. His eyes were alive when he leaned back, his lips wet and almost swollen-looking. His chest was rising and falling as hard as it had when we’d made love for the first time. God. Sex. I was desperate for it. After that kiss, I felt like I would have done anything to get it. From the look on his face, I knew he’d be willing to meet my need. Damn, from the mass still bulging through his slacks, I knew we were one zipper and a thin piece of material away from fulfilling that desire. It wouldn’t take me long. He’d probably barely get inside me before I’d start coming undone, but something was holding me back. Some reason why we couldn’t. Something more important than my sheer desperation to have Grant bend me over the closest available surface and fuck me until I couldn’t stand. Right then was when my arms surged with feeling, right before they shook involuntarily. Despite where I’d tied my hands behind Grant’s neck, my fingers came untied and my arms fell as my arms continued to shake out of control. This was why. This was my reason. I wanted Grant and all that came with him, but more than that, I wanted to save him from the pain that would come if we went any farther. As my arms were falling, Grant’s hands were suddenly there, his fingers winding around my wrists, keeping them in his hold. His grip didn’t loosen, his expression didn’t waver, and his eyes never left mine. He held me as my body rocked from the chorea. “I’m not going anywhere.” He leaned in, his grip tightening as the last of the spasm shuddered through my body. “So don’t even think about trying to push me away.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you just went in for it like that after I’d downed a pound of onion rings.” The mood inside Grant’s truck was light, exuberant as we were heading back to his place. Something about that kiss had seemed to erase whatever measure of tension we were still keeping between us. “I like a girl who tastes like onion.” Grant kept a straight face as he turned onto the street his place was on. “And what was the deal about you waiting for me to kiss you? That wasn’t waiting patiently, FYI. That was the opposite of waiting and the opposite of patient.” Grant glanced at me. He hadn’t stopped smiling since we’d walked out of that diner hand-in-hand. Not even when we found a barrage of cameras waiting for us, taking what seemed like one thousand shots by the time Grant and I sped away from the curb. “Well, you were taking too long. And I’d been patient for seven years. I didn’t want to wait another seven seconds.” “Clearly not.” Grant waited for the gate to open, then pulled into the driveway. Most of the lights were off inside the house, but hundreds of lights were spread around the grounds, lighting up the gardens and walkways and fountains. Driving up to his house at night like this made it feel like we were pulling up to some ancient European castle. “I’ve got a home game this Sunday. I was wondering if you and Charlie would like to come to it.” Grant kept his gaze fixed out the windshield, even after we’d pulled up in front of the door. It was like he was almost nervous, unsure what my answer would be. “Are you kidding? Charlie was just begging me to go to your next game, so yes, please. We’d love that.” He exhaled, his shoulders falling like he was relieved. It was strange how confident he could be, sometimes to the point of arrogance, but the most unexpected of things would render him unsure. “Great. I’ll let the team owner know to expect you two on Sunday.” “The team owner?” I twisted in my seat after unbuckling. “Yeah, I’ll get you a couple of special passes, and all you’ll need to do is go to the team owner ’s box when you show up and there’ll be seats for you.” He turned off the engine and twisted in his seat too. “We don’t need to sit in the owner ’s box. Those folding chairs out in the grandstands will work just fine.” Grant shook his head emphatically. “No way. The media knows your face. Probably plenty of fans

would recognize it on game day. I’m not letting you and my daughter sit out in the stands unless I put a team of security guards with you. And by security guards, I mean they were mercenaries in their previous job and have fifty pounds of muscle on me.” “Grant”—I blinked—“you’re being paranoid.” “No, I’m being realistic.” “I’m sure all of the other player ’s girlfriends or families sit in the stands,” I argued, not understanding why he was being so difficult on this. “Yeah, most of them do,” he said, loosening his tie like it was suddenly choking him. “But none of them are Grant Turners’ girlfriend or daughter.” Before my brow got halfway up, he continued, “And before you accuse me of thinking mighty high of myself, it’s not that. It’s not arrogance talking, it’s common sense.” Instead of arguing right back, I took a moment to consider what he was saying. I knew what he was saying had merit. He was one of the most stalked, interviewed, and photographed players in professional sports today. By default, anyone associated would be victim to the same kind of scrutiny. I didn’t want to worry about Charlie having to dodge a camera in her face all day long, but I didn’t want her to start down the slippery slope of thinking she was above everyone else because her dad’s name carried a certain degree of clout in the upper stratosphere. “Not to mention if anything happens to you, during the game”—Grant’s tone filled in the dot, dot, dot—“it’s going to be much harder to explain it to the whole nation than it will be to a handful of mucky-mucks in the owner ’s box.” He had me. He knew he had me too. “I can’t believe I’m going to my first professional football game and sitting in an owner ’s box. No one will ever believe I was born and raised in The Clink again.” I let out a sigh and tried looking defeated, but really, I was thankful Grant had given this so much thought. He’d put twice the amount of thought into it than I had, and he was right, this was the best option. “Aren’t you going to park this in the garage?” I asked when he crawled out of the cab. “Wouldn’t want to get water spots on it if it sprinkles overnight.” Grant motioned for me to wait when I started to open my door, then he jogged around to open it himself. “This is a date. That means I drop you off in front, walk you up to the front door . . .” He took my hand and helped me out, grinning all goofy-like when the hem of my dress slid up my legs as I crawled out. “Give me a good night kiss?” I added as I let him take my hand. He peered over at me, brow raised. “Or a good night something.” Giving him a light shove, I tried not to pretend that a good night something sounded as appealing to me as it did to him. “I never should have told you it’s been seven years since my last time.” “Yes, you definitely should have.” “Why’s that?” He grinned at the ground. “Because I can use that knowledge in my favor.” “How does knowing that work in your favor?” I angled toward him as we climbed the stairs together. After we’d stopped in front of the door, he turned and pulled me closer. “Because I know how bad you need it now.” The skin on the back of my neck raised, my lips parting from the acceleration of my breath. “How do you know it’s not a case of the longer you go without it, the less you need it?” Grant glanced at the door like he was making sure it wasn’t going to open. I knew from the last text Mrs. Kent had sent me that Charlie had gone to bed a little before ten and that Mrs. Kent was spending the night in the guest room on the other side of Charlie’s room.

“No,” he said at last, his head slowly shaking. “Not with something like that. Not with someone like you.” Grant moved closer, not stopping until his chest was pressing into mine, walking me backward until my back ran into the wall. “In fact, I bet you’ve gone so long, I could barely touch you and you’d fall apart in my arms. Am I right?” My chest was brushing against his, my legs feeling weak from what was happening. Or what was about to happen. Or what I was imagining was about to happen. “No,” I whispered, “you’re not right.” His eyes called me out. “There’s only one way to know who’s right.” He kissed the outside of my neck before lightly sucking on my earlobe. The moan he drew from me seemed to sweep across the entire estate. My hand clamped over my mouth, but he pried it away. “No. I don’t want you stifling the sounds you make for me. I don’t want you trying to hide anything I’m about to pull out of you right here against this wall.” Holding my wrist, he slid my hand up the wall until my arm was fully extended above me. The stone was still warm from the sun, heat seeping into my skin. “Give me your other hand,” he ordered before sinking his teeth into my lobe. The sensation made me jolt against him, but all he did was press his body into mine harder until I felt trapped between two walls of stone. When I lifted my other hand for him, he gathered it up in his hand with my other wrist. The task of winding around both of my wrists was no challenge for hands the size of his. Once he had me pinned, he rocked his hips into mine, practically lifting me up the wall. His hard length settled right where I needed it, the heat of him transferring through the thin layers of material keeping us apart. Another moan escaped from my mouth, but this one was more a cry of pleasure. He was right. He’d barely have to touch me. His other hand moved from the bend of my hip to reach something above us. “What are you doing?” I breathed, my ribs feeling as though they’d crack from the way my heart was pounding. “Unscrewing this light bulb,” he said, right before the wash of light disappeared and darkness moved in around us. “And after that, I’m getting you off.” “Why?” My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark, making his touch that much more intense. “Because I don’t want anyone else to see you like this. No man besides me ever has, and I’m going to make damn sure no other man besides me ever does.” His hips pitched into mine again, and this time, I could feel my orgasm. My head rolled back as my back arched, trying to create more friction between our bodies. “You’re still a possessive bastard.” I felt his head nod against mine. “Of you?” he whispered in my ear, grinding against me once more. “Always.” That was all it took. My body went rigid right before the whole world went on fire, my body right along with it. Grant held me tight, his body moving against mine like it would have if we’d really been fucking, drawing my orgasm out until my legs were shaking and incapable of holding me up any longer. A minute later, I hadn’t come close to recovering. Grant never let go of me—he just held me close, catching me when I fell back down to Earth. “Ryan?” The way he said it, the timing of it . . . I knew what was coming. My head shook against his. “I don’t want you to fall in love with a walking corpse.” He kissed my neck, slowly lowering my wrists down the wall. “Too late.” My eyes burned. “Don’t.” His face moved in front of mine, lowering so they were level. Despite the darkness, the look on

his face was as clear as day. “Like hell I won’t.”

“WE ARE SITTING in the owner ’s box. The New York Storm’s Owner ’s Box.” Charlie shook her head for the countless time that day, looking like it still hadn’t registered, despite Grant and me telling her a thousand times each where she’d be sitting this Sunday. “I can’t believe it.” “Well, your dad is Grant Turner, but he only put us up here because he wanted to keep us safe, okay? This isn’t about special privileges or being better than anyone or anything like that, okay?” “Yeah, Mom. I heard you the first ten thousand times.” Charlie grinned at me, clutching my hand like she’d promised as we wove through the insane crowd of Storm fans a little before kick-off. Grant had left a few hours earlier to get ready for the game, and it was strange to think that the very player thousands of people were about to be chanting for was the same one we’d just played a game of charades with while eating pancakes and eggs. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone. But I do think I’m a bigger football fan than anyone, so really, who better to give a seat to in the Storm’s Owner ’s Box, right?” Charlie’s eyes were twice their normal size as we continued through the maze of people and smells and sights. When I noticed a Storm vendor up ahead, I steered us in that direction. Grant had already loaded her up with everything Storm imaginable, from bed sheets to earmuffs, but I wanted to get her something all on my own. I wanted her to have something to remind her of this first game we got to go to together when . . . When things changed. “What do you want?” I motioned at the loaded cart of black-and-grey Storm paraphernalia and waited. “Like, anything?” Charlie’s eyes went wider still. “Like anything.” I knew my attempts at keeping the kid grounded had been successful when she started acting like getting to pick out a twenty dollar stocking cap was the jackpot when she lived in a mansion on one of the wealthiest streets in the nation. How different her life would be from mine. How different it would be from her father ’s. Knowing that couldn’t have made me happier. She’d have to deal with enough of my past without having to know what it felt like to try to fall asleep while being kept awake by a rumbling stomach or the sound of your mother getting beaten by a boyfriend or a drug dealer she owed. After a few minutes’ debate, Charlie went with the classic foam finger. After I paid and helped her put it on, we continued our journey to the owner ’s box at the very tippy-top of the stadium. Grant had gotten us a couple of special badges to show security when we got up there, but I didn’t pull them out of my purse until we were closer. In case anyone thought they recognized my face, I

figured the VIP lanyard would confirm it. As it was, I’d tugged on a Storm stocking cap and braided my hair back in hopes of looking more “disguised.” After Grant’s and my date a couple of nights ago, pictures of us had spread across the city. From newspapers to online platforms, it felt like everywhere I looked, there was a photo of Grant Turner and his “mystery” woman. As far as I knew, no one had linked us to our pasts, but that would change. It would happen, and when that was unearthed, it wouldn’t take long for people to figure out who Charlie was and who her father was. Once that happened, there’d be no winding through a packed Storm auditorium without a team of security. After slipping one of the lanyards around Charlie’s neck, I put the second around mine as we approached the box. The man stationed outside of it barely gave the passes a glance when he saw us coming. Instead, he smiled and gave Charlie a high five, unlocking the door to let us in. “Enjoy the game,” he said. “Oh, we will,” Charlie replied emphatically, rolling through the door without hesitation. “Charlie . . .” My hand dropped to her shoulder. “Remember . . .” “Yeah, yeah, Mom, I do.” She glanced up at me, waving her foam finger like a pendulum. “We’ve gone over it a hundred thousand times. I won’t say anything about that.” Winking, I followed her inside. “Good girl.” After letting her know that we’d get to go to Grant’s football game, to which she’d lost her mind, and telling her where he’d gotten us seats, to which she lost everything that was left, I told her she couldn’t tell anyone about her being Grant’s daughter. At least not yet. For now, I was happy to remain the woman Grant Turner had just started seeing, and Charlie was just my daughter. I figured the less we gave the public, the more time we’d have to figure out how we wanted to tell them. The more time I’d have to figure out a way to tell my daughter about my Huntington’s before she found out from a third party. Stepping inside the owner ’s box was a totally different experience than bustling around the stadium. Everything looked different; everything smelled different. Even the people looked different. “Holy . . .” Charlie’s mouth fell open as she gaped at the impressive room. “Your very first football game and you’re sitting in the owner ’s box. How do you rate?” I gave the ponytail sticking out of the back of her autographed ball cap a shake. “Well, I am—” She stopped herself promptly, giving me a sheepish look. “Your daughter.” “Well, you are.” Shaking my head, I moved us inside the room. Both of us were moving hesitantly, like we weren’t sure we belonged here. About a dozen people were staggered at the giant front windows, chatting, drinks in hand, and a few had plates stacked with fancy-looking hor d’oeurves. Reminded me of the same kind of food Grant and I had scratched our heads at at the French restaurant the other night. From the silver trays lined up along the side wall and the cards listing what was inside, I could tell this wasn’t the place to come looking for a hot dog, nachos, or soft pretzel. No one noticed us until we were almost at the chairs lined up front, but when they did, they all seemed to notice us at once. “Miss Hale,” the older gentleman with a full head of silver-white hair greeted me, setting down his plate and steering toward us. “Oh my gosh,” Charlie whispered beside me, “that’s . . .” “Ralph Fontaine.” He smiled, holding out his hand toward me. “Glad you could be here today.” “Thank you for having us. This is really special.” I shook his hand and returned the smile, feeling like a fish out of water. Charlie and I were decked out in head-to-toe Storm gear, while everyone else inside the room was in wool sports coats and tailored slacks. I felt like we’d just been dropped into a

country club in the Hamptons or something. “Quite welcome. When your big gun makes a request, the team owner doesn’t balk. Unless it’s a twenty-percent pay increase.” Mr. Fontaine chuckled, but for some reason, I felt like he’d just paid me a sideways insult. Or maybe I was just being extra-sensitive, feeling like such an outsider in this room. I was a girl from The Clink—what in the hell was I doing in the owner ’s box at Storm Stadium? “And this must be your daughter.” Mr. Fontaine held out his hand for Charlie too, which she clearly thought was quite the honor. “Charlie,” she said in her most mature voice. Mr. Fontaine motioned at the line-up of food and drinks. “Please, help yourself, and if there’s anything you need, just let me know.” His gaze fell on me, something in his brow suggesting he was studying me. Just enough confusion for me to realize that he couldn’t figure out what this perfectly ordinary girl who came with the “baggage” of a child could be doing with his top player. Grant Turner belonged with the stereotypical beauty that hung off other players’ arms—tall, leggy models or showy, voluptuous Playmates. I could almost hear Mr. Fontaine’s thoughts as he tried to fathom what his precious number eighty-seven saw in the petite, non-leggy, non-curvy, very-epitomeof-average woman standing in front of him. I had one middle finger that could answer that question for him. But I refrained since Charlie was here. I’d rather set a good example for her than prove a point with Mr. Elitist. “Those two seats on the end are still free if you’d like to place dibs.” Waving at the end of the row, Mr. Fontaine got back to his fellow navy-sports-coat-wearing cronies on the other side of the room. End of the row. Other side of the room. It was clear we didn’t fit in, and it was just as clear no one was interested in crossing the bridge to make us feel welcome. And so the hell what? It was my daughter ’s very first time as a spectator at the game she loved and getting to watch her father dominate the field. I wasn’t going to cry over a bunch of stuck-up rich people. “Hungry? Thirsty?” I nudged her, waggling my eyebrows like the world was our playground. She didn’t even glance back at where the food and drinks were. She made a beeline for the chairs at the end. I followed her, smiling as she stared down at the field like it couldn’t be real. She even rubbed her eyes a few times just to make sure. “How’s that for a view?” I came up beside her and stared down at the field and the fans. It looked like an ocean of grey and black surging up the stairs of the stadium. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Charlie pressed her hands onto the glass, her face following. “There he is!” She stabbed her pointer finger into the glass, bouncing. “There’s—” My hand clamped around her shoulder just in time. Charlie was still getting used to calling Grant Dad, but she was calling him that more often than his name. I knew we’d gone over our plan to keep her paternity a secret a “hundred-thousand” times today, but she was a seven-year-old. An easily excitable one who was insanely proud of the fact Grant Turner was her father. I wasn’t sure if we’d make it through the entire game without everyone in this room finding out about our secret. At least one of them. My chorea had been better over the past couple of days, but I never knew when that would change. I just hoped it could hold off for a few more hours. Grant had offered to have someone close by I could fire off a quick text to and be escorted out of the stadium quickly, but I’d thought that was overkill. Nothing like knowing a security guard was pacing close by, waiting to come in and save the day, to tempt fate. If I was hit with a bad case of chorea, I’d just have to deal with it as it came.

Teams were lining up for kick-off, so Charlie and I, along with a few others in the room, slid into our chairs. Most of the others looked content to stand, have their drinks refilled by the server milling around the room, and glance at the field every few minutes. A knock pounded on the door as the Storm started its charge down the field, but I was too busy watching the field to be distracted by whoever or whatever was at the door. Charlie couldn’t stay sitting in her chair with all of the excitement and noise roaring through the stadium. She resumed her place at the window, foam finger, face, and hand pressed against the glass. “Miss Hale?” A server came around in front of me with his arms balancing a tray loaded with food and drinks. Proper football-game food and drink. He managed to maneuver a little table in front of me before setting down the tray. “Compliments of Mr. Turner.” The server winked then handed me a folded piece of paper before leaving. You’re welcome. That was all the note said, but it had me smiling like an idiot. The perks of dating a guy you’d known most of your life was this kind of thing—sending up a tray of real Sunday football food, instead of the fancy finger foods in silver trays behind me. I didn’t care what hot dogs were made of —I’d take one any day over an organic chicken breast. “Hey. You.” Charlie hadn’t noticed the feast arrive, so I tapped her arm with a wrapped hot dog. “Food.” She took it absently, refusing to be distracted from the game. I should have known. Me, on the other hand? I’d sat and cheered at plenty of Grant’s games back in high school, and even a few in college when I’d been able to make it. Plus, I was hungry. Or at least I was now that I had something edible in front of me. He’d even remembered to have the condiments delivered on the side—relish, onion, mustard, and ketchup—which made me smile again. Like an idiot. For someone who’d been adamant about keeping distance between us, I’d sure failed that task. But damn. After that kiss. After those words he’d said. After that “incident” up against the wall on his front porch. How did a person keep her distance from someone like that? How did two people who’d loved each other for most of their lives pretend to be mere acquaintances? I’d just finished prepping my hot dog and was diving in for my first bite when I noticed someone settle into a chair behind me. Taking my bite, I twisted around to see who it was, figuring they hadn’t appeared because this was the best seat in the house. “Hello,” the women behind me said pleasantly, smiling just as pleasantly. I was still in the middle of chewing, so I returned a smile and waved, feeling even more confused. Why had this woman chosen to come sit by me when she clearly fit in with the wealthy, well-dressed people in the room better? She was also the leggy model type . . . but wasn’t exactly lacking in the curves department either, which was just downright unfair. You should either have been allowed the tall, willowy frame or the curvy, voluptuous one. Not both. That was just wrong. “I’m Sophia Fontaine, Ralph’s granddaughter.” She folded a sleek sheet of ice-blond hair over her shoulder, holding her smile like the girls in The Clink held their pocket knives—close and proficiently. Girls like her, who’d grown up in privilege and money, used their smiles as weapons, crafting them to either piss off or berate their enemies. “Ryan Hale,” I said, lowering my hot dog. The sight of it seemed to be making her nauseated. Or maybe it was the smell. She nodded conventionally then tapped at the outside corner of her mouth. When my head tipped, she did it again. “Mustard.” “Oh.” I wiped at my mouth, finally getting what she was alluding to. “Thanks.” Plucking a big red

straw from the tray, I tore off the wrapper and plunked the straw into the big blue Icee Grant had remembered to send up. If I couldn’t eat my hot dog without feeling judged, at least I could slurp my Icee. “So that’s your daughter?” Sophia’s light eyes moved to Charlie, who was still clutching the foilwrapped hot dog like she’d forgotten about it entirely. “I suppose I’ll claim ownership today. She mowed the lawn and didn’t say anything too profane.” When Sophia’s expression dropped, I realized all measure of joking would be lost on this one. “Joking,” I added before sucking up a stream of Icee. “Yeah, Charlie’s my daughter.” Sophia continued to study her. “She’s a beautiful girl. And she’s already a hit in this room because she clearly loves her football.” I waved at my plastered-to-the-glass daughter. “Obviously. And thank you. She is a great kid.” I was just telling myself to cool down and stop being so bitchy-judgey, when Sophia sniffed. “Who’s her father?” She asked her question with a smile, but damn, I’d never seen a blade more dangerous looking than that smile. Working out my reply as I worked on my Icee, I returned her version of a smile. “Her father,” I answered with a shrug. She gave the briefest of laughs, leaning back in her chair and crossing her knees. The position made her legs looks extra long, almost like they were as long as I was tall. “Grant and I go way back. Well, at least ever since he came to the Storm a few years ago.” If she thought that was way back, I guess Grant and I had met in the Jurassic period. “How long have you known him?” she continued. My eyes drifted to the field, where Grant had just caught the ball at the twenty-yard line. Charlie let out a whoop that rocked the windows, making a few people jump. Yeah, because a fan cheering at a football game was such a novel notion. “A while,” I answered, setting my Icee down so I could clap with Charlie. Sophia was clearly getting irritated at my vague answers—it was her eyes that gave her away—but she held that smile like she was a former Miss Congeniality. “What’s it like dating one of the biggest names in the game?” I struggled for an answer to that. Not for how it was like being with a guy like Grant, but how I wanted to answer this woman I knew nothing about. “It’s nice,” I settled on at last. She blinked at me. “Dating the Grant Turner is ‘nice?’” “It’s really nice?” I reached for my Icee again, like it was a safety blanket, and conjured up a smile. “Well, it’s not really nice all the time, right? I’ve dated my share of players to know all about that,” she exhaled, tinkering with the gold bracelets on her wrist. I assumed she was getting at something, though I wasn’t sure what. My raised eyebrow must have cued in her. “You know. The reputations. The rumors. The stories.” Her eyes roamed to the field. “The secrets.” The way she said secret, I knew this was the point she was really getting at. My head shook. “Grant doesn’t keep secrets from me.” He never had—he never would. Because Grant might have been hot-headed and stubborn, possessive and intense, but he’d also been trustworthy. Always. I knew that quality had transferred into the present. Sophia looked at me from under her long dark lashes. “You don’t believe that, do you? No matter how well you think you know a person, all men have their secrets.” And this conversation was going nowhere. If she thought this little warning was enough to make me tremble in my Cons, she didn’t have a clue what type of woman she was trying to intimidate.

“Not Grant.” She watched me for a minute—studying me as though she were trying to see if I truly believed that or if I only wanted her to believe I believed that. I held her stare, unblinking. I believed it. I didn’t care a rat’s behind if she did. “Your daughter ’s so beautiful.” Sophia’s expression changed, along with her tone. “Those big dark eyes, pretty chestnut hair, and that easy smile . . .” Sophia’s gaze cut to mine as she rose from her chair. “It’s like she’s got a bigger, male clone I’ve met before.” My heart stopped, and she knew it too. She patted my shoulder, all patronizing-like. “Those few men in the world might not have any secrets, but we women certainly do. Don’t we?” Her gaze moved to Charlie, who was wearing a jersey with Turner stamped across the back beneath her overalls. A sculpted brow lifted before Sophia walked away. Awesome in-person first game. On the bright side, it couldn’t get any worse.

THE STORM HAD owned the game, a certain number eighty-seven playing at a new level. I guessed it had something to do with knowing his daughter was glued to the plate-glass window in the owner ’s box, cheering on the Invincible Man. Aka, her dad. Watching him tonight, I’d almost believed the claim that he was, in fact, invincible. Of course I knew better, but those few hours of that game made it easy to believe nothing could bring down Grant Turner. After Sophia’s and my “chat,” Charlie and I had been left alone for the rest of the game. Other than the server who made a few passes to see if we needed anything, and Mr. Fontaine lifting his fifth gin and tonic at me the time we made eye contact, I hadn’t had to suffer through mingling. The experience hadn’t been too bad—it could have been worse. Plus, I’d had a heap of processed, sugary goods to keep me happy and an awed daughter who hadn’t left her perch at the window, not even during halftime. At least I’d managed to get half a hot dog down her, but she couldn’t even be talked into a bathroom break. I’d had to take two thanks to the super-sized Icee. As soon as the game ended, I started to gather up Charlie’s and my things, ready to breathe free air again. After thanking Mr. Fontaine and luring Charlie out the door with a Red Rope dangled in front of her like a carrot, I was finally free of the owner ’s box. First time. Last time. I didn’t care what kind of security detail Grant put on us, Charlie and I were sitting in the stands from now on. “The Storm kicked booty Mom.” Charlie was still bouncing from her excitement as she took my hand. “That was the best moment of my life. The best.” “Glad you had so much fun. It was a pretty spectacular game.” The hall outside the owner ’s box was quiet, but I leaned down to whisper in Charlie’s ear, “Your dad dominated out there.” She giggled and looked over her shoulder, loving that we were in on some big secret. “It’s too bad they don’t have professional football teams for girls. I think I’d be really good at it.” “Maybe one day you could start one.” “Yeah?” “Anything’s possible,” I stated, both believing those words and knowing better. But I wanted her to believe it for as long as possible. “Would you come and cheer me on if I did?” Something ached in my chest, thinking about everything I’d miss. My hand squeezed hers. “You

better believe it.” “I’ll reserve a seat just for you.” We were about to descend the stairs to put us on the third floor of the stadium when I felt it. The burst of pain through my nerves, right before they went numb. “Charlie . . .” I got out, right before my vocal chords went as dead as the rest of my body. The tremor that burst through my body sent me to the ground instantly. Beside me, Charlie cried out, clinging to my hand even as I spilled out across the floor in a trembling fit. “Mom?” I heard her voice, but it sounded far away, like she was screaming across an ocean. “Mom!” I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t even make eye contact. I was trapped inside my body, feeling like an unwilling victim in some sick and twisted game. This was what it would be like in the end. All the time. I’d know what was going on around me, but be unable to interact or communicate or participate. It was like I’d be forced to serve a life sentence in a maximum-security prison known as my body. The same body that had supported me for twenty-four years. The same body I’d shared with Grant. The same body I’d given birth to my daughter with. It had been a reliable friend, but one day, it would be my greatest enemy. It felt like the tremor wouldn’t end, but I guessed only a minute or two had passed before I started to notice the feeling returning to my fingers. Charlie. I tried again, but my mind and mouth were still disconnected. “Charlie,” I whispered finally. She was crouching beside me, still clutching my hand in one of hers, my phone in the other. She looked shaken up and pale, but I saw braveness in her eyes. “Mom?” “I’m okay,” I assured her, my words still garbled. “I just need a minute.” Sensation was trickling back into my body, nerve by nerve, but I didn’t trust myself to stand yet. Charlie lifted my phone she must have pulled out of my purse. “I called Dad.” She swallowed, almost looking guilty. My fingers managed to curl around hers. “Good. You did good.” I knew Grant was probably in the locker room or being interviewed right now, but Charlie had called the first person she thought of when she needed help. Her dad. Relief washed over me, knowing she was already starting to rely on him. Knowing he’d be there for her when tougher times came. “What happened, Mom? Are you okay?” Charlie scanned the hallway, but it was still empty. To get up here to the private boxes, you had to get past security. Like the guard rushing up the stairs right this second. “I’m okay, Charlie-Bird. You did good. We’ll talk later.” I managed to get up on my elbows, Charlie scooting up behind me just in case I fell again. After this, I knew I couldn’t keep the truth hidden from her for much longer. It wasn’t fair, and it was important she knew for when this happened again. “Miss Hale? What happened?” the security guard who’d been stationed at the bottom of the stairs earlier asked, jogging closer. “I fell,” I said, trying to sit up a little higher, but I couldn’t. This one had really messed me up. “How did you . . .” My question was answered when I caught a glimpse of someone else hustling up those stairs, looking like he was soaring over them. “Ryan?” Grant’s holler echoed down the hallway when he saw us. He must have been in the middle of stripping when Charlie’s call came in, because other than his jersey, he was still fully suited up. “I’m okay,” I repeated as he sprinted toward us, his cleats pounding on the concrete. He slid to a stop beside me, dropping to his knees. “I told you to stay close,” he said, glancing at

the guard on the other side of me. “I thought I was . . .” The look Grant gave him brought him up short. “Next time I’ll stay closer, Mr. Turner.” My mouth opened. “Did you have someone following me, Grant Turner?” “Of course I did.” He didn’t sound or look the least bit sorry about it either. “That wasn’t necessary.” Grant’s nostrils flared. “Your present situation indicates otherwise.” One of Grant’s hands dropped to my face, the other pulling Charlie into his side. “What happened?” His voice was strained, his bare chest rising hard beneath his shoulder pads. My eyes locked on his. “You know what happened.” A silent exchange passed between us before his jaw locked up as his eyes closed. His grip stayed strong around Charlie and me. Sweat was still dripping from the ends of his hair, and he smelled like a mixture of AstroTurf, sweat, and man. Despite the worry I could see working its way through him, seeing him dressed in nothing but a pair of Lycra pants, some protective pads, and a pair of cleats made me smile. “Nice outfit.” Charlie, who was still gripping my hand, smiled with me as she checked out her dad. Seeing us smiling seemed to relax him. Enough for the worry lines to soften. “Lucky for you Charlie’s call came in ten seconds before I’d finished stripping.” “We’ll keep that in mind for next time. Just to call your bluff.” Grant huffed, lowering his face so it was above mine. “Don’t think I won’t streak through tens of thousands of fans to get to you, Ryan Hale.” That warm feeling in my stomach spread, the way it seemed to whenever he was close. “Mr. Turner?” The guard cleared his throat after lowering his walkie. “We should get you all out of here.” His gaze drifted toward the stairway where I could make out the growing roar of fans chanting a familiar last name. “See what happens when you leave the locker room without your shirt on?” I tapped his stomach, which was just as hard as the rest of him. “Anarchy. Mayhem. Rioting. Potential human sacrifices.” Grant and Charlie exchanged a head shake before he tapped his shoulder pads. “Okay, Charlie. Climb on board. The muscle says it’s time to get out of here.” Charlie more leapt than climbed on Grant’s shoulders. She might have been a little old to be riding piggyback, but she looked like a toddler up there on her dad’s colossal shoulders. “Hold on tight, okay? I don’t care if you feel like you’re about to rip my head off, just don’t let go.” Grant glanced up at her and waited for her to nod. “Not letting go.” She wound her arms around his head, tying her fingers below his chin. Then Grant’s arms slipped beneath me, his arms curling around my shoulders and knees, before he stood up like he wasn’t carrying a person in his arms and a large seven-year-old on his shoulders. “Mr. Turner, let me get one of them.” The security guard burst up beside us, but Grant practically snarled when he tried reaching out for me. “I’ve got my family,” Grant stated, already moving down the hall. “You cover me.” He glanced down at me like he already knew the look he’d find on my face. “What? You two are my family, and I’m tired of no one knowing about it.” He continued down the hall, me in his arms, Charlie on his shoulders, and looking the most invincible I’d ever seen him. “It’s time everyone knows about it.”

THANKS TO GRANT’S iron will and equally iron strength, Charlie and I made it out of the stadium undetected, slipping into a dark car that had been waiting for us when Grant shoved through one of the players’ access doors. He’d almost crawled in the car with us, but I told him to stop acting like a crazy person and go get changed and showered before he caused any more females to spontaneously combust. It had taken Charlie and me a few minutes to convince him that we were okay before he agreed, sending the poor security guard in his place. From the look Grant gave him after telling him not to leave our sides until we were inside the front door, I guessed he was threatening castration if the guard disobeyed. I tried to lighten the drive back to Grant’s by making a few Secret Service jokes, but he was not in the mood to be lightened up. Poor guy. He looked like he’d just watched his dog get run over, but it wasn’t his fault I’d taken a spill like that. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The sooner Grant came to accept that as I had, the easier it would be to move on from these kinds of incidents. Because they’d continue to happen. Increasing in frequency and intensity. Mrs. Kent had left earlier, leaving a plate of enchiladas in the fridge for whenever we were hungry for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry and Charlie was happy enough with a peanut butter sandwich and apple slices. For the first time since moving into Grant’s, Charlie actually fell asleep before her bedtime, probably due to the excitement of the day. I was going to put the enchiladas in the oven for Grant, guessing he’d be starving after playing a game like he had, but I wasn’t sure when he’d get back and I didn’t want to annoy him with calls like I was checking up on him. This was the first home game he’d had since we’d moved in, and I wasn’t sure what a typical day looked like. The game had finished around four, and he’d gotten us tucked into the car a little before four thirty. I guessed there might have been after-game meetings and maybe interviews, but when nine o’clock chimed on the big clock hanging in the foyer, I decided to head up to bed. For all I knew, he might already be hibernating in the pool house. God knew he’d earned it. Peeking inside Charlie’s room before heading to mine, I made sure she was sleeping soundly and had her blankets tucked in around her, then I wandered into the master bedroom. It had been another unseasonably warm day, and while the air conditioning kept the house more than comfortable, I felt the need for some fresh air. Grant’s home was the only place I’d lived in with the luxury of air conditioning, and as nice as it was, it was taking me some time to get used to. The windows in the master bedroom were long and wide, a half dozen of them running along one

wall. One by one, I opened them as far as they’d go, until a gentle breeze was rolling through the room, playing with the sheer panels hanging from the windows, almost making them look like angels floating in the night. Enough light spilled down from the moon, so I kept the lights off in the room and moved toward one of the middle windows. Ducking beneath the fluttering panel, I rested my hands on the windowsill, sticking my head out of the window just enough to get a view of what was below me. The pool glowed beneath me, surrounded by a stone patio surrounded by an endless stretch of landscaping. Beyond, New York City twinkled in the distance. It was so beautiful here. Like a fairy tale. The ones I’d been too scared to read as a child, knowing how very opposite my life was from them. I thought about how far I’d come. How much I had wrung out of life that I’d never guessed I’d have a chance to or, back then, never even knew existed to wish for. Like happiness. And peace. And a beautiful daughter. And her wonderful father. And this amazing spot where everything was cared for, and growing, and appreciated. As I let my mind wander, I stepped up onto the windowsill, making sure my arms were braced tightly. Now the breeze was breaking across me, sending my hair spiraling behind me, the hem of my nightgown playing in the wind. When I looked down, the breath I’d been taking caught. I felt like I was standing on the edge of the world without a safety net to catch me if I fell. It was both invigorating and terrifying. Closing my eyes, I relaxed my death grip of the windowsill and let myself experience the feeling of flying—the feeling of being free. I didn’t hear him enter the room, but I felt him. The way a person wakes up to sun on their face. “Ryan.” His voice spilled across the room, tension heavy in it. I kept my eyes closed for another minute as I heard his footsteps pad closer. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to jump. You won’t be rid of me that easily.” The sound of his neck popping filled the room. “Not funny.” “Not to you maybe.” Opening my eyes, I let the moment pass, but the effects of it stayed with me. “What are you doing?” When I looked back at him, I found he’d moved right up behind me, his arms out, his chest twitching in anticipation. He’d really been worried I was thinking about jumping. Guess I couldn’t blame him. I was fresh on the heels of experiencing the worst episode of the disease that was going to, eventually, kill me. “Looking death in the face,” I answered, turning to look back out into the black void. “It’s good to remind yourself that death’s always right here, waiting for us, letting us carry on. Death isn’t so scary. No more than life anyway.” He was silent for a moment. “Ryan?” “Yeah?” Very gently, his hands molded around my stomach. “Will you please get down from there?” Lowering my arms, I placed my hands over his. “All done reminding death I’m not scared of him. Bring me back down to earth.” He had me off of the windowsill in half of a heartbeat, settling my feet in front of him on the plush carpet. I didn’t miss the way he turned so he was between me and the open window. “No more balancing out of open windows please.” His forehead creased, his hands still holding me close. “Not after today.” After everything he’d done for Charlie and me, I would have done anything for him. Least of all heeding a simple request. “Okay.” He’d changed into a pair of jeans and a snug V-neck tee. The sweat and AstroTurf smell was washed off of him, making the man scent that much more prominent. It made me dizzy, especially

with him touching me, nothing but a few fragments of moonlight invading the dark around us. “Did you have dinner? I wasn’t sure what time you’d be home.” Letting go of my waist, he turned and started to close the window I’d just crawled down from. “I’m not hungry. Sorry, I should have called or let you know what time I’d be home.” “You don’t need to let me know where you are every hour of every day. It’s fine.” He glanced back at me, most of the anxiety that had lined his expression gone. “Yeah, but I like knowing where you are every hour of every day, so I try to make it a two-way street.” My hand settled on my hip as I watched him move to the next window. “Just because you like to know doesn’t mean you get to know.” Grant’s soft laugh moved around the room. “It’s funny how after all of these years, and knowing you’re safe from the dangers of our old life, my palms still break out in sweat when I realize I don’t know where you are.” His shirt pulled across his back when he shrugged, moving on to the next window. “More old habits dying never.” “After everything we’ve both been through, I’ll take it easy on you.” “You’ll put up with my irrational, bordering-on-extreme overprotectiveness?” “Well, I’ll try.” When he’d finished closing all of the windows, I realized he’d left them all open a little. Just enough to let the fresh air make its way inside. “Then this is the perfect time for me to mention where I was tonight.” From the way he was avoiding eye contact, I guessed I wasn’t going to be particularly pleased with wherever that was. “Yes?” I took a deep breath, prepared for anything. “I went to visit an old friend of mine. An old college friend. Well, actually, he started out as my tutor when I was having a tough time keeping up with my classes and threatening to get kicked off of the football team.” The skin between my eyebrows came together. I hadn’t known many of Grant’s college friends. I’d met a few of the guys on the team the handful of times I’d made it to a game, but usually whenever we had a weekend together, he didn’t want to share me with anyone. We’d just found some place to lock ourselves up together, away from the rest of the world. “Okay,” I said, not sure where this was going. “And he lives in New York too?” Grant nodded absently, like his mind was somewhere else. “Yeah, he’s actually a doctor. You know, one of those really extra brilliant ones always being talked about in articles and journals and stuff?” “Okay,” I repeated, not sure where this was going, but it was obviously important to him. “Ravi Patel—well, Dr. Patel now, but back when I was a dumb-as-shit freshman and he was a senior tasked with getting me through chemistry, I knew him as Ravi.” “Grant, you’re rambling. What is it?” I asked as gently as I could. “He’s a neurologist. Not the one you met with last week, but still, he’s in the field. He’s good, Ryan. So damn good.” Grant scrubbed his face with one of his hands, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “I sat down and talked to him about you—” “About me?” My voice rose, but for good reason. The fewer people who knew about me, the better. I’d already bumped up my talk with Charlie after what had happened today, and I didn’t want to move it up again. Plus, with Grant talking with this doctor, I wasn’t sure if doctor-patient confidentiality was still a factor. Like when the media found out about it and came knocking on his office door, offering to pay him cash for a story. “I trust him, Ryan. I’d trust him with my life. I mean that.” “That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to trust him with my and Charlie’s lives,” I cut in.

“I know, I know. I didn’t mention Charlie. Just, please, listen.” He rolled his neck, making it pop again. “After telling him about your Huntington’s and asking him if he had any suggestions, anything, for ways we could help you, he brought up something.” I wasn’t angry. Not really. I understood what it was like to be desperate for a miracle. I didn’t blame Grant for wanting that miracle. It was hard to watch someone else cling to any and every miracle though, when I’d realized a while ago that there was no such thing when it came to diseases like this one. “What did he bring up?” I asked quietly. Grant’s eyes met mine. “There are some new experimental drugs. A couple look really promising.” My head shook. “Those experimental drugs won’t be available to someone like me until it’s too late. It will take years, maybe decades, before any of those new drugs make it through the FDA.” His head shook as he moved to one of the windows. “These drugs don’t have to pass through the FDA.” “Every prescription drug in the US has had to pass through the FDA. Why would any of these be different?” He stared out the window, bracing his arms on the sill. “Because these ones aren’t in the US. They’re in Europe.” I’d been so ready to argue with him that his answer made the words stick in my throat. It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. “But how could we get the drug here? Wouldn’t it be illegal?” I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him. As painful as it was, I was thankful he’d held onto hope. As far-fetched as it was, I was touched he’d taken such time to even look into an alternative so out-of-the-box. “We’d have to travel there. That would be the only way.” “Travel to Europe?” My voice cracked. I’d never been outside of the US. After my diagnosis, I never thought I would either. “How are we going to do that? You’re in the middle of your season. I don’t think I can travel that kind of distance on my own anymore.” Grant turned around, holding up his hands. “This isn’t something we’re going to be able to do tomorrow. Ravi’s heard through the grapevine about these new drugs. It’ll take him time to narrow down which lab’s working on them, and time to make contacts that would be willing to let us make a ‘donation’ in exchange for the drug.” My eyebrows pulled together. All I could see was red flag after red flag in that conversation. “Donation? Is that the way they do things over in Europe? A person walks into a pharmacy and makes a donation in exchange for their pills?” The dark room couldn’t hide the sheepish expression on his face. “These drugs aren’t even on the market in Europe yet, Ryan. They’re getting close, but you would be one of the first humans on the planet to try them.” My heart was sliding up my throat. From nerves mainly, but also from hope. I’d abandoned it so long ago, and sacrificing it had been painful. I didn’t want to chance the same thing happening when and if this proved to be like the rest of the times I’d let myself hope. “Are you suggesting I become some guinea pig? For some drug that isn’t legal in the country which we’re standing in at this very moment? For some drug that isn’t even on the market in Europe yet? After making a ‘donation’? By the way, how much will that donation be? I doubt the lab working on this miracle drug is a charitable institution. Probably one of those money-making ones, right?” Grant lifted his hands again. “Slow down. I just talked with Ravi an hour ago. Even he doesn’t know all of the particulars and is going to have to look into it for us, but the reason I’m bringing this up is because there’s hope, Ryan. This could be it. The miracle you’ve been looking for.”

And there was that word. Miracle. I knew better than to believe in miracles. I knew better than to go off in search of one. I wasn’t expecting or even hoping for a miracle—I would have been happy with time. “And if this drug is so great over there, why don’t we have it over here yet?” I asked, ready to start punching hole after hole through this whole miracle issue. I wished he’d just accept that I had Huntington’s and nothing was going to change that. Then we could both move on and enjoy however many months or years I had left of being me. “Listen, Ryan, I’m a football player. The dumbest of dumb jocks. I don’t understand how this works. Shit, I didn’t understand half of the words Ravi was using tonight.” He inhaled slowly, a painful look passing over him. “But I do know this is something good. I do know Ravi knows his shit and wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t think it was worth something, and I know he’ll do everything he can to get us the answers we need. And I know that I would pay any price to have more time with you.” Rising from my perch on the bed, I started toward him. My head was spinning with everything from experimental drugs to how powerless I’d felt crashing to the ground earlier today. I was tired of thinking about Huntington’s and all that revolved around it. “I don’t want to talk about dying anymore.” Dropping my hand in his, I laced my fingers through his and gave him a tug. He followed me, giving me a curious look. “What do you want to talk about then?” When I felt the edge of the mattress against the backs of my legs, I stopped. “Living.” His eyes flashed as the moment caught up with him. A smile started to form when I patted the bed, and he sat there. “Is that something you talk about or more something you do?” He managed to make do sound every bit as illicit as one word could get. “It’s something you do. Something I’m about to do.” Splaying my fingers on the caps of his knees, I leaned in until my mouth was brushing his ear. “All.” He quaked when I kissed the line of his jaw. “Night.” A rumble echoed in his chest when I sucked at his neck. “Long.” When I leaned back, I found his eyes were excited and his muscles so stiff they were pressing veins through his neck and forearms. “I’ve always been a fan of living. A big fan. Huge.” I smiled as I reached for the hem of my nightgown. “I remember,” I said, sliding it up my body. This was the first time I’d stripped for a man since I was seventeen. First time I’d be naked and exposed, and the first time I’d seen a naked man and felt his body. The first time Grant and I had had sex, I’d been nervous. At least a little. I’d been worried because I was young and inexperienced. I worried I wouldn’t know what I was doing or how to please him. I worried I wouldn’t be enough. But he’d put every one of those worries to rest that night, and even after all of this time, those worries were still in the ground. When I finished pulling the gown over my head, I let it fall on the carpet behind me. My chest was moving as fast as his. “Sweet Jesus, Ryan,” Grant rasped, his eyes wandering my body. He didn’t miss anything, giving the cap of my bare shoulder as much attention as he did the canyon running between my breasts. “I haven’t been with anyone in seven years.” When my fingers hooked under my panties, Grant reached for my arm and pulled me closer. His fingers replaced mine, slipping my panties down my body, his thumbs caressing the insides of my thighs as they lowered. “I’ll go slow—I’ll be gentle.” His head dropped to my stomach, his breath warming the area south of my navel. It made my body weak with want. “That’s not what I mean.” My eyes sealed shut as his hands made their return journey. This time, his thumbs caressed what was between my inner thighs.

An uneven grunt rumbled from his mouth when he felt my body ready for him. “What do you mean then, Ryan? Whatever you want—it’s yours. Just say it.” His tongue tasted my skin, circling my navel before moving lower. “I don’t want slow. I don’t want gentle.” My back quivered when his knuckles brushed between my legs. “I want the opposite.” Grant’s grip tightened against me, before his head tipped back and his eyes found mine. “Then get on the bed and let me give you just that.” He rose like a tower above me with his body so close, his arms feeling as though they were swallowing my body whole. His hands formed around my backside, and he lifted me into the air. As I wrapped my legs around him, my mouth crushed against his, letting his tongue claim my mouth. I was desperate to have some part of him inside me. He spun us around, breaking the kiss once he’d lowered me to the bed. I didn’t want to let him go —my legs only tightened when he tried to pull back. One leg at a time, his hand formed under the bend of my knee, untying them from him and spreading them on the mattress. He was so damn strong. He didn’t have to take his time exerting his force. He didn’t have to be gentle about showing it. But he always did—he always had. In the process, his strength became transient, making me feel just as strong. Harnessing his power—controlling it when lesser men would have abused it—was one of the reasons Grant Turner had been the only one who’d ever owned my heart. “As bad as I want you right now . . .” His voice was a deep rumble in my ear as he ground himself between my legs. My moan rose from deep inside me as I arched my back closer. “I want to feel all of you against me. I want all of you.” He pitched into me once more before pulling back, a smirk moving into place when he looked down at me writhing and panting, desperate. “This. This right here.” His eyes took me in: my lips parted from my breathing, my nipples hard from my arousal, my knees still spread, my body trembling from need. “This is the image I’m going to focus on whenever my fist curls around my dick.” I lifted onto my elbows as he tugged off his shirt. “You’ve got me for that. No need to take your matter into your own hand.” “And after the past seven years of taking my matter into my own hand, you have no idea how fucking thrilled I am about that.” He stopped working the button of his jeans free to flash his right hand. “The callouses on my hand thank you. My sex-starved dick thanks you . . . and your . . .” A clearing of his throat filled in the rest. As his gaze dipped down my body, his hands moved with new speed to free him of his pants. I was so focused on Grant’s body as he undressed it that I felt dizzy from the way the muscles pulled his skin with every little move, fascinated by the way the moonlight highlighted certain areas, the darkness shadowing others. “Grant?” “I also answer to Sir, Sex Lord, or if you’re feeling really kinky, Daddy.” He arched a brow at me, smiling. “Can I clarify something?” I swallowed. “Absolutely, but you might want to hurry. I’m planning on making it difficult for you to speak soon.” When he pulled his jeans down past his hips, heat burst up my throat. The man really didn’t believe in underwear. When my eyes went wider, my tongue touching my lips, Grant’s hand dropped to himself. He was trying to distract me. Trying to prove to me what he meant by making it impossible to speak.

“That seven years of giving your hand callouses . . .” I had to close my eyes and exhale when he started to lower his body onto mine. Focus, Ryan. For ten seconds. It was next to impossible to focus on anything besides the way Grant’s warm body felt spreading against mine. “Was that more of a bonus on the side or—” “All the action I got,” he answered, his arm cradling my body as he dragged us up the bed. Once he had placed my head on a pillow, his head dropped, nuzzling between my breasts. “So my mind’s a little fuzzy right now, but does that mean . . .?” “You’re the last woman I was with, Ryan,” he whispered against my skin, his warm breath making the skin prickle. “Come again?” His husky chuckle vibrated against my sternum. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever been with. My first. My last.” He kissed the canyon at the base of my neck. “My only.” My ears accepted his words, but my mind struggled with them. “No way. No. Way.” My throat bobbed as I considered that. I tried to wrap my mind around a man of his stature going through a seven-year dry spell. Willingly going through one. “You’re the only woman for me. I’ve known that my whole life. And I’m not the kind of guy who’s content to pretend with another. It was you or no one.” After kissing each of my breasts, he rose back up my body until I could feel him pushing at my opening. “You’re the only woman I’ve been with. I’m the only man you have. I want to take you just like this, with nothing between us”—his hips circled mine, pressing into me just enough to make me moan—“but if you want me to, if I need to, it’s okay—” My head shook against the pillow. “I am on every form of birth control known to woman.” Grant’s chest bounced against mine from his chuckle. “Had to check.” “Thank you for checking.” My back arched as his body pressed deeper into mine. “Now, baby, hold on.” His hands lifted my arms to his headboard, curling my fingers around the grooves of the metal design. “I’ve got seven years to make up for.” I gripped his headboard as hard as I could, feeling the same way. When I felt his hips flex, I lifted mine to meet them. Despite how desperate I knew we both were to unleash years of pent-up need, Grant held back just enough. He lowered inside me slowly, giving my body a chance to accommodate him before he moved deeper. My teeth sank into my bottom lip when he could go no farther, the breath hissing from his lips when I tightened around him. “So? How is it?” I breathed. “My god, Ryan,” he panted, his hand curling into my hip. “This was worth another seven years of jacking off to nothing but the image of you.” The level of awe and seriousness in his voice made me almost smile. “Glad you think so.” I pulled my hips back, making his hand braced beside my head fist into the pillow. “Now . . .” I tipped my head and blew a soft breath by his ear. “Daddy”—his back quivered as I continued to slide off of him —“make me feel good. Show me what living’s all about.”

IT WAS A new day. It felt like a new life. The sun wasn’t quite up yet, but still, I felt renewed. Reborn. Re something. I guessed that had plenty to do with the way Grant and I had spent the night. All of the night. Sleep deprivation would be the theme of the day, but I knew neither of us would complain. Not after last night. I also knew the re-something feeling came from what he’d said before we’d fallen into bed. Experimental drugs and Europe kept filtering through my mind, reminders not to get hopeful at the same time they gave me hope. “What time is it, baby?” Grant asked as I finished drying off. After a few rounds of sex, we’d decided a shower was in order. “A little after four,” I answered, checking the time on my phone. He grumbled, turning off the showerheads. “Dammit.” “What?” I finished toweling off my hair and wrapped the towel around my body. “I’ve got to leave in an hour.” “So? That gives you plenty of time to get dressed and eat breakfast.” At the mention of food, my stomach rumbled. There’d been no lack of appetite-working-up last night. “Yeah, but it doesn’t give me time to take my time with you.” Grant stepped out of the shower, wet and hard, a familiar look on his face. My legs squeezed together, my heart already racing. “So I’ll just have to speed things up.” He moved toward me, almost stalking me. My head tipped back, admiring him as he approached. As many times as I’d had that man’s body last night, I wanted it that many times again and more right now. “Want a towel?” “Sure.” He reached out and gripped my towel. “I’ll take this one.” He tugged it free from my body and threw it across the room. “I thought the whole reason for jumping in the shower was to get clean.” Grant nodded, half a smile on his face as he stationed himself behind me. “And the point of getting clean is to go and get dirty all over again.” “Ah, of course it is.” I looked at him in the mirror as he formed his hands around my hips. “But I think this might be a bit of a logistical challenge. Unless you’ve got a step stool nearby or plan on dropping to your knees.” I stared up at Grant towering above me, my body already spiraling at the thought of him taking me again. “I will happily get on my knees for you anytime you want, Ryan Hale. I will drop to my knees and worship you every minute of every day.” His hand dropped to my chin, tipping it back so I was

looking at him. “Is that what you want right now? Me on my knees in front of you?” I could feel my pulse in my temples, between my legs, in the arches of my feet. “No,” I whispered, looking him in the eyes. “I want you like this.” A predatory look flashed across his face as his hips pressed into mine until I was wedged between the counter ledge and him. “And all I want is you.” He slid my wet hair over my shoulder to kiss the back of my neck as I felt him move inside me. My cry echoed in the bathroom as he moved deeper, lifting me off of my feet. My hands curled into fists, clasping onto anything, thin air included, to hang on. Grant’s arm slid in front of me, his other staying braced around my hips. His hand dropped open between mine. “Hold on to me, Ryan,” he rasped. “Hold on and don’t let go. Ever.” When my trembling hands found his, he folded them in his strong grasp. His wet chest pressed into my back as he moved in slow, deep thrusts. His grunts tangled with my cries, until I knew neither of us would be able to last much longer. “Ryan?” His fingers tangled tighter around mine as he seated himself as far as he could. “With me?” My head bobbed as I felt the first wave of my orgasm come over me. “Always.” Grant’s head fell beside mine, his breath coming hard as he thrust inside of me one last time, coming with me. “And forever.” AFTER GRANT LEFT, I couldn’t have slept if I wanted to, so I reassembled the room we’d managed to make creative use of. Who would have thought a chaise could be used in so many ways? Who would have thought so many lamps could topple over and not break? Charlie was still asleep at seven, so after checking on her, I went downstairs for a little coffee and a lot of reflection. I felt like every facet of my life required some careful deliberation, from my relationship with my daughter, to my relationship with Grant, to my health. So much had changed in less than a month, and it seemed that as soon as I came to terms with one thing, five more were thrown at me. I’d have to explain to Charlie what was wrong with me. I’d managed to skirt her questions last night after the game, but I wouldn’t be able to keep that up for much longer. The talk would have to come soon. I’d had a year to prepare for it, but I still felt totally at a loss. How did a parent tell their child something like this? How did they explain it in a clear and concise way when it came with so many implications? Prepared or not, it was essential. Charlie needed to know. That was all I’d worked out by the time I’d finished my first cup of coffee outside, overlooking the grounds as the sun lit up the world around me. Next, I let my mind hover on the subject Grant had brought up last night. I knew we needed more information and there’d be no easy decision, but despite my attempts to keep hope buried, some seedlings of it had burst through the surface. I wanted to hope that one of these experimental drugs would deliver that miracle Grant had mentioned. I’d take a fraction of a miracle. As a mother, I needed to hope. So measured hope. That’s what I could allow myself. That’s what I could afford. Not the blind variety I’d clung to at first. I could hold on to the hope that some European experimental drug might be up to the task of giving me more time, giving me more days with fewer symptoms. At this point, I’d be thrilled to still feel “present” on Charlie’s tenth birthday. So talk with Charlie—sooner rather than later. Renewed hope for some drug to be up to tackling some of this disease—measured and careful.

That left Grant. For all of my determination and efforts to keep a distance between us, it had only taken him two weeks to prove just how pointless it was to try to keep any measure of distance between us. That wasn’t so much what I was worried about. Being close to him came with its complications, and I hated the thought of him hurting again when I left him, this time, due to no choice of my own. It was clear to me after last night that, whatever circumstance we found ourselves in, Grant and I were meant to be together. In whatever way life allowed. Trying to deny that was like trying to deny a person’s thirst for water. It was in my very makeup—he was in my very makeup. I’d love Grant until my last breath, and I knew he’d love me until his last, despite mine likely coming decades before his. My worries stemmed not from what I knew for certain, but what remained unsaid between us. I hadn’t told him everything. Not yet. Not because I was scared of telling him, but because saying it out loud would make it real. There’d be no pretending that it was just some nightmare I’d wake up from at any moment. There’d be no pretending that while my life might be ruined by this disease, at least my loved ones would be immune to it. I was surprised he hadn’t figured it out on his own yet, but it wasn’t as though he hadn’t had a lack of stuff to process without the conclusion he had yet to arrive at. I had to tell him soon. My second cup of coffee had been cold for a while when I heard little feet pad up behind me. “Are you cold, Mom? I brought a blanket.” Sitting up in the lounger, I looked back at my daughter in her solar system pajamas, her hair still a mess and her eyes sleepy-looking. “Exactly what I needed.” I patted my lap and took a breath, bringing every scrap of courage I had to the surface. “I need to talk with you about something.” Charlie moved closer a bit hesitantly. “About what happened to you at the game?” A smile touched my mouth. “Yes.” “Are you sick?” She sniffed, dragging the blanket she’d brought out to keep me warm. My smile didn’t falter. I couldn’t let it. My daughter deserved my strength, all of it. My weakness could have its way with me when I was alone, but not with Charlie. She’d need to see my strength through this to know it was possible. To know she was capable of the same. “Yes,” I answered, opening my arms. She sniffed again, a tear spilling out the corner of her eye. “Are you going to die?” My smile didn’t break, despite everything else inside me feeling as though it were shattering. “Yes.” I took her hand and pulled her closer, looking her in the eye. “But I’m going to live every day until then.”

CHARLIE’S AND MY talk had gone through breakfast and straight into lunch. She’d gotten her tears out early, but her questions hadn’t stopped until we’d finished the last bite of the pizza we’d ordered for lunch. It was a memory I’d never forget, images I’d take with me to the hereafter. Charlie’s innocent tears, her endless questions, her boundless strength, the spot of pizza sauce on her nose when she’d asked me if I was scared of dying. I’d cherish every last second of it. Grant had texted me earlier to let me know he wouldn’t be home until after dinner since he had to pull an extra weight session after practice. After my talk with Charlie, I’d decided today was a good day to get everything off of my chest at once. That was why I was in a cab heading for Storm Stadium. Since Charlie’s and my talk had gone so late into the day, she was still at home with Mrs. Kent, going through some school work, and I’d told them to have dinner without me. I guessed this conversation would take as long as Charlie’s and mine had. Probably longer. A guard was waiting for me at one of the entrances, so after paying the cab fare, I followed the guard through the door and down a long hall. “Mr. Turner ’s right this way, ma’am.” When the guard slowed his pace to match mine, I realized how slowly I’d been walking. Like each step, I was fighting through mud. When he stopped in front of a doorway, he waved at someone inside. “Thanks, Al. I appreciate you escorting her in.” Grant’s voice echoed out into the hall. “What a pretty girl like this is doing with a sorry excuse like you is beyond me.” Al shook his head good-naturedly, stepping aside to let me pass into the room. The moment I was in the room, Grant’s eyes latched onto me through the mirror he was standing in front of, a loaded barbell resting on his shoulders. “Beyond us both.” “Thank you.” I smiled at Al before he waved and disappeared down the hall. Grant’s brow lifted before he squatted low, releasing a hard breath when he righted himself. From the looks of the barbell, he was probably squatting close to three of me. “Got tired of waiting for me?” he asked with a roguish look on his face before squatting again. “Just checking up on you. Making sure you aren’t slacking.” I moved farther into the room, not missing how the scent of Grant’s sweat was already affecting me. “Yeah, well, it’s about killing me to get this last set out, but I’m finishing it no matter what. I’ve never given up on a workout before and damned if today’s the day I’ll start.” Lowering again, his

eyes went to the ceiling, all of his muscles priming as he popped off another rep. “Well, you were up all night messing around.” Grabbing a fresh towel from a shelf, I moved closer. He was drenched with sweat, droplets of it even running off of his hair. “Vigorously messing around.” I paused while he burned out a couple more reps, then he racked the barbell and turned around. “Lots of great equipment in here. Sturdy equipment made for taking abuse.” He lifted his chin at a machine that looked like a person was supposed to bend over it and get some kind of workout, I guessed. From the look on Grant’s face, his plans had more to do with working me over instead. “Tempting, but I could smell you from the parking lot.” When I tossed the towel at him, he caught it. “So? You didn’t seem to complain when I worked up a sweat last night.” His grin made my stomach twist before he wiped his face off with the towel. “I need to talk to you first.” I turned around and roamed the room, guessing space was a good thing with the way he was looking at me right now and the way I could feel my body responding to him. After pulling his wet shirt over his head, he tossed it into one of the laundry carts. I swallowed, trying to pretend I was not noticing how his muscles looked twice as large as normal thanks to him just finishing up his weight session. From the smirk that formed, he knew I hadn’t missed it either. I looked away and closed my eyes, just to be doubly protected against the sight of him overruling my better judgment. “It’s about Charlie.” “What about Charlie?” The husky tone was gone from his voice, his mindset totally eclipsed. “I talked with her earlier. About what’s going on with me.” There was a moment of silence. “You told her about your HD?” “Yeah, I did.” When my eyes opened, I saw Grant’s face had changed as well. Worry lines were drawn into his forehead, creased into the corners of his eyes. “She took it pretty well. At least as well as any child who just found out one of their parents was going to die sooner than they’d thought could.” He took a seat on the weight bench close by. “Where is she?” “Back home with Mrs. Kent. She’s working on some school work. I think she was happy to have something take her mind off of it for a while.” Grant nodded, staring at the floor at his feet. “Do you think I should talk to her?” I had to take a seat on the weight bench a few down from him. Seeing him hurting already . . . I didn’t want to crush him with what came next. “Probably. I’m sure there’ll be lots more talks we’ll all have to have.” He wiped the towel across his face again. “You could have waited for me to be there with you. We could have done it together.” “I know, but you’re going to have to deal with so many of those conversations alone after . . .” I balked at the word again, but no more. No more being afraid to say it, because it wasn’t going to be afraid when it came to taking what it wanted. “After I die”—across from me, Grant flinched, his jaw pushing against his skin—“you’ll be who she turns to. I wanted to take care of this one.” “You’re not dying,” he ground out, glaring at the floor. “Grant, yes, I am. Experimental drug or not, I’m going to die. There might be a miracle that helps slow the symptoms, but there isn’t a miracle cure.” “So what? That’s it? You’re just going to accept that this is going to kill you?” My eyes latched onto his. “I’ve accepted that I’m going to die with Huntington’s, and I wish you would too.”

He jolted off of the weight bench, his arms quivering. “Fuck, Ryan. I’m going to die. Charlie’s going to die. We’re all going to die.” This time, it was my turn to flinch, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t pull his words; each one boomed louder than the last. “But I’m not going to use that as an excuse not to live. To not try my damndest to live as long as I can.” I took a few slow breaths before I could reply. “I am going to do everything I can to live as long as I can. I will take any experimental drug that gives me one more day with you and Charlie.” My eyes cut to him, daring him to challenge me once more. His lips stayed closed. “But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about Charlie.” The flicker of anger extinguished from his eyes as he paced with his hands at his hips. “What about our daughter?” My lungs felt like they were collapsing. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to gasp for breath. “Do you know how a person gets Huntington’s?” Grant waved his arm. “It’s something in your DNA. You told me that.” “Yes, it’s in a person’s DNA. Something they’re born with.” I paused to swallow. “And do you know why a person’s born with it?” My voice wasn’t recognizable to my own ears. Grant stopped pacing. “No, I don’t.” I tried to lift my eyes to his, but they were too heavy. “It’s hereditary.” Another stretch of silence passed. “So you got it from . . .?” “Whatever loser my mom was sleeping with the night I was conceived. At least I think so, because as far as I know, she never showed symptoms of it before she died.” Thinking of my mom made me choke up. She’d died young too, but from a different kind of disease. “So, fine.” Grant gripped one of the barbells so hard his knuckles looked ready to break through his skin. “I’ll track the piece of shit down if he’s still alive and make him beg for Huntington’s to kill him instead of what I’ll threaten to do.” My head fell into my hands. He didn’t understand. He wasn’t getting why I was bringing this up now. I didn’t know I’d started crying until I noticed the dark spots on the floor at my feet. “Charlie . . .” It was all I needed to say. Just her name. “No. God, no.” Grant’s voice was a hollow echo in the room. When my head tipped up just enough to look him in the eyes, his face blanched. “Don’t . . . just don’t,” he said, his voice shaking. “Don’t say the fucking word, Ryan. I won’t hear it. I can’t take it . . . not both of you.” His legs wobbled once before his knees buckled beneath him. I rushed toward him, but he’d already fallen to his knees before I got there. His back was shaking with silent sobs, but his eyes were dry. No, his eyes were angry as he glared through the ceiling like he was shooting his wrath at every god and star in the sky that had played a hand in this moment. “Grant—” “No!” he hollered. “Don’t say it.” His arms tied around his neck as his jaw quivered. “I’m not losing her too. I’m not losing either of you.” Shoving off of his knees, he started to leave the room. “Grant, please,” I called, wanting to follow him, so he didn’t have to be alone, but my legs wouldn’t take me. I was stuck. There was no going back, no going forward. “Charlie is my daughter. You are the woman that I love.” He rolled to a stop just outside of the door, his expression dark. “No one or nothing is taking either one of you from me without going through me first.” “Don’t run away. Don’t go hide somewhere to be alone with this. Stay. Talk. Be with me.” My lip trembled. “I’m hurting too.” His shoulders tensed. “I need to be alone.”

“No, you don’t. Neither of us have to be alone right now.” I lifted my arm, like I was hoping he’d take my hand from all the way across the room. “Jesus Christ, Ryan.” He cursed, driving his palm into the doorway. “You’ve had a year to try to wrap your head around this. Back off and give me one goddamned night.”

ONE NIGHT. ONE day. By the calendar ’s estimation, it was an afterthought. But never had one night and one day passed so slowly in my life. Not even when I’d been waiting for the test results to come in when the doctors suspected I was showing signs of Huntington’s. Actually, there were times during the night when I’d been certain time had come to an utter and total standstill. I’d only shared one night in the same bed as Grant, but crawling into an empty bed had never felt so cold. I mourned his presence like we’d shared a lifetime of nights together. Charlie had been appeased with the explanation that Grant was pulling some extra training sessions, but I knew she wouldn’t be appeased by that for much longer. I didn’t know where he was. I didn’t know where he’d slept last night. I didn’t know if he’d shown up for practice this morning. I didn’t know if he was even real anymore. Grant had always been more angel than human to me. More ephemeral than flesh and blood. Charlie had been asleep for a while before I decided to go for a quick walk around the gardens. Mrs. Kent was staying over to get up with Charlie since I had an early morning appointment, and I needed some fresh air to clear my head. The lights inside of the pool house were out, no evidence of anyone inside. Where are you, Grant? I need you. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to. My walk hadn’t taken me far before I noticed a pair of headlights moving up the driveway. A pair of truck’s headlights. My throat tightened at the same time my shoulders sagged in relief. He was home. He’d come back. After he parked, I noticed his dark figure moving toward the pool house. It looked like he was carrying something. Something large. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to see me yet or if he was ready, but I had to see him. I had to make sure he was okay. I knew from my own experience of learning that my daughter could have the same disease I’d just been diagnosed with, that piece of news was the most heartbreaking. He noticed me as he passed by the pool. Even though it was dark, I could make out the look on his face. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t crushed. From the set of his jaw and the line of his brow, he looked more determined than anything. “Want to give me a hand?” He lifted his chin at the pool house door as he moved closer. Now I could see that he was carrying a big box. One that could have held one of those mini-fridges I’d lived with during my first few years alone. Opening the door, I walked inside and held it for him. Then I turned on a few lights and moved

toward the kitchen counter he’d just dropped the big box on. “Grant?” When my hand dropped onto his arm, he turned around slowly. He looked down at me, the storm still raging in his dark eyes, but he’d managed to harness it. He was controlling the storm; it wasn’t controlling him. His arms wound around me, one at a time, before he pulled me against him. “I’m sorry I ran like that. I’m sorry I left you alone.” His voice was thick with emotion as his arms tightened their hold on me. “It will never happen again.” My arms found their way around him too. I dropped my forehead into his chest, breathing him in. My angel was real. Solid. Tangible. As my fingers curled into his shirt, I wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to let go. “It’s okay. I understand.” One of his hands moved beneath my chin, lifting it until I was looking into his eyes. He lowered his head until our foreheads were touching. “It will never happen again,” he repeated solemnly. I inhaled, nodding. His words boded no doubt. Neither did the look in his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I should have. I just don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to face the fact that our daughter might have to go through the same thing as me.” Grant’s eyes clamped shut for a moment, his body shuddering against mine. Then he recovered. “Might. She might go through the same thing as you.” When my eyebrows came together, he pulled back, keeping one arm around me as the other dug inside the box. “I’ve been reading. Studying. You know, those things I should have done more of back in school.” He winked and flashed a couple of books in front of me. They were books about Huntington’s. I’d read one of them last year. “Charlie has a fifty-percent shot that she doesn’t have Huntington’s, which, by the way, I’ve renamed.” “You’ve renamed?” My head tilted. “Grass,” he stated. My face pinched together. “Grass?” “Yep. Grass.” My shoulders lifted. “Why that?” His jaw ground before his mouth opened. “Because I can take a shit or a piss on it. I can light it on fire, tear it apart, stomp it out, pretty much annihilate that son of a bitch any way I can imagine. I’m sick of calling this thing something that makes everyone shiver in their boots and keeps telling me there’s nothing that can be done.” Flattening my lips, I nodded. “You might be a little or a lot crazy.” “I’ll take either label just so long as we all stop looking at this thing like there’s nothing we can do about it and all just need to lay here and let fate have its way with us.” Grant dropped those books on the counter then dug out a few more. Leaning over the box, my eyes widened when I saw what was inside. Notebooks, copies of articles paper-clipped together, journals, manuals, books. “I didn’t know there was this much information on Huntington’s.” When Grant shot me a look, I exhaled. “Or Grass.” “Yeah, there’s tons of stuff. I got Ravi on it when I found out you had it, and he’s been working on putting this all together. Half of it I can’t understand, but what I spent most of my time reading about was medical advancements being made to help slow or stop Grass.” Grant dug back inside the box and pulled out a stack of articles that had been printed out. “There’s all of this stem cell research, gene editing and silencing stuff, new medicines—they’re making progress, Ryan. There’s going to be a cure one day soon.” Opening one of the books, I absently flipped through a few pages. I’d probably read some of the same articles on these “promising” cures, but they were a long shot. Injecting iPS or embryonic stem

cells into a person’s brain, or manipulating a person’s genetic code seemed like more the stuff of science fiction than real life. “You’ve been busy.” I smiled as he flipped through the pages of an article, his face creased with concentration. “You’ve got Grass. My daughter might have Grass. I won’t rest until I find some way to kick this thing’s ass.” I nudged him. “Your ass is grass, Grass.” Grant huffed. “Good one.” I didn’t realize how little sleep he’d gotten last night until I turned on a few more lights around the pool house. “Where did you go last night?” Grant flipped to another page, his eyes scanning down it. “Ravi’s place. He’s got a condo in the city. I spent last night and today trying to put a dent in this stuff.” “Didn’t you have practice today?” His shoulder rose. “I skipped.” “You skipped?” Grant looked up, surprised by my tone. “I let them know if that’s what you’re worried about.” Crossing my arms, I leaned into the back of the couch. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about you putting your whole life on hold for this. I’m worried about you becoming obsessed and possessed and letting Grass take over your entire life.” Like he was proving my point, he flipped to the next page. “You two are my entire life. This son of a bitch is threatening to take you both away from me. I will let this consume my life if it means finding a way to keep you two here.” Moving toward him, I put my hand on the page he was reading and lowered it to his side. “You can’t let this consume your life. You can’t give it that kind of power. If you do that, if you abandon everything in your life for this, no matter what happens in the future, Grass wins. It won’t just consume one life or possibly two. It will overtake all three of our lives.” My hand molded around his neck, my thumb rubbing at the rigid muscles. “I’ve been here. I’ve done this. It doesn’t help anyone. But it does threaten to hurt everyone.” Grant exhaled slowly, his eyes holding mine captive. “I can’t just let go of this. I won’t give up on a chance to help you, however far-fetched or distant or expensive it might be. I won’t give up on the possibility that a cure is out there. Or coming soon.” He set the article behind him on the counter and wound his arms around me. “I’m not asking you to stop or give up. I’m just asking that you not let it consume your life. Go to practice. Waste time watching movies and throwing popcorn with us. Take Charlie to the park. Make love with me.” My eyebrow lifted and I pressed my body closer. “Live, Grant. Don’t spend your life looking for some loophole to death. Because there isn’t one.” His dark eyes lightened, an almost playful expression crossing his face. “There is if I find one. Or make one.” “I think I might almost believe you.” “Good, because it’s true.” He kissed my forehead then slid out of my arms to head to the fridge. “Okay, you have my word I won’t let all of this take over my life.” His arm flailed in the direction of the giant box of books. “But you can’t ask or expect me to just ignore it all and hope for the best. That’s not my style, and it never has been. I come at anything that challenges those I love with fists raised and teeth bared. That won’t change. But I will still drag my ass to practice, waste time with my girls, take Charlie to the park, and I will definitely remember to make love to you.” His head twisted back at me from where it had been inside the fridge. “Or when the need arises, fuck you up against a wall.”

My hand dropped to the counter ledge to keep me from teetering in place from the way he was looking at me. After a moment, he got back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of something that was bright green and almost chunky looking. “Here. Drink this. One every day.” He slid the bottle across the counter toward me and waved at it when I wasn’t in a hurry to open it. “This looks radioactive. I think I’ll stick to my coffee, thanks though.” My nose curled when I tipped the bottle—it really did have chunks floating around inside it. “It’s not radioactive. It’s good for you. Every kind of superfood on the planet is blended into that stuff. It’s a million times better than that coffee junk.” My nose stayed curled. It looked like something the Joker would take a bath in. “Says who?” “Says everyone in the whole entire medical field.” Grant crossed his arms and gave me a look that boded no argument. “Says me.” Exhaling, I unscrewed the cap. The scent of grass and earth and something exploded around me. “Are you trying to kill me?” I hadn’t even lifted it to my lips and I was gagging. Grant sighed, his eyes lifting to the ceiling. “Try the opposite.” “This stuff’s supposed to help?” “Well, it sure isn’t going to hurt.” The closer I lifted the bottle to my mouth, the more the offensive scent blanketed me. “Are you sure?” “I’ve been drinking one of those every day for the past three years, and look at me. Healthy as an ox.” He held out his arms, making his shirt stretch across his chest, which looked mammoth. “At least the size of one,” I grumbled before taking a tentative sip. My body shuddered. “How can this stuff actually taste worse than it smells?” Grant shook his head. “My god, woman, you are difficult.” My eyebrow lifted as I forced down another sip. “Yeah, well, you aren’t no picnic yourself.” He pulled another bottle of toxic sludge from the fridge and twisted it open. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his bottle against mine. “Yay,” I deadpanned as he chugged his in all of five seconds. Slamming down the empty bottle, he rolled his shoulders a couple of times. “Okay, so Charlie.” The skin between his brows set. “I told Ravi about her last night. I trust him—he won’t say anything to anyone. The world won’t find out she’s my daughter until you’re ready to tell the world.” When I took a bigger gulp of the supposed superfood drink, I grimaced. There was no way a person could ever get used to this stuff. “I’m ready to tell the world whenever you are.” Grant’s face softened, a slow smile working into place. “Let’s see what Charlie wants and go from there.” “Solid plan.” When I set the half-drunk bottle on the counter, Grant stared at it with a raised brow. With a grumble, I picked it back up and kept sipping. “Ravi told me the only way to know for sure if Charlie will one day develop Grass is with a blood test.” Whenever I thought about Charlie having this disease, it made me feel like someone had just swung a sledgehammer into my sternum. This time didn’t feel any different, but this time, it didn’t make me stagger back. This time, I managed to hold my ground. “Yes, the only way to know for sure is with a blood test,” I said. Half of his face grimaced. “I don’t like thinking about her getting poked and prodded. Needles suck.” “The twenty-hundred-sixty-pound wall of muscle who wasn’t scared the time a gun was raised to his head by some strung-out tweaker and who doesn’t flinch when he winds up on the bottom of a pile

of defensive linemen is afraid of a little needle?” He crossed his arms at me. “When it concerns my daughter, I am.” “That’s sweet, but Charlie is tougher than both of us put together. It’s like your and my badassery multiplied when we created her.” I tried chugging the last of the green juice, but I couldn’t do it before I gagged. “You’re about to puke from the taste of a smoothie. Not so convinced of your badassery at this moment.” My eyes narrowed and I finished what was left of the drink, just to prove a point. It was next to impossible not to grimace or shiver in revulsion, but I made it. “Fear of needles or not, you can’t legally test a minor for Grass. The medical community deems it unethical, arguing that each person should be able to make up their own mind if they want to find out if they’re a carrier.” Grant unlocked his jaw. “And how do you feel about that?” I twisted the empty bottle in my hands, debating my answer. HD made it hard to reason logically at times, making my mind feel disconnected and hazy. After the drama of last night and the added stress of no sleep and worrying today, my mind was struggling to cooperate. And how do you feel about that? How did I feel about testing my daughter without her consent for a truly terrifying disease? As a parent, I wanted to know. At least I thought I did. Putting myself in her shoes, I wasn’t sure I’d want to know though. Would the fear of knowing what was coming paralyze her from living her life? Would having to watch her mother go through the very devastating stages she’d eventually go through be too much to bear? I hadn’t found out I had HD until the disease had already made itself known symptomatically. If Charlie did have it, she could have decades before any symptoms might surface. Would knowing create peace of mind? Or would knowing only torture her mind? “I don’t know,” I answered at last, my fingers suddenly jerking. The bottle tipped over and rolled across the counter before falling and shattering on the floor. “Dammit.” I glared at my hands still spasming beyond my control. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up in just a minute.” Grant was already moving toward a closet door. “I’ve got it,” he announced, pulling out a broom and dustpan. “Shit, I’ve broken so many of those things I’ve got a system and everything.” “I’m not sure how I feel about you trying to make me feel better.” He bobbed his brows at me as he came around the counter toward the shattered mess. “Really? Because it seemed pretty obvious to me how you feel about me making you feel better.” His gaze roamed down my body, his smile forming when it landed on the hem of my dress floating above my knees. “I think it was the unbridled shrieking that really gave you away. Or it could have been the way you couldn’t stop moaning my name into the pillow. Or maybe it was how damn wet you—” “You’ve made your point,” I interrupted as he crouched and started sweeping the glass shards into the pan. “You can give it a rest. Before you go and break your gloat.” “Please. This gloat is unbreakable.” “I thought you were the Invincible Man, not the Unbreakable Gloat.” His back rocked with his quiet laugh. “I wear many hats.” “Including housekeeper.” I watched him clean up every last sliver of glass meticulously, like he was trying to erase all signs of the mishap. If only all messes were so easy to clean up. “So?” he prompted as he rose to stand in front of me. “What should we do? How do we best handle Charlie’s situation?” From the look on his face, it was like he was trying to work out the puzzle at the same time I was. “You might not be able to walk into any typical doctor ’s office and request an HD test on a minor, but there are perks of my position.” Grant’s free hand dropped to

mine, holding them tight until the last trembles rolled through. “You mean money and fame, don’t you?” His hand squeezed mine before he wandered toward the garbage can. “Yes, and my connections. If we wanted to have her tested, we could do it.” “I never saw you using your position to earn special favors.” Grant dumped the pieces of glass into the garbage can, his eyes moving to mine. “I will use my position however I need to for you or Charlie. And I will spend every last penny if it gives me more time with you. Even if it’s only one more minute. I would sell my soul for an hour. And I would sacrifice the whole damn world for one more day.” He paused to take a breath, his gaze never wavering. “Do you need anything clarified?” Trying to suppress my smile, I shook my head. “Hopefully no one’s going to nominate you to rule the world one day.” Grant huffed and returned the dustpan and broom to the closet. “I don’t know what to think about Charlie right now. I don’t know if I want to know, or if I don’t not want to know.” My head throbbed from thinking about it, my mind still feeling disconnected. “I don’t know.” Grant moved toward where I was still leaning into the counter. “‘I don’t know’ works for me. ‘I don’t know’ is the exact way I feel right now, so let’s just keep thinking and talking about it, okay? We’ll figure it out.” I could feel my heartbeat in my temples. “We will?” He looped his arm around my waist and lowered his forehead to mine. His eyes were burning with conviction. “You and me? There’s nothing we can’t do together. Nothing.” My eyes closed, and I let his words work their way inside me, hoping they’d take root and grow, spreading until I felt as confident as he did. “Now, Ryan?” His voice was low, dark almost. “Yeah?” “I need to remind you of your position on me making you feel better.” His lips touched mine, his stubble scratching my cheek. When his hands roamed lower, cupping around my backside, a noise slipped out of my mouth. “What position did you have in mind?” My eyebrow lifted as I pressed my hips into his. He was as ready as I was. Drilling his fingers into my flesh, he lifted me onto the counter and pulled me to the very edge. “This one,” he rasped, his hands already working beneath my dress on their journey toward my panties. I didn’t have time to lift up before he’d torn them off of me, a dark smile forming when he saw which ones I’d been wearing. “You might be wearing a classy dress, Miss Hale, but you are wearing the very opposite kind of underwear.” He let the black lace panties fall to the floor before his hands roamed back up my body under my dress. He grunted when he felt the sheer material of my bra. “It’s like you were planning on getting fucked tonight, weren’t you?” My back trembled when his thumbs circled my nipples. “With you, Grant Turner, I never have to plan for that. It’s always a guarantee.” His fingers pinched my hard nipples, making me cry out. “Damn right it is.” His eyes went darker as he continued to palm my breasts. “I can’t stand the thought of taking my hands off of your body right now, not even for a second, but I need to be inside you, Ryan. Goddamn, I need it.” His mouth dropped to my neck, sucking at the skin in a way that made my whole body go rigid from pleasure. “Please, baby,” he breathed against my skin, “my zipper.” My hands worked their way in between our joined bodies, unhooked his button, and tugged down

his zipper. My fingers curled around his solid length as a throaty sound rose up inside me from feeling how badly he wanted me. “Put me inside you.” One of his hands dropped to my hip, sliding me forward even farther. “Let me feel you.” My body was already wet and ready, aching with need. Guiding him closer, I fitted him to me. A primitive sound echoed in his chest when he felt how willing I was to take him. His head came around toward mine, and our foreheads pressed together again. “I want you, Ryan Hale. Your heart, your soul, your body, and your very existence. I want this life and your next. I want it all.” My heart was pounding with the kind of speed that made me lightheaded. Rocking my hips closer, I took him inside me. I took as much of him as I could. I wanted more. Just like him, I wanted it all too. As he started to move inside me, looking in my eyes with every thrust, I managed to spill a few words past my lips. “You have it all.” His hands curled around my ankles, pulling me toward him until we couldn’t have been any closer unless our bodies fused together. His mouth found mine, and he kissed me like he had no plans to stop. “Let me feel you, Ryan,” he whispered against my lips. “Let me feel you fall apart in my arms, baby.” My hands raked down his back, curling into the canyon drawn down the center of his spine. He held me close, giving me what I needed, his entire focus on me. Everything he’d done had been for me or our daughter. His whole existence seeming to have one sole purpose—taking care of us. As I felt my body reach the precipice of falling apart, I opened my eyes into his. “Why me, Grant Turner?” My nails dug deeper into his back when he moved deeper inside me. “Why me when you could have anyone you wanted?” He waited for me, watching me carefully as the tremors spread through my body. Then he lowered his face over mine, looking mesmerized as he watched me come undone in his arms. “I’d rather have one day with you than an eternity with anyone else.”

IT WAS THE best sound in the world to wake up to—my daughter laughing. Rolling over in bed, I found the rest of it empty. I didn’t remember crawling into bed after last night’s adventures. The last time I remembered falling against him in a trembling, sweaty heap, we’d been spread out on the living room couch. As I slid out of the covers, I realized that while he might have carried me into bed last night, he hadn’t clothed me. Not that I could ever expect Grant to willingly put clothes on me when he was such a fan of the alternative. After pulling his bathrobe from the back of the door, I slid into it and tried my best to make it gather around me so I could tie the belt. Then I moved out of the bedroom and down the hall, following the sounds of the two voices I loved most in the world. The sight I found when I emerged from the hall made me come up short. Charlie was sitting on Grant’s knee around the kitchen table, a bowl of cereal in front of them that both of them were taking bites out of. Beside the cereal was an open book that Charlie and Grant were scanning as they chomped on their cereal. “So the chorea is why Mom’s been so clumsy, right?” Charlie tapped the end of her spoon at something on the page. Grant finished chewing his bite of Lucky Charms. “Well, your mom’s always been clumsy, so she can’t blame it all on the chorea.” Charlie’s face lit up like she’d just remembered something. “Once, Mom walked right through a screen door at our old apartment. We had to replace the whole entire screen. And then she did it again a month later.” Grant’s back rocked from his laughter. “Well, your mom used to roll out of bed so much when we were younger, if I didn’t wrap my arms around her tight, she’d wake up the next morning on the floor.” Charlie giggled as she flipped a page. “Why did Mom have to sleep in your bed? Didn’t she have one?” I could see just enough of Grant’s face to see the way it froze with his oh shit look. He rolled his neck, his eyes narrowing in concentration. “Sometimes I’d share mine with her.” “Why?” Charlie shrugged. I could hear Grant’s drawn-out exhale from back here. A minute later, he answered, “Because sometimes hers wasn’t working.” Charlie made a face before twisting her head back at Grant. “Mom’s bed wasn’t working?”

Grant distracted himself by digging into the cereal. “Out of commission.” “I’ve never heard of that,” Charlie mused. “How many times did Mom have to sleep in your bed when hers wasn’t working?” My smile couldn’t be tamed. This ought to be good. Especially since, to answer honestly, he’d have to admit that I slept in his bed most nights. It might have started out innocently—a protector watching over someone who needed protecting—but that had changed over time. From the look on Grant’s face, it looked like he was reliving some of the same memories I was. “Hey, Mom’s up now. No more snickering about her grace handicap.” Two heads turned my way as I wandered out of the hall. Grant gave me a look that made my heart stop, right before it made it take off. Charlie just beamed through her bite of cereal. “Why are you in Dad’s bathrobe?” she asked, inspecting the oversized robe swallowing me. “Is it because you couldn’t find your clothes? Because I found them in here. I found Dad’s too.” She pointed at the pile of clothes she’d collected, like it was a scene of a crime. “You wouldn’t believe where I found his pants.” Biting my lip, I stared at the floor as I kept moving closer. Actually, I would believe it. I remembered exactly where I’d tossed them once I tore them off of him. “Thanks for picking them up for us. That was thoughtful,” I said, trying to sound like the mature, responsible adult I was not feeling like at the moment. “When I woke up and didn’t find you in your bed, I figured you’d be out here.” Her legs started swinging from her perch on her dad’s lap. She was still in her jammies, even barefoot. It made me smile that with an estate as large as Grant’s was, all three of us were clustered together in the same small space. “What were you and Dad doing all night out here in the pool house?” Grant gave me an amused smile and waved his hand at me, giving me a turn to field the probing questions coming from our seven-year-old. “Studying things.” Leaning down, I kissed the top of Charlie’s head, then Grant’s. He switched his arms around so he could have one around Charlie and one around me. “Studying what?” she continued. Grant’s smile went higher as he let me continue taking the lead. “Studying all of this stuff.” I motioned at the handful of books Grant and Charlie had spread out on the table. A couple of them were books on how to talk about HD with kids. I felt that warm, happy feeling inside when I was reminded, yet again, what a fantastic human being Grant was. “You were studying all night long?” Charlie blinked at me. “Well, some of it, but we were doing other stuff too.” Half of my face pulled up as I realized how guilty I sounded from trying to sound innocent. Charlie’s nose crinkled. “Doing what?” Behind her, Grant’s face was breaking with silent laughter. “Never mind,” I said, clapping as I headed into the kitchen. “Who wants French toast?” “Me!” Charlie raised her spoon. “Me, too!” Grant echoed. “Just make sure you down your green juice first.” I groaned, glancing longingly at the coffee pot I’d been beelining toward. “I’ll make sure to grab you one too. Wouldn’t want you to be deprived of all of that yummy, nutritious goodness.” “Already got one down first thing after I woke up.” Grant lifted the empty bottle on the table in front of him. Making a face, I pulled open the fridge and dug out another bottle of toxic sludge. “When did you go and get all health conscious?” I grumbled. Grant waited to answer until I’d opened the bottle and raised the bottle to my lips. Then he tucked his chin over Charlie’s head and smiled at me. “When I realized I had something to live for.”

This time, I didn’t sip and spew and sputter through the bottle of juice—I downed it in a few sips. I knew better than to believe drinking some healthy juice would cure my HD, but that wasn’t why it was so important to Grant. It was important to him for what came after HD, for our lives outside of HD. We couldn’t live every moment of every day orbiting around a disease. The juice was a symbol of what came after. A willingness to accept that my future wasn’t carved in stone. That there was still a reason to keep my body healthy because, like Grant, I had something to live for too. I had a whole lot of something to live for.

“WHY DOES EVERYONE call Dad the Invincible Man?” Charlie shouted at me, trying to rise above the roar thundering through the stadium. “What do you mean?” I leaned over, so I didn’t have to scream back. “He gets tackled. He fumbles. He messes up.” She pointed at the field, where Grant’s cleats were the only part of him showing from the bottom of a player pile. A few of his teammates were tearing off the Hawks players, but I wasn’t worried. I knew he was okay despite the tackle pileup. It would take a lot more than that to keep Grant Turner down. “I think it’s because nothing can stop him.” I wound my arm around her shoulder when I noticed her worry lines go deeper into her forehead. She hadn’t been around to see what Grant had endured in life like I had. She didn’t know just how tough her dad was—at least not in the same way I did. “No matter how many times he goes down, he bounces right back up. If he misses a ball one play, he catches the next hundred. It’s not so much that he’s invincible as in nothing can touch him, but invincible in that everything has touched him but hasn’t left its mark.” Charlie nodded, distracted by what was happening on the field. “So he’s more the Resilient Man?” Her conclusion made me laugh and pull her a little closer so I could kiss her temple. “You can call him whatever you want, I don’t think he’ll mind.” Charlie stood when the last of the Hawks players had been pulled from the pile. She looked like she was holding her breath for Grant to get up. But he didn’t just get up like a normal person would have. No, that would have been far too expected. Instead, he wound his arms behind his head, planted his fingers into the turf, and popped himself up. The stadium exploded yet again, making so much noise I could feel it vibrate my insides. Charlie cheered right along with them, waving her foam finger so vigorously it started beating the neighbors around us. “Dad works for me!” she hollered at me, before cupping her hand around her mouth. “Yeah, Dad! GO, DAD!!!” It was impossible that he could hear us above the roar, but his helmet turned toward where we were settled in the bleachers. From this distance, I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew they were aimed our way. He lifted his thumb, giving us the sign that he was okay. After watching a few games this season where it hadn’t seemed humanly possible that he hadn’t sustained some kind of serious injury, he’d suggested he flash a thumbs-up toward wherever we were in the stands so we’d know he was good. After the ordeal in the owner ’s box, Charlie and I had been sitting out here with the rest of the fans ever since. Grant was still nervous about it, but he always arranged to have a mini security detail

staggered in the seats around us. Out of the eight games Charlie and I had made it to, nothing had happened to warrant security intervention though. Unless you counted the danger we were to our clothing. Plus, Charlie and I usually came with friends or sat with other family members of the players. Tonight’s game was a special one. The big one—the game every player dreamed of playing at least once in their careers. This was Grant’s second time playing the big game, and from the looks of the scoreboard, it was going to be his first time winning it. “You should be the Invincible Woman,” Charlie said after we took our seats again. For a whole thirty seconds until the next time we had to leap up and cheer or shout or cringe or whatever the next play called for. “I can’t catch a football to save my life.” I twirled the ends of her ponytail around my finger and shrugged. Charlie had been throwing a better spiral than me from the age of five. “Yeah, but you get up no matter what.” Her head turned from the game for quite possibly the very first time since kick-off, a smile on her face. My chest warmed as I leaned closer. “Isn’t that more the Resilient Woman?” Her dark eyes twinkled as her head shook. “No, I like the idea of you being invincible more.” I kissed Charlie on the tip of the nose. “Me too.” I kissed her once more. “The Invincible Woman it is.” Charlie leaned her head onto my shoulder for a minute, and the weight of the moment hit me. Half a year ago, I’d felt alone, scared, helpless, and next to hopeless. I didn’t know what would happen to my daughter when I became too sick to care for her, I didn’t know how to tell her that I was sick, and I didn’t know what to do about my disease other than let it have its way with me. Six months later and everything had changed. Everything. My daughter would be taken care of, well loved, no matter what. She knew that I was sick, and despite her seemingly daily questions about HD, she’d accepted it better than I ever could have hoped. And despite this disease having no cure, I wasn’t about to let it just do what it wanted to me. I wasn’t resolved to letting it take me away from myself, one day at a time. I was fighting it with anything and everything possible. I wasn’t going to roll over when I was so much stronger on my feet, fighting back. “What did I miss?” Dr. Patel, aka Ravi, asked as he squeezed past Charlie and me to get to his seat, his hands and arms loaded with food and drink. When I noticed a camera on the field aimed our way, I gave a cheesy smile and waved, moving Charlie’s foam finger in front of her face at the same time. Grant had announced in a press conference that Charlie was his daughter, and he’d requested that the media and fans remember that she was a seven-year-old girl and not a headline. Surprisingly, most of them honored this. A few needed a foam finger reminder every now and again. “Pretty much a whole quarter.” Charlie motioned up at the scoreboard where the last few minutes of the fourth were winding to an end. Ravi groaned and started passing out the goodies. “If anyone would have told me this game would be so busy, a person would have to wait fifteen minutes to order a Coke, I would have stayed home and watched it on my beautiful new sixty-inch flat-screen.” Charlie snorted. “Are you kidding? This is the best thing ever.” She thanked him for the soft pretzel he handed her before she bit off a big chunk. He kept handing out the concessions, shaking his head when he handed me what I’d asked for. “You order like you’re Willy Wonka.” I stabbed my straw into the Icee, clutching my Red Rope and Milk Duds like someone was going to try to rip them away from me. “Grant has eliminated all signs of sugar and processed anything from our kitchen. He’s making me drink toxic sludge and eat all of these superfood things that taste

more like super yuck food. The only time I can indulge in my beloved sugar is when he’s out there, a little preoccupied with winning the biggest game of his life.” Still, when I took a sip of my Icee, I turned slightly away from the field, just in case he was looking. Part of me didn’t doubt that he’d see and send someone to take it away. “He’s making you eat them because those things are healthy for you,” Ravi said, right before he took a big bite of an ice cream bar. “Hey, when you’re not in your white coat thingy, you’re Ravi my friend, not Dr. Patel my doctor.” I leaned my Icee over so Charlie could take a drink. “And that other stuff might be good for my body, but this stuff is good for my mind.” “You should see what your brain does when a person eats sugar. It pretty much has the same reaction as someone on cocaine.” He grinned and took another bite of his ice cream bar, which was no doubt loaded with sugar. Or cocaine. Or whatever point he was trying to make. “It’s good for my mind as in my mental health. It keeps me sane and off the Prozac, so give me a break. The last time I had sugar was two weeks ago at the Divisional Playoff game.” On the other side of him, Ravi’s wife leaned forward. “Don’t let him give you a hard time, Ryan. You should see this man’s secret stash at home. It would shame a dozen eight-year-old boys.” Ravi faked an offended look. “That’s my secret stash for the end times. My stockpile for the living dead apocalypse that we all know is coming.” His wife nudged him. “Is that why I have to restock your ‘emergency’ supply every few weeks?” He answered with a grumble, crunching into his ice cream bar again. Michelle, his wife, shot me a wink. “Getting excited for your trip?” Charlie’s attention was back on the field, so I leaned all the way over her so I could talk with Michelle instead of scream at her. “Yeah. Excited-nervous. Nervous-excited.” She waved at me. “It will be fantastic. You’ll get to see some fantastic sights and meet with some fantastic people with fantastic options for you.” I smiled at her. “Sounds pretty fantastic.” She laughed and leaned into her husband. “It will be great. Ravi wouldn’t send you on a wild goose chase. If he says it’s promising, I know he means it.” “He is right here, sitting between you two,” Ravi said around a bite of ice cream bar. “Well, wild goose chase or not, we leave Thursday.” Ravi glanced over as he wound his arm behind Michelle. “You’ll be happy you went. Believe me. Sadly, compared to Europe, the US is in the dark ages of medicine.” “Are you talking about our trip?” Charlie popped back into the conversation as a time-out was called on the field. “Do you know I get to go too? Dad and Mom are going to take me to see the Louvre, and we get to take a river boat all around a bunch of countries.” “Sounds like you’re going to be the most cultured seven-year-old I’ll know by the time you get back. Three months in Europe is a long time,” Ravi replied. Charlie nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll still have to do my school work and keep up with that. So it’s not a total vacation.” “Oh, the hardships of reading while traveling down the Rhone in a river boat.” I nudged Charlie and tore open my Milk Duds. She was back to focusing on the game, so she didn’t hear me. A fire alarm could be blaring a foot away, and she wouldn’t have noticed when she was watching her dad on the field. “All packed?” Michelle asked me. “I guess. Grant said to pack light, and we could shop for what we needed over there and ship it all back if necessary, but the most exotic trip I’ve taken was a day-trip to Multnomah Falls outside of Portland. I don’t have a clue how to pack for three months in Europe.”

Michelle leaned over even closer as the volume in the stadium dialed up yet again. “Comfortable shoes and clothes that travel and pack well. And your passport. That’s all you need.” “Can you just pack for me?” I laughed, shaking a few Milk Duds into her hand. Charlie burst out of her seat again, hollering at the refs about some call they’d just made. The Storm was on defense, so I let my attention wander since Grant wasn’t playing. Charlie only let her attention wander during halftime or time-outs. As she continued to jeer at the refs, I downed some Milk Duds and went over the next few days in my head. Grant and the Storm were going to win this game. If the scoreboard didn’t suggest that, my gut certainly did. Which meant there’d be a celebration party in the next night or two, and I still had a ton of packing to do and planning for leaving the country for three months. I hadn’t planned on such a long trip, but Ravi had said that in order to see if this new drug would work for me, I’d need to give it time. There was no need to “smuggle” a prescription drug from a foreign country into the US unless I knew it was worth it. So yeah, not only was I a drug guinea pig, I was a potential drug smuggler. I was just setting a heap of examples for my child. But I’d rather break a few laws and get to be in my child’s life than die young having a perfect record. “I know I’ve told you this a thousand times before, but once more can’t hurt.” I glanced at Ravi and smiled when I felt closer to crying from gratitude for everything he’d done for us. “Thank you. You have no idea . . .” Ravi patted my leg. “I think I have a very good idea.” He looked between Charlie and me like that explained it all. “And besides, I owe Grant big time. This helps chip away at that debt.” My forehead creased. “Weren’t you the one who kept him from flunking out of school? How do you owe him?” Ravi drew Michelle closer to him. “He introduced me to the woman I married.” “Really?” I asked, surprised I’d never heard this story. “He did?” “He sure did,” Ravi answered. “She was hung up on this other guy, this super-jock she thought was all that.” Michelle elbowed him in the ribs affectionately. I waved my finger between the two of them all wrapped up around each other. “Looks like she got over him.” Michelle’s hand pressed into Ravi’s chest. “Yeah, after he not-so-subtly nudged me this guy’s way.” Ravi grinned. “It was fate.” “What happened with super-jock?” I asked. “He was totally into some other girl. I don’t think he looked another girl’s way the entire four years we went to school together. Actually, I’m sure he’s never looked another woman’s way since either.” Michelle and Ravi exchanged a look. “Oh, and then he went on to become one of the best players in professional football, reconnected with that girl, and now they’re a couple of our best friends.” My eyebrows lifted. “You were into Grant?” Michelle gave me an apologetic look. “A little.” Ravi huffed his own opinion on that. That was when Charlie grabbed my arm and gave it a shake, which meant Grant was taking the field. I watched him lope up to the line of scrimmage, practically able to feel the tens of thousands of eyes on him, able to sense the millions of eyes watching him through the screen of a television. He could have had anyone he wanted. He could have had anyone he wanted for a night, a week, or a lifetime. Yet all he’d ever wanted was me. Realizing that made me feel a dizzying mixture of special

and undeserving at the same time. But accepting that was the best feeling in the whole world. Accepting that was its own kind of miracle. If two kids from The Clink could love each other despite their tainted histories, that meant there were more miracles out there. More of them waiting to be experienced. “That man’s been off the market since the day he met you.” Michelle nodded at the field as the teams lined up. “That won’t change. No matter what might.” “The feeling’s mutual,” I said. I watched him take his place in the lineup, but not before taking another look in our direction. The biggest game of his life, droves of fans chanting and yelling, emotions hitting overdrive, and he never missed a chance to glance at the people who loved him most. Almost like he was a boy again, playing a game for a crowd of twenty. I’d live loving him. I’d die loving him. It was a guarantee. Just as his love was. “Mom, watch, watch!” The remnants of Charlie’s pretzel dropped as she grabbed my hand and pulled me up with her. “Watch what?” I tucked my beloved candy into my Storm hoodie front pocket and watched the field to see what I was apparently missing. Ravi and Michele did the same. “He’s going to score a touchdown.” She stood on her chair as the people in front of us rose too. “It’s the last minute of the game. He told me when it got to the last minute, he was going to score.” The Storm had the ball, but they were sixty-five yards away from their end zone with less than a minute on the clock. They were already ahead by ten points, so all they had to do was keep the Hawks from getting the ball and they’d all be adding a big, fat ring to their fingers soon. “Charlie, it’s a long ways to go. The clock’s almost out.” I wound my arm around her back, so she didn’t fall. “I know your dad will try to do it, but don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t, okay?” Charlie blinked at me like she couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “He promised.” The roar in the stadium picked up yet again. I should have brought earplugs like Grant had insisted Charlie wear today. “He promised?” “He. Promised.” Charlie pulled on her cherished foam finger and started whipping it around overhead. “He’s going to score a touchdown. Dad keeps his promises, you know that.” I stared at the field, smiling at number eighty-seven. Charlie was right. There wasn’t a promise he’d made that he hadn’t kept. As ambitious and unlikely as they might have been, he kept them. “I do know that.” The moment the quarterback had the ball in his hands, Grant took off. A couple of the Hawks players marked him but couldn’t keep up. I don’t think I’d ever seen him move so fast—it didn’t seem possible for a man his size. “He’s going to do it. He’s going to do it,” Charlie chanted, her eyes frozen open as we watched him glance back over his shoulder when he reached the twenty-yard line. The quarterback had already launched the ball, sending it high and deep. A little too deep. I stopped breathing as the world slowed down and every sound drowned out besides the sound of my heart beating in my eardrums. Grant kept hauling, faster still, but he wasn’t going to make it. Not unless . . . he leapt into the air at the two-yard line, his body suspended for what felt like a lifetime, before the ball dropped. Into one of his hands. Jumping up onto my chair beside Charlie, I watched the ball bounce out of his hand. Just when it looked like it was about to fall to the ground, his other hand came over the top and curled it to his body. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I didn’t think Charlie or anyone else in the whole stadium

could either. No Storm fan dared pretend they’d just witnessed that kind of one-in-a-million touchdown. At least not until we all saw six points added to the Storm side of the scoreboard. The stadium rocked with noise as fans cheered or cried, depending on where their allegiances lay. Beside me, the biggest Storm fan screamed her guts out, ringing one of her arms around my waist as we leapt up and down in unison. “He did it! He did it! He did it!” she kept cheering, as both of us cried the best kind of tears. The happy ones. Everyone was on their feet and so much was going on that I didn’t notice Grant was running across the field, the ball he’d just made a career catch with tucked under his arm. “What’s he doing?” I said as I stopped bouncing. “What’s he doing?” I said a little louder, hoping someone else had a different answer than the one I’d arrived at. “What do you think he’s doing?” Ravi shouted, motioning at where Grant was literally climbing the barricade, putting himself in the midst of the spectators. “He’s being Grant Turner.” Fans started chanting his name as they noticed what was going on. I even noticed some of the Hawks’ fans joining in. People held out their hands or clapped his back as he jogged up the stairs, but no one blocked his path. No herds of fans swarmed him like I thought they would have. Instead, they seemed happy to be able to share in this moment, letting him pass so he could continue his journey. The closer he got to where we were, the more heads started turning our way. When he had one more flight of stairs to go, Charlie leapt down from her seat and dove out into the aisle, pulling me with her. I’d barely managed to set my feet down on solid ground before Grant’s large arm wound around me, pulling me close as he tucked Charlie into his other side. “A new one to add to your collection, kiddo,” he said, and Charlie clutched the ball like it was priceless. “To always remind you that anything’s possible.” The crowd was going insane now, probably as unable as I was to believe what was happening. Holding Charlie in one arm, Grant glanced at me in his other. His face was wet with sweat and alive like I’d never seen it. “Help me with my helmet?” he asked me. I worked his chinstrap free and tugged at his helmet, which felt suctioned to his head. It came off with a little work, revealing a wet, dripping mess of hair. “How’s that for impossible?” He smirked at me, his brows disappearing into his wet hair. “Okay, you proved your point.” I dropped my hand around his neck—his skin was searing hot. “You can stop showing off now.” He made a face like he was considering that before shaking his head. “Nah, not yet.” Then his mouth crashed down on mine as he bowed my back closer. The roar around us crescendoed into a whole new realm as Grant Turner kissed me in front of tens of millions of people. I knew that no one would forget this game because of the uncatchable throw he’d caught, but it was the way he kissed me that I’d remember. It was the kind of kiss a girl couldn’t forget if she wanted to.

“YOU REALIZE I’M not going to make it through this whole thing without pulling you into some dark corner and having you, right?” Grant’s hand stationed at my back grazed lower. My face stayed unaffected, my heart not-so-much. “It’s three hours. There’ll be hundreds of people there. Hundreds of people who will want a piece of the Grant Turner pie. I think your presence will be missed, even if it’s for only ten minutes.” Grant’s fingers played with the short hem of my dress swirling around my legs. “You in this dress?” He lowered his mouth to my ear. “I don’t need ten minutes.” I fought my smile. “Five?” “Try however long it takes me to get my fly down and your panties pulled aside.” Just before we stepped inside the big ballroom, I paused. Looking at him, I pressed up onto my tiptoes. His hands dropped to my hips. “I might have forgotten to put something on earlier.” I breathed slowly into his ear until I felt him shudder. “I wanted to save time.” As quickly as I’d rolled to a stop, I started moving again like nothing had just happened. Grant must have needed a moment to recover because he had to jog to catch up to me a few moments later. “Fuck this party. Let’s get out of here so I can fuck you instead.” His expression was hopeful, even as a stream of people started winding in our direction now that the MVP had arrived. “Your patience will be rewarded.” I winked at him as his hand tucked around mine. “Cruel and unusual punishment,” he muttered before he greeted some of his teammates with handshakes and high fives. I stood at his side, the only place I felt like I belonged at a get-together like this. The New York Storm’s owners threw a big, over-the-top party every time the Storm had come out on top of a season, and this year ’s party was taking place in a top floor ballroom in one of New York City’s high rises. The view alone was unreal, but the décor spread around the room was not to be outdone. I wasn’t sure the Pharaohs had seen such lavish excess. It was such a strange world to be a part of. Such a stark contrast to the one I’d known as a child. Going from having to dig through people’s garbage some nights to having caviar served on goldleaf spoons was as opposite as it got. I wasn’t comfortable with either extreme—I was happier being able to put simple meals on the table every night. Grant was in the same boat, so we usually left these kinds of events starving and peeling into the first semi-healthy fast-food joint we could find. I didn’t think my stomach would know what to do with caviar or duck liver. Besides the obvious.

Grant played nice and mingled with the team managers and owners for a whole ten minutes before he started steering me toward a quiet corner. “I need a fucking break,” he said under his breath, shaking a few more hands as we milled through the crowd. “Fine, okay. Take a breather, grab something to drink, then we’ll go back in.” I looped an arm behind his back. I’d gone to enough of these kinds of parties with him this season to know they were a rare form of torture for him. From the schmoozing to the adults-only policy to the penguin suits, they just weren’t his thing. “No, I don’t mean fucking as an adjective but as a verb. I need a fucking break, as in I need a break for fucking.” His eyes were facing forward, but I didn’t miss the glint in them. “My, someone’s been going over their English lessons.” “Yeah, our first grader ’s been schooling me.” A laugh spilled past my lips. “Right now, you can have an adjective fucking break. Later, you can have a verb fucking break.” He looked like I’d just told him he had to go on a sex fast for forty days. “Fine,” he grunted. “Then you’re just going to have to dance with me.” My eyes circled the large room. “There isn’t a dance floor, babe. Not a dancing type of shindig.” “Does it look like I give a literal or figurative shit?” He grinned at me as he gathered me close, tucking my head under his chin. “No,” I breathed, leaning into him. “It doesn’t.” We stood like that for a while, wrapped around one another, moving to the rhythm of an imaginary beat. “Ready for Europe?” he asked softly. I nodded against his chest. “I’m ready.” “No matter what happens, I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.” His hands curled deeper into me, drawing me closer. “You’re the only one for me, Ryan Hale. In this life and whatever others we have coming. Don’t forget that.” I felt my smile form. “How could I? You remind me on an hourly basis.” My hands disappeared beneath the back of his tuxedo coat, spreading out against his back to feel the warmth spilling from his skin. “You know, I talked with Ravi about how much this experimental drug is going to cost and holy private island price tag.” My heart stopped as I replayed the number in my head. “It’s too much. You know that, right? I don’t want your retirement plan to be a cardboard box propped beneath an interstate overpass.” Grant’s body rocked with his huff. “If I get to retire in that cardboard box with you, sign me up.” I leaned my head back to look up at him. “It’s too much.” His brows came together like he was questioning my sanity. “I’d pay everything I have to spend one more hour with you,” he said, his hands cupping my face. “This has the ability to give me a few more decades. The price tag is the fucking deal of the century.” My throat bobbed, trying to swallow the emotion creeping up my throat. “You’re the best man in the whole world.” “Nah.” He shook his head, grinning. “I’m still a piece of shit. Just a piece of shit who loves the shit out of you.” Our heads turned to look out at the view below us. New York City looked like it was at our fingertips. All of it within reach, waiting for us to point our fingers its way. “Did you ever imagine we’d be here one day?” I whispered. His fingers brushed against me. “The only thing I imagined back then was being with you. That was all I cared about.”

“Well, you have me. And Charlie. And all that comes with that.” My fingers curled into his shirt. “You’re still good with our decision not to have her tested? You’re fine not knowing? Letting her decide for herself one day if she wants?” His back quivered for a moment, his chest stilling. Then he nodded. “Yes. It won’t change how I feel about her. It won’t change the way I love her. Nothing can change that. It should be up to her if she wants to know that one day.” For one brief moment, I felt as though I was the one holding him up, which had become more common lately. I’d been used to Grant holding me up and sheltering me from the storm, but now we seemed to support each other in equal amounts. “It’s the right decision,” I said. “How do you know?” I exhaled. “Because it isn’t the easy one.” We stayed like that a few minutes more, dancing a slow dance to a fast song. I knew if it were up to Grant, he’d be happy to stay like this the rest of the night, but he had a role to play in this world, and it wasn’t just as the boy from The Clink who’d fallen in love with a scared young girl. “You’ve got mingling duty.” I lowered my arms and stepped out of his hold, eyeing the party taking place all around us. “I don’t mingle well with others.” “Yeah, I know. Pretend you do.” Rolling my eyes, I grabbed his hand and tugged all two-hundredsixty pounds of him back into party central. That was where we stayed for the next hour, sipping our waters and smiling in the right places and laughing in others. Grant’s arm never left its post around me. I’d been on my feet a while, in killer heels no less, and my mind was reeling from all of the introductions and conversations with dozens of people I’d either just met tonight or had just met this past season. It was overwhelming, and I knew I was hedging my bets the longer I stayed. My HD always got worse when I was tired or stressed. So far, Grant and I had been able to keep my HD from the media. We didn’t go out much to places where people would expect a person like Grant Turner, reserving our dates for home or somewhere unexpected. It wasn’t that I felt ashamed of my disease, but I just wasn’t ready for the whole world to know. I was still struggling to get used to having a camera stuffed in my face when I was alone at the grocery store and some random fan recognized me—I wasn’t ready for all that came with being “that famous football star ’s girlfriend who has Huntington’s.” I really wasn’t ready for what everyone would realize next, turning their attention and speculations on Charlie. While she knew HD was a genetic disease I’d inherited and she may have also inherited, she didn’t give it much thought. She was more concerned with her dad’s number of receptions than the probability of her one day winding up wheelchair bound. I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. That was my main reason for keeping my HD a secret from the public. But from the way I could feel my mind starting to scramble, the phantom jerks already rocking my body, I knew I’d waited too long to go in search of some private room. Grant was in the middle of a conversation with one of his coaches when he leaned over to me. “What’s the matter?” My hand twitching in his answered his question. “Excuse me for a minute, Coach.” Grant clapped his hand on his coach’s shoulder. “But this party’s dying a little early. Time to liven it up.” Saying nothing else, he steered me through the crowd, stopping by the DJ’s table and leaning over to say something to him. The DJ bobbed his head and flashed him an okay sign. “What are you doing?” I finally got out, the words sticking in my mind for a minute before I

could say them. Grant pulled a dining chair from one of the tables and dragged it to the middle of a large, open space. Then he turned me around, so I was standing in front of it. “Taking the attention off of you,” he said, mischief brimming in his eyes. “Sit.” The only reason I did was because I wasn’t sure if I should keep standing with the way my foot was trembling out of control. “You’re taking the attention off of me by sitting me in the one chair in the middle of a room filled with people?” Grant curled my hands around the bottom of the chair. “That’s the plan,” he said, right as a different kind of beat throbbed through the room. A beat that had been created for one thing. “Don’t tell me your grand idea is to—” “Not planning on telling you. I’m going to show you instead.” Grant jacked his brows at me as he slid out of his tux jacket. People started to cluster in around us as that beat kept rolling through the room. Then he gave his bowtie a tug, undoing the top collar button as he stepped one leg over me. And then the other, looking down at me with a hot-as-hell glint in his eyes, despite realizing the entire room was now staring at us. “Really, Grant Turner? Your big plan is an impromptu lap dance?” His head barely shook as his hips slowly started to catch the beat. “I’m taking the focus off of your Grass.” I blinked at him. “With a lap dance.” “Whatever it takes, baby. Now just sit back and enjoy it.” He gave me a crooked smile as his finger played with the next button on his shirt. Hoots started coming from the women in the room. “So what?” I tried keeping my eyes on his as he thrust above me, pulling another button free. “No one will notice my spastic shaking because you’re grinding all up in my business?” The sexy smolder notched up another degree. “Have you seen my grind?” His hands slapped down on his thighs as he gave a particularly enthusiastic thrust. More whoops came from the women and men in the room as money started raining down around us. “My hips are damn practically double-jointed.” I tried fighting the smile, goddamn I tried, but it was impossible. Not a person in the room was paying attention to the woman sitting in the chair, her head and hands twitching every few seconds. No, everyone was focused on the giant MVP grinding like he was auditioning for some sad spin-off of Magic Mike. “Great. So instead of Grass, they’ll just label me some kind of attention-seeking pervert.” My eyebrow lifted at him as he gave his ass an impressive shake. More dollar bills rained down. His chin lifted. “It’s about time everyone knew what’s up.” Then he gave his shirt a yank, sending the rest of his buttons flying into the air. Okay, so now the noise in the room was comparable to the noise in the arena on Sunday. “You’re insane, Grant Turner.” I dropped my head over the back of the chair, so I could smile up at him, forgetting about everyone else and enjoying this moment. This crazy, surprising moment I’d never forget. “It’s Jack,” he said, sliding out of his dress shirt, one arm at a time. “Jack Hammer.” His hips pitched into me hard enough to send the chair screeching backward a few inches. “And I hope you’re packing a wad of singles in that sexy-ass dress of yours because this ain’t for free.” When he threw his shirt over his shoulder, there was a stampede of stilettos to get to it. “Fresh out of singles.” I trembled when his hands gripped the headrest behind me, his solid forearms running along the sides of my face, caging me in. “Spent those all last night. But I’ll figure

out some way to pay you back.” His brow arched. “You always do.” The last few tremors jerked through my body, totally unnoticed in a room full of people looking in my direction. Grant hadn’t just saved me from the big, bad things of the world—he’d saved me from the little ones too. Leaning up, I kissed him softly. “I love you, you crazy, beautiful man.” He kissed me again, his eyes softening. “I love you, you crazy, beautiful woman.”

THE PARTY CONTINUED late into the night, and I think we were both surprised by how much we enjoyed ourselves. Several of the players on Grant’s team had come from similar backgrounds to ours, and a couple were married to their first loves from back then. The coaches were a little gruff and couldn’t seem to turn their mind off from the game, but they were good guys who I knew had Grant’s best interest in mind, which rated them high in my book. The owners might have been another story, but they came with the game and wrote the checks. For the most part, we managed to avoid them, which suited me just fine. When it hit one and people were still lingering, in no hurry to leave, Grant wound his arm around me and led me toward the exit. “I think you made more in one lap dance than you did playing for the Storm.” I eyed the wad of cash stuffed in his back pocket, giving his already nicely round butt an extra bubble. “I think you might want to consider a career change.” Grant chuckled. “Being a male stripper sounds like too much work.” “Says the man who hasn’t missed a day of practice in his life. Except for the one he spent collecting every scrap of research on the disease formerly known as Huntington’s.” When he shrugged, the extra dress shirt one of his teammates had let him borrow looked ready to rip apart at the seams. The player was the team’s kicker—not exactly the same body build as the team’s tight end. Still, it had been a nice gesture, despite the woman in the room groaning in protest when Grant pulled on a shirt after finishing his lap dance that certainly delivered in enthusiasm, if not skill. When a yawn escaped my mouth, the skin between Grant’s brows creased. “What? I’m exhausted. I thought we’d be out of here hours ago.” I’d gotten up early with Charlie to get her schoolwork in for the day and go through her stuff with me to pack for the trip. Then we’d both helped Grant pack after discovering his idea of packing for three months abroad was stuffing a pair of jeans, shorts, three shirts, a pair of sneakers, and a football into a duffel bag. When Charlie asked him how he’d forgotten to pack underwear, both of our cheeks had gone the slightest shade of red and we quickly turned the conversation to what Paris would be like in the spring. “I’ve been good all night. I’m not risking my chance of having my patience go unrewarded if you fall asleep in the truck on the drive home.” “Oh, it’s less of a risk and more of a guarantee,” I said around another yawn. Grant broke to a stop in the hall, looking up and down like he was searching for something. Then

he spotted something behind my shoulder. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward a closed door. “Grant,” I hissed, glancing into the still buzzing ballroom. The door was closer to the ballroom than the elevator, and he wasn’t what one would consider a quiet or stealthy lover. “That’s right, baby. You start practicing saying it now because I’ll have you shrieking my name in a minute.” Then, without a look inside, he pulled me into the dark room then sealed the door behind me. “Where the hell are we?” I asked, grappling around for a light switch. “Doesn’t make any difference to me.” Grant’s hands found me and he backed me into a wall, caging his arms around my head as his lips found mine. I might have wanted to know where we were or if there was at least a lock on the door, but when that man started kissing me the way he was, moving his body against mine how he was, nothing else mattered, least of all some measly lock on a door. “I need you, Ryan,” he whispered against my lips, his hands lowering from the wall. The sound of his zipper opening sounded especially loud under the cover of darkness. In this kind of dark, every other sense was heightened. It was like the loss of one sharpened the others. My leg wound around his legs, and I pulled him to me before tugging his pants down over his hips. His warm steel pressed into my stomach through the thin material of my dress. “Then have me,” I breathed, gathering my dress in my hands until I’d exposed myself to him. A rumble echoed in his throat when he realized I hadn’t been lying about forgetting something when I’d gotten dressed earlier. “Grant, please,” I begged, squirming against him with raw need. “Wait,” he panted, sucking in a slow breath like he was trying to oxygenate his brain. “You’re kidding me, right? What in the world could be worth waiting for right now?” I arched my back off the wall, tipping my hips into him. I felt him reach for something in his jacket, his lips finding mine once more. Then he pulled back, and even though I couldn’t see anything in this pitch-black room, I could feel his eyes on mine. “Asking you to marry me.” The breath I’d been taking caught short, my knees feeling weak from nothing other than emotion. “Are you . . .” My voice wasn’t working right either. “Asking you to be my wife? Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Or that’s more like what I’m begging.” His hand found where mine were still gathered around my dress, and he pulled the left one free. My eyes were burning with tears, and the rest of me felt on fire. I’d never known being loved by another could feel so effortless. As the moment caught up to me and I realized what he was asking me and where he was asking me and how he was asking me, my body rocked with my laughter. “Only you would have your pants around your ankles when you asked a girl to marry you.” His forehead fell into mine. “Only if that girl was you.” My free hand molded around his jaw, holding him to me. I wanted to say yes so badly. The word was a silent prayer on my lips, but first, he had to know something. Yet one more thing to drop on him, as if I hadn’t put him through enough already. “I can’t have another child, Grant. I can’t willingly bring another child into this world knowing they have a fifty-fifty chance of getting this one day. I won’t.” My fingers curled into him, the pads of my fingers dragging along the scruff of his stubble. “You deserve to know that. If you want another child—children—I’m not the woman who can give them to you.” There was a half note of silence, then his body pressed into mine so I couldn’t go anywhere unless I made it past him first. “I don’t give a fuck about that, Ryan. I have my family. You. And Charlie.” The strength of his words filled the room, the truth in them ringing in my ears. “You two are my family,

and all I want is to be a family. I don’t need another child. I don’t need the promise of growing old together. I don’t need anything but you two.” My tears were salty on my lips, but every bit as sweet. “Marry me, Ryan.” He kissed the corner of my mouth. Then the other. “Marry me, baby.” My thumb moved down his face until I could feel the pucker of the scar from one of the times his dad had split him open with an unexpected hit. I caressed it with the same thumb I’d broken when my mom bent it back too far after I’d asked if she’d get up and make me something to eat. The scars of our past were carved all over our bodies. But I knew the future we’d create together would heal them all, even the ones that ran deep. Never erased, but healed. Never forgotten, but forgiven. With Grant, all things were possible, as he’d proven to me over and over again. “I’ve been married to you as long as I’ve known you, Grant Turner.” My thumb drew across his lips. “I suppose it’s time we make it official.” He had a ring down my finger before I’d finished my answer, but maybe, like me, he’d known we’d belonged to one another from the very beginning, until the very end. His hands came around my hips, lifting me up the wall as he slid closer. Then he slowly lowered my body down over him, his breath escaping as I took him inside me. “You are half of my soul, Ryan Hale. The best part of it. Don’t leave me ever again.” His head fell into the wall beside mine as I tightened around him. “You are within me, so you can’t expect me to live without you.” My orgasm was chasing through me, building from the pure emotion of the moment. Dropping my hands to his shoulders, I braced myself and slid off of him before lowering back down slowly. “I won’t.” I sank my teeth into my lip as he pumped into me once, hard enough my body thudded against the wall. “Nowhere I can’t follow,” he rasped in my ear. A whimper spilled past my lips as his thrusts picked up in pace and strength. “I promise,” I whispered. That was when I felt his release spill through his body, his final thrust burrowing deep inside me as his hands curled into me like I was the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of the world. His release spurred my own, the power of it making my body bind around him as our bodies took from each other ’s exactly what we needed. He held me until my breathing recovered and my body had stopped trembling. He didn’t pull out or away. He stayed in and around me, a vestige of my past and a promise of my future. “Damn.” His voice shook in a breathless rush. “My fiancée gives it up even better than my girlfriend did.” His hips pinned mine against the wall, as I felt him swell inside me again. “Can’t wait to see what my wife’s capable of.” I grinned in the dark, moving my hips in unison with his. “You just won the biggest game of your life. You just got engaged. This is going to be a tough moment to beat.” Grant’s hand slipped behind my neck, holding me as he rocked into me, taking my body and sharing his with me. “Yeah, it will be,” he whispered, his smile evident in his voice. “At least until tomorrow comes. And the one after that.” My hands wound around the man I loved—the soul mine belonged with. “And all of the ones after that.”

WE WERE BACK at the beginning. Back at the start. Because you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. To rise above, you have to touch down every now and again. When I’d come back into Grant’s life, I wasn’t sure if I could hope for twelve months of good health, and now I’d had twelve years. He’d given me hope for what my disease didn’t have to be, he’d given me the resources to think outside the box, and he’d given me a second chance to rewrite our ending. We didn’t get to choose when we were born into this world or when we’d leave it, but we did get to choose how we’d live the time in between, and I squeezed more out of each day than I guessed some people did from a whole lifetime. That was what confronting one’s death will do—it made life that much sweeter. “Is it how you pictured it?” Grant joined me in the doorway, dropping his arm around my shoulders as we studied the apartment. It was the apartment I’d spent most of my young life with my mom. The same apartment that had tainted my dreams all of my life. The very apartment I was hoping to, finally, lay to rest. To be at peace with. I’d felt so weak and helpless within these walls, but now I felt the opposite. It was Grant’s love, Charlie’s love, and the way I loved them that was responsible for it. Love chased fear away. “Almost,” I answered, pulling something out of my back pocket. I made my way back into the apartment, tiptoeing silently so as not to resurrect the demons buried inside. Behind me, I heard Grant move with me, stopping behind me when I crouched in the middle of the room. He didn’t let me out of arm’s reach whenever we crossed into Clink territory, and he didn’t take his eyes off of me whenever we stepped without the walls of this complex. Twenty-five years had passed since that day he’d found me here, our first meeting, but for Grant, it was as though it had happened yesterday. Time would never change that. Some things time couldn’t fix, no matter how much of it passed. Some scars weren’t made to heal. Some were meant to be felt for the rest of our lives. Some scars defined us too much to ever be erased. Unfolding the picture I’d pulled from my pocket, I carefully placed it against one of the flower vases staggered around the room. It was a picture of my mom. Her sophomore school photo, the year she’d dropped out and gotten sucked into the world she’d died in. She looked so young, healthy, her eyes bright and her smile genuine. When my back shook, Grant’s strong hand lowered to my shoulder. He didn’t say anything or try

to rush me out. He just waited with me, as unwavering as always. As I stared at the picture of my mom, I wondered if she would have done life differently if she’d known how young she’d die. If she’d been given the gift of foresight, would that have changed anything? I wasn’t sure, and I’d have to accept that I’d never know. Few of us will ever know of our imminent demise as I did, but I supposed the message was the same for all of us—live as though you were dying, dream as if you’ll have forever. “Bye, Mom,” I whispered to the quiet room. “I forgive you.” Grant’s hand curled into me. “Come on, baby. It’s time.” Rising, I took one final look at the ten-by-twenty-foot apartment that had been my hell on earth. It looked entirely different now. The wallpaper was still peeling from the walls, bits of the ceiling were still crumbling, the same stains still scarred the old floors, the same acrid scent lingered in the air, but it was clean. Scrubbed from top to bottom of the dirt and scum that had stagnated within these walls for decades. The windows had been washed, letting in the first light of day I’d ever seen in this room. Grant had stayed by my side, scrubbing every last crack and corner of this place until we’d sent our last bucket of filthy water down the drain. Then we’d filled the place with flowers. A flower for every bad memory. A piece of life where hope had died. Thousands of flowers were scattered around the apartment, maybe tens of thousands. And now, there was only one thing left to do. “I’m ready,” I said, slipping my hand into his and letting him lead me out of the room one last time. Grant moved quickly, as he had that first time, like he was as superstitious as I was when it came to waking sleeping demons. It wasn’t until we reached from the doors on the first floor of the complex and stepped outside that I realized the heavy coat I’d been wearing inside. It fell away the moment I breathed free air. At the road, a large crowd started to cheer now that we’d emerged and were making our way to them. Most everyone gathered was probably from The Clink, because few people who weren’t or hadn’t been residents dared to come within its boundaries, but there was a handful of media vans and reporters too. It had made headlines when football legend Grant Turner decided to blow up the very apartment building he and his wife had met in. The circumstances of our meeting we kept to ourselves, but the public knew enough about The Clink to understand why a couple would be keen to reduce their past to a heap of dust and rubble. I wound my arm behind his back and glanced up at my husband. “Will we ever be able to go anywhere without having the media document your every move?” “With a face like this?” Grant teased, circling his face with his hand. “Probably not.” “You’ve been retired for two years, and I swear the press has only taken more of an interest in your life.” The crowd cheered louder when we got closer, and Grant and I waved. He winked at me. “Legends never die, baby.” “This is what happens when they induct someone in the Hall of Fame. They lose touch with reality and what it’s like to be humble every now and again.” His hand went to his chest. “Hey, I’m the most humble person I know.” I laughed. “Thank you for proving my point.” We were almost to the barricade running all the way around the apartment complex when my foot jerked. Just enough to rock me off balance. Grant caught me, swinging me into his arms as a few more tremors jerked my legs. I thought this was why he stayed so close to me all of the time, to catch me when I fell. God knew he’d done plenty of it my whole life.

“Looks like we timed our European vacation just right.” He looked down at me in his arms with the same kind of affection and devotion he had for the past two and a half decades. It took me a minute to form the words. “I think . . . you’re right.” The miracle drug I’d found in Europe had turned out to be an actual miracle. No, it hadn’t healed my HD, but it had given the disease a less pivotal role in my life. It had lessened my symptoms and delayed the advancement of those symptoms. Every few years, we had to make a return trip to get my dosage adjusted as the disease continued to fight, but thanks to Grant and his quest for a real-life miracle, I’d lived well beyond what I’d hoped. I’d lived well beyond what I’d hoped. “It will be our first time going without Charlie,” I said after the last tremor passed. Grant didn’t set me down though. “I’m kind of sad.” “Maybe she can come if she talks to her professors.” I gazed up at him. “I don’t think there’s a homeschooling option for college students, unfortunately.” He made a face. “Well, there should be.” Twisting my head, I glanced into the crowd now that we were close enough to make out faces. “Do you see her?” Grant was doing the same thing I was. His chin lifted. “There she is. Right there by Cruz and . . .” Grant sighed, his mouth pulling into a snarl. “And him.” I stifled my smile, trying to remember how difficult it was for any dad, let alone a dad like Grant Turner, to accept his little girl having a boyfriend. “You mean Carson? Her very nice, goal-oriented boyfriend she’s been with for three months now?” Grant’s eyes only narrowed on the boy beside his daughter. I guessed it didn’t help that Carson had his arm around her and was whispering something in her ear that was making her smile. “No, I mean him. And that’s three months too long.” “Grant . . .” I lifted my eyebrows at him, but he didn’t see. “He plays football.” He set me down when we were close to the barricade, his ever-present arm winding around me. “He’s a quarterback. A fucking quarterback, Ryan.” I shook my head as he seethed. “I did not raise my daughter to date quarterbacks.” “What? One of those kids who comes from a good family and had the kind of dad who’d take him out back to throw a football before dinner? We didn’t raise our daughter to date someone familyoriented like that?” He sighed, giving me a look like I was no help at all. “He’s a nice guy. Give him a chance.” I patted his stomach, knowing this wasn’t easy for him. Carson was the first guy Charlie had been serious about, and it was like a knife in the gut every time Grant saw them together. He still saw Charlie in her overalls and ponytail, not as the nineteenyear-old woman she’d become. “Sure, I’ll give him a chance. Once I bury him in the ground.” When I groaned, Grant thrust his arm in their direction. “He’s standing too close. He’s touching her.” “I seem to remember you doing a whole hell of a lot worse than just standing too close when we were a whole lot younger, Grant Turner.” “That was different. We—” “Were in love?” I let that sink in. “We raised a smart, capable daughter. Calm down. She’s not going to let some random loser into her life.” Grant huffed, staring into the crowd again as the roar picked up. “You did.” His hands slipped around my waist before he lifted me over the barricade where Charlie, Cruz, and him were. Grant was big enough he could just step over the barricade, his eyes on Carson the whole time.

“Mom!” Charlie shrieked, throwing her arms around me. She’d taken after her dad in the height department, blossoming into one of those tall, leggy beauties, so I was towered over by my whole family. I’d had time to get used to it though, since Charlie had passed me the summer she was thirteen. “Charlie-Bird.” I held her tight, wishing I never had to let her go and knowing I had to. It was the plight of parenthood. “How are you, sweetie?” “I’m great. How about you?” I heard the unsaid question in her voice. She knew all about HD now, and I knew that, like Grant, she worried about me more than I wanted either of them to. “I’m fantastic,” I said, not needing to play it up. “Best day ever.” Glancing over my shoulder, I found Grant behind me, a stone wall with his arms crossed, not so subtly standing between Charlie and Carson. “Right?” I nudged him. Then again when the first nudge didn’t get his attention. “Right?” “Dad!” Charlie leapt at Grant, who caught her like he’d been expecting her. “Love you, baby girl.” His gruff voice softened in the wake of his daughter ’s embrace. He was the toughest guy I’d ever met, and as weak as they came where his daughter was concerned. It was one of the things I loved about him most. “Look who I brought to see the big event.” Charlie stepped out of Grant’s arms to tug a marginally-frightened-looking Carson toward us. “Good to see you again, Mr. Turner.” Carson extended his hand toward Grant and smiled when I could tell he was half terrified. Rightly so. Grant wasn’t totally joking about burying him a shallow, unmarked grave. If Grant ever found out about Charlie being intimate with a boy, I’d have to lock him up to keep him from going to prison for premeditated murder. The actual murder might be in the heat of the moment, but I knew for a fact that Grant had been scheming ways to torture and kill any boy who touched his daughter that way. I had to elbow him in the ribs to get him to return the handshake. “How’s the season going?” Grant asked stiffly. Carson started to wince as Grant’s handshake continued. Another elbow to the ribs had him letting go. “Pretty good so far,” Carson answered, giving his hand a shake. “Yeah, if you consider undefeated ‘pretty good.’” Charlie slid up beside Carson and leaned her head on his shoulder. Grant’s face started to go red. “Undefeated? You could do better.” Charlie and I shook our heads. “You never had an undefeated season, Dad,” Charlie added with an elevated eyebrow which made Grant grumble and me silently laugh. “Mr. and Mrs. Turner?” Thomas, the general contractor we’d hired to see this project through from start to finish, cut through the crowd toward us. “If you’d like to have the honor, we’re ready whenever you are.” He slid the barricade open a couple of feet to pass through. Grant grabbed my hand in one of his and Charlie’s in the other as he led us through the barricade. “Would Carson like to join us?” I asked Charlie as Grant started to close the barricade behind us. Grant’s nostrils flared, but when Charlie waved Carson over, Grant reluctantly opened the barricade to let him pass. I gave Cruz a quick kiss on the cheek before following Thomas over to a box with a handle coming out of the top. Running from the box was a handful of wires. “You’ve double-checked the building?” Grant asked Thomas as we approached. “We’ve quadruple-checked, Mr. Turner. You and your wife were the last people inside.” Charlie glanced at me, knowing I’d been equally looking forward to and dreading this day. She

didn’t know the particulars of my life in The Clink, but she knew the tenor of it. “Blow the sucker up, Mom.” She gave me a quick squeeze before stepping back toward Carson, keeping a smart distance between him and Grant. Thomas indicated the handle attached to the box and stepped aside. “Mrs. Turner. Ready when you are.” I found myself staring at that handle—the instrument that would bring a whole building to the ground. The very building that had seemed impossibly large and imposing as a child was the one I was about to bring down as a woman. Looking around me, I realized that from that building, beauty had been created too. The man beside me after all of these years, the daughter we’d brought into this world, the life we’d created together. “Come on, Mom! The sooner this comes down, the sooner the new one can go up.” Charlie, my perpetual cheerleader, gave me a nod of encouragement. My perfect daughter who looked like her father but had half of my DNA. The good half of my DNA. Charlie had decided to get tested shortly after her eighteenth birthday, and her results had come back negative for HD. I’d never felt relief and gratitude like I had that day. Despite the miracle of life I’d been given, I didn’t want my daughter to have to depend on a miracle for her survival. I wanted her to be the miracle. And she was. Grant was the miracle. The life we’d created was. Time. Every new memory and moment was a miracle. Life was the miracle. Cured or not, I’d found my miracle—them. “Grant?” I looked back at him. “Together?” A smile spread across his face as he moved toward me. His hand found mine as we stepped up to the box. “Together,” he said, laying our joined hands on the handle. “Get them started on the countdown, Charlie,” I said. Charlie spun around, tugging Carson with her, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, “TEN!” The crowd had caught on by the time she’d hollered, “NINE!” Grant and I looked at each other, and as those last few seconds counted down, I saw the eyes of the boy in the man I loved. I saw the look on his face after he’d burst through that door. I remembered the way his hand had felt in mine as he led me away. I remembered the way his blood had looked running from his battle wounds. I remembered the way I’d never known peace until I’d fallen asleep with his arms around me. I remembered the way he’d looked into my eyes the first time we’d made love. I remembered the things he’d whispered in my ear. I pulled all of those memories from that building as the final “ONE!” rung around the crowd. The rest I left to die inside. Grant’s eyes held mine, his head giving a slight nod as our hands pressed down on the handle, time slowing right before the ground started to quake. Coming behind me, Grant wound his arms around me, tucking his chin over my head as we watched the complex quiver a few times, right before the whole thing came crashing down, one level at a time. I didn’t think I blinked once, not until the last of the building had collapsed, leaving a cloud of dust where a tower had just been. As my silence continued long after the cheering had started to dim from the crowd, Grant nuzzled me. “Ryan?”

“I’m okay.” I let go of the breath I’d been holding. “I’m okay.” “Yeah, so wow.” Charlie came up beside us, Carson in tow as she blinked at the rubble. “And when are you planning on opening the door to May’s House?” Grant wrapped an arm around her neck and pulled her in. “Nine months. Just in time for summer.” Charlie motioned at the mess in front of us. “It’s going to take that long to clean that up.” “It’ll happen. If your dad has to be here every day sweeping up that mess, the center will be open on time.” Charlie and I exchanged a look, both of us familiar with Grant’s degree of determination. “So this is going to be a kind of shelter for kids once it’s built?” Carson asked, daring to creep a little closer. When Grant’s gaze cut toward him, he stopped. “It’s going to be a big house, not a shelter. It’s going to be exactly like the house of the woman who helped us, but bigger. A place where kids like us can escape for a while,” I explained, able to see it now that the complex had come down. It had been Grant’s idea, once Cruz had informed us that the needs of the community had outgrown Aunt May’s house. Instead of twelve-hundred square feet of refuge, the new building would have twenty thousand. There’d be places for kids to sleep, get a meal, do their homework, or just play and forget their lives for a few hours or days. Cruz would run it, and we’d make as many visits as we could to make sure the place was living up to the standards Aunt May would be proud of. “She must have been one great woman,” Carson said, sliding closer when Charlie reached for him. Like a certain someone I knew, Carson couldn’t let Charlie out of his reach for too long. “That woman managed to turn my sorry self into something,” Grant muttered, winking at me. “So you’re saying she’s a saint,” Charlie suggested, totally straight-faced. Grant gave her an unamused look. “Ha. Ha.” “Do you guys have time to grab a quick bite with us before heading back up to school?” I asked, twisting in Grant’s arms to smile at my daughter and the boy she was quite in like, if not in love, with. Carson glanced at Grant like he was trying to gauge how he felt about the matter. Poor kid. Grant was his idol . . . and his girlfriend’s father. As if Carson didn’t have enough to be nervous enough around him. Charlie checked the time on her phone. “Carson has practice tonight.” Grant shrugged. “Surely he can miss a practice every now and again.” I lifted an eyebrow at him. Grant had missed one practice in his twenty-plus years of the playing the game. Carson rubbed the back of his head. “I suppose I could let Coach know I’ll be a little late.” Grant’s brow lifted. “So showing up late to practice is a habit of yours?” Charlie and I shared a groan. “Come on.” I motioned at Charlie and Carson. “We’ll swing by Mickey’s and grab a bite, so you don’t have to miss or be late to your practice.” “I still can’t believe you’re at A&M.” Grant shook his head as we walked away from the pile of rubble. “The first thing your mom and I wanted to do was escape this state, and it’s the very first place you wanted to go.” Charlie linked arms with her dad, nudging him. “Hey, it’s in my blood.” He just shook his head as we headed toward where we’d all parked. After giving Carson directions to the diner, Grant made sure Charlie buckled up and Carson checked his mirrors ten times before letting them pull away. He didn’t stop watching the car until it had turned down the road. “Come on. You’ll feel better after a milkshake and a greasy burger.” I patted his arm as he approached the old truck he and his dad had worked on. “I’ll feel better if you climb on my lap and give me a repeat of what you did to me last night.” One

dark brow lifted as he opened the truck door for me. “After lunch,” I said, jolting when he slapped my butt as I crawled in. “I don’t want to have to hurry—I want to take my time with you.” “Consider my calendar cleared. Take all the time you want.” I shook my head at him as I buckled, glancing around once more. “This place hasn’t changed.” Grant leaned into the truck door, letting his gaze wander with me. “No, it hasn’t.” His head shook. “It’s still one of my favorite places on the planet.” My forehead lined. “The Clink?” I paused, my confusion settling deeper. “Okay, I’m waiting for the punch line.” “No punch line. It’s true.” “We barely made it out alive. We never had enough to eat. Why am I recapping this for you?” “Yeah, that’s true,” he allowed with a nod. Then his gaze shifted back to me. The look in his eyes pulled the air right from my lungs. “This is also the place that brought me to you.” Leaning down, I wrapped my hands around his face. “You know, this place is pretty fantastic. “ He chuckled softly. “Glad you think so.” My head tilted, my lips hovering above his. “Now shut up and kiss me.” His hand came around my neck, my name falling from his lips like it was a prayer. “Shutting up.” Grant and I had shared many moments like this, but certain ones hit me in a profound way. Like this one. Kissing my husband inside the truck I remembered him working on with his dad when the man wasn’t too drunk to see, after having just blown up our personal house of horrors, right before we were about to eat with our daughter and her boyfriend. These were the moments a person lived for. The moments a person died remembering. That place between life and death, that was where we were really alive. That was what I’d come to realize. That space between was where all the good stuff happened. Breaking the kiss, Grant kept his eyes on mine. “I love you so damn much, Ryan. I’d die for you. A million ways, a million times, I’d die for you.” “I know.” My fingers curled into his face as I kissed him once more. “And I’d live for you. A million ways, a million times, I’d live for you.”

Phoenix is set on hating summer camp. Family summer camp. Callum knows his future ends one way: a dead end. What they didn’t count on was each other.

From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nicole Williams, comes a pitch-perfect romance about late nights, first loves, and learning to trust again.



Chapter Three I’d been all set to hate camp. That was my plan. It became harder to keep to it once I started to explore the place. The camp might have been covered by trees, and the cabins might have been leaning hard toward the rustic side, and it might have felt like it was an entire world apart from California, but it wasn’t so bad. Not as bad as I’d imagined when the words family camp and summer break slipped from my parents’ mouths in the same sentence. I’d only been wandering for a few minutes—I didn’t want my dad to go totally ape-poop waiting for his precious Wi-Fi password—but it was enough for me to realize that Camp SomethingOrOther could have been a lot worse. Not that that was an endorsement for spending an extra hour past what we had planned, but at least my outlook on the place had improved from worst summer ever to just worst summer this decade. After weaving around the outskirts of the camp, I meandered down one of the walking paths that looked like it headed toward the center of camp. The place seemed to be arranged like a bike wheel— one large circle of cabins tucked into the trees, with numerous trails connecting the cabins to the hub of the camp. Once I’d moved past the circle of cabins, the grounds thinned out and a blanket of grass covered the center of camp. It was the kind of grass that made me want to kick my sandals off and walk barefoot through it, wiggling my toes and letting the blades tickle my toes. I missed grass. California and its drought situation made grass ancient history. I would have been happy just to lie down in the grass and take a nap since I’d slept a total of three hours last night. As I trudged across the lawn, I noticed a large group of campers clustered outside the big building ahead. One problem, though—the main, if not only, entrance to the dining hall was right behind the campers sprawled on the lawn and listening to what looked to be some kind of lesson on paddling. I skirted as far around the cluster of campers as I could, hoping I could sneak into the dining hall without anyone noticing. As I got closer, I could hear someone talking to the campers. It must have been one of the counselors, but he was kind of hidden from view. All I could see was one foot sporting a muddy hiking boot, and every few seconds his forearm when a bright yellow paddle would circle into view. I slowed my pace and adjusted my path so I was closer to the group on the lawn and tuned in to what was being said. It only took a few seconds to figure out nothing more thrilling than paddling was being discussed. He was talking about what to do if you fell from the raft into the river—“just go with the flow,” whatever that meant. I kept moving toward the dining hall. I didn’t make it far. Since I was still trying to check out Instructor Paddle Stroke, I missed the step leading to the porch. Well, my eyes missed it, but the toe of my sandal did not. I went down hard. And loud. Just great, Her Gracefulness has arrived.

I didn’t need to check across the lawn to wonder if anyone had noticed my wipeout. The sudden quiet was all the confirmation I needed—nothing like easing myself into camp life and flying under the radar. My knees and hands were stinging like someone had just scrubbed them raw with sandpaper, but I ignored them. Just as I was about to hoist myself up, an arm extended my way. “You okay?” I dusted off my knees and palms. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied before glancing up, which was a good thing since once I looked at him, my tongue tied into those knot thingies I’d heard about. Hello . . . Instructor Paddle Stroke was towering in front of me, holding out his hand like he was waiting for me to take it. Under normal circumstances, I would have let him give me a lift up, but this wasn’t a normal circumstance because this guy wasn’t, well . . . normal. In a good way. That sounded bad, but I didn’t know how else to describe him. I couldn’t look away, but it wasn’t because he fit the hot-guy mold with, you know, the hair and the smile and the jaw thing. He was the other type. The one with enough quirks to make him interesting to look at— the kind with just enough imperfections to make him attractive. His hair was messy in the unstyled way, and while he had clear skin, his face was marked with two largish scars—a smooth one traced across part of his upper lip and a rougher one running down his temple. From the small bump at the top of his nose, it looked like he’d broken it—at least once. So he’d broken some bones and earned some scars—good for him. I had my own—they just weren’t so obvious. I couldn’t tell if his eyes were more brown or green, kind of like his hair couldn’t decide if it was more blond or brown. Even his body seemed to be in some kind of tug-of-war between bulky and lanky. “Are you sure you’re okay?” The skin between his brows creased when I stayed frozen, still staring at him like the idiot I was. Get a grip, Phoenix. This isn’t exactly the first guy you’ve ever pasted your eyes on. I had to force myself to look away before I could reply. “I’m sure I’m not not okay.” “Well, that’s a start.” I could hear the smile in his voice, which made me want to look. Yeah, his smile was just as great as it sounded. Kinda crooked, his eyes grinning, too. “You can work on the rest later.” That made me smile back. Again, like the idiot I was. I didn’t do boy-crazy, I reminded myself. I didn’t do weak-kneed and tongue-tied and starry-eyed. I did Miss Independent. I did my own thing. I did guys-were-a-nice-perk-but-not- the-pinnacle. That was my MO. So why in the hell was I acting like my own personal guy-stupid nightmare, grinning like a moron at this guy? Especially when I was fresh out of a failed relationship? “Are you busy?” he asked suddenly, glancing at the group on the lawn. Yeah, I’m busy. Checking you out . . . and berating myself for doing it. “No,” I said, forgetting all about what I’d been “busy” doing before my tumble heard around the camp. “Would you mind helping me with something?” “No,” I said, realizing one word too late I had no idea what I’d just agreed to. “I’m going to need your help over there.” He tipped his head toward the lawn and campers. When he lowered his hand again, waiting, I shoved off the porch and lifted myself up. I could barely look at the guy—game over if I actually touched him. He started heading for the lawn, checking over his shoulder to make sure I was following.

“What exactly do you need my help with?” I asked, trying not to check out the way his hips moved when he walked . . . or the way his butt looked in action. I needed an intervention. A reality-check bitch-slap. I needed to stop noticing all that was so right about this guy, and latch on to whatever I could dig up that was wrong. I started repeating the phrase If it looks too good to be true, it probably is through my head. “I’m going to use you to show everyone how to fit a life jacket.” He held a giant orange life jacket in the air, waving me forward with his other hand. Too good to be true. Too good to be true, I hummed to myself as I walked up to him. The cluster of campers gave a courtesy round of applause for the victim-slash-volunteer. He joined in and clapped with them. I gave a little curtsy and reminded myself I’d made a vow to keep this summer complication-and boy-free. I had enough to deal with already. He didn’t hesitate as he slipped behind me and stuffed my arms through the life jacket’s armholes. “To kill time, let’s play a Camp Kismet favorite, the Getting to Know You game.” I swallowed. I would have rather walked on hot coals. With my face. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep it painless.” His head poked out from behind me like he’d known I’d be panicking over the idea of exposing my soul to a bunch of strangers. “Where are you from?” he asked as he came around in front of me to start snapping the life jacket into place. I exhaled. Painless. “California.” A few hoots shot through the group. “A fellow Californian.” He nodded at me like we shared some kind of bond now. I nodded like I knew exactly what he meant. “What part?” “Santa Monica,” I answered. He gave a low whistle as he snapped one of the life jacket’s buckles. “Must be nice over there. All that sand and ocean.” I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or being serious. His face told me he was teasing, but his voice sounded serious. “What part are you from?” There. Now it was a fair game of Getting to Know You. “The part where we don’t have sand and ocean.” When he fastened the next strap together, grazing a part of my arm, I cleared my throat. He must have thought I was calling him out on his vague answer instead. That worked. “Inglewood,” he said. “Home sweet home.” “Oh,” I said, kind of surprised. Not that I spent a lot of time there or knew a lot of people from Inglewood, but he didn’t dress or talk like the few I did know. “How old are you, Santa Monica?” “Seventeen—almost eighteen.” When he finished buckling the last strap, I took a breath. I’d been holding it the whole time. “How about you? Inglewood?” “Just turned eighteen. It was a good year to be born.” He tipped his head at me again, like we shared yet some other bond. I tipped my head, still not getting it. God, I was a wreck. A quiet round of laughter circled through the campers who I’d forgotten were there for all of three and a half seconds. I shook my head and gave myself the proverbial kick in the butt to pull my head out of the same spot. “So we know where you’re from now. Maybe we should know your name, too.” He punched the shoulders of the life jacket down into place. Hard. He wasn’t treating me like I was a delicate flower. Part of me liked that. The other part wasn’t so sure. “Phoenix,” I said, not sure who I was supposed to be speaking to: him or the group. Just to be safe,

I spoke loud enough so that most of the campers should have been able to hear me. “The mythical bird that rises from the ashes.” He flashed his hands at the life jacket and looked at the campers with a raised brow like he was suggesting this was the time for questions if there were any. I never realized putting on a life jacket required an in-depth demonstration. Seemed kind of selfexplanatory. “My mom says our names are symbolic of the kind of people we become. Do you think she’s right?” “That’s a loaded question,” I replied. “Why’s it loaded?” From the smirk he flashed me, he knew why. “Because if I answer one way, I’ll be admitting I’m an ashy bird, but if I answer the other way, I’ll be insulting your mom.” He tested the tightness of my jacket by giving it a few hard tugs, followed by a series of harsh shakes. “It’s not a loaded question, I swear. Just one of those normal ones.” I was having a conversation with a cute guy in front of a couple dozen people while wearing a giant orange life jacket. Yeah, this was a first. And hopefully a last. “Well, I wasn’t a mythical bird the last time I checked, so I guess that answers your question.” The corners of his eyes lined. “Are you saying my mom’s wrong? That she’s a liar?” My shoulders sagged beneath the life jacket. Great. And now I’d offended him. From wiping out, to ogling, to offending. I don’t think I’d ever bombed a first impression worse than this one. “What? No. Of course not. I just meant . . .” He held his devastated expression for another second, right before it disappeared behind a smile that took up half his face. And then he laughed. “I’m just messing with you.” I wanted to punch him in the arm. I wanted to shake off the life jacket and storm away. Instead, I stayed in place and let him finish laughing. How was that for calm under pressure? “Don’t let him get to you, honey!” an older woman shouted, patting her hand in the air like she was patting my back instead. “Over time, you’ll eventually build up an immunity to Callum.” “How many summers have you been coming to Camp Kismet, Mary Jo?” Callum asked, squinting his eyes as he looked, since the sun was blasting into his face from that angle. “Twelve, honey.” “And when did you finally build up your ‘immunity’ to me? Taking into account I’ve only been coming to camp for the past eight years.” Mary Jo nudged the man beside her, who I guessed was her husband since they were rocking the same style of tracksuits, hers shocking purple and his fluorescent orange. They shared a look and a laugh. “Toward the end of last summer.” Callum lifted a shoulder at me. “See? All you have to do is hang around me for eight summers and then you can build up your own immunity to me. Whatever that even means . . .” Callum shot a look at Mary Jo and her husband and grumbled. “I like to think of myself as having an infectious personality instead of one a person needs to build an immunity to.” For a second, the campers were all quiet, looking among one another like they couldn’t believe their ears. Then they all started busting up. “Yeah, yeah, I hope you’re all paying attention to this life jacket demonstration,” Callum growled at the crowd good-naturedly. “Your lives depend on it.” The campers kept laughing. These people loved this guy. There was also a group of girls around my age who looked like they loved him. Or at least the part of him I’d been admiring when he’d been walking in front of me. Fine ass alert, as Emerson would have announced. “What’s your biggest fear, Phoenix?” Callum asked, picking a paddle up from the ground and moving it through the air again like he was instructing. “Huh?” I asked when he cocked a brow.

“Your biggest fear?” he repeated slowly. “We’re playing the Getting to Know You game in case you forgot. Or have a short-term-memory issue.” “Oh,” I said, thinking. It was a personal question. A little too personal to just announce to a crowd of strangers, so I kept it vague. “Failing. I guess that’s my biggest fear.” He kept slicing the paddle through the air. “Failing what?” I took some time to think again. I didn’t need it, though. “Anything.” He moved closer, probably about to drop another question, so I beat him to it. “What’s your biggest fear?” If he was surprised by me firing his question back at him, he didn’t show it. His paddle stroke stayed smooth and even, not even a wobble. “Failing.” I narrowed my eyes in a question of Really? He shrugged in an answer of Really. “Failing what?” I asked. “Everything.” This time, his paddle wobbled. Just for a second, and no one else probably even noticed, but I didn’t miss it. I’d been watching for it. Like me, he had something specific he was afraid of failing. I knew what mine was, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what his could have been. Was he afraid of failing a little brother of his own, too? Failing someone else important? Failing himself? Failing physics? Failing a driving test? Failing his principles? When it came to failing, the possibilities were endless. “So what does your name mean, Callum?” Mary Jo’s husband called. I had to shake my head and take a few steps away from him to clear my mind. All I’d needed to find was a Wi-Fi password and a sack lunch—instead I’d stumbled on everything besides those two things. Callum answered the guy’s question by clamping his mouth shut. “You spilled the meaning about her name and made her confirm or deny if it was accurate. In front of a whole group of strangers.” The man in the orange running suit opened his arms up. “Seems only fair you do the same in return.” He kept paddling. “I’m instructing.” “The life jacket demonstration’s done and you’ve pounded proper paddle stroke and ‘going with the flow’ into our brains.” He circled his finger around the group. “We’re waiting.” Orange Jogging Suit lifted his shaggy gray brows and demonstrated just how ready he was to wait. A few more shouts of support circled the group, but Callum didn’t look close to caving. At least until he glanced over at me and I crossed my arms over the bulky life jacket and raised an eyebrow. I probably looked like an escaped mental patient in an orange straitjacket. He shook his head at me, smiling the whole time, before shouting into the crowd, “Dove!” “I didn’t see it,” shouted one middle-aged camper with the biggest set of binoculars I’d ever seen strung around his neck, his head shooting up toward the sky. “There are no doves in this part of the country,” added another camper, who had a not- quite-soimpressive set of binoculars around his own neck. Callum settled his hands on his hips and stared at the group like he couldn’t believe his ears. “My name,” he said slowly. “The meaning of it is ‘dove.’ And you’re wrong about them not being in this part of the country. Doves are a hardy, adaptable breed. They can thrive in any part of the country.” “Dove?” I felt my forehead pinch together. Callum didn’t sound like it meant “dove” to me. His expression was of the deadly brand of serious. “Dove.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You know, the common bird that’s associated with the pigeon family that people consider an all-around nuisance and pest?” Callum motioned his hands at himself like he was proving something. “So yeah, totally prophetic for the person I grew into.” This time when the group laughed, I joined them. It took me by surprise—the laugh. Until this moment, I’d been convinced I’d spend the summer on a laughter strike. An hour into day one and I was already disproving that whole theory.

I could tell he was trying not to laugh, but one slipped out. It was a nice sound. One of the nicest sounds I’d heard in a long time. It wasn’t the fake kind or the dialed-down kind; it was the real kind. “So I guess we’re just a couple of birds.” I smiled at him, wondering if at the end of the summer, I’d leave this place with more than just enough money for a beater car. Don’t miss the summer romance worth swooning over.

Trusting You & Other Lies on sale June 20, 2017. Visit our website for more details: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/241030/trusting-you-and-other-lies-by-nicole-williams/

Thank you for reading TOUCHING DOWN by NEW YORK TIMES and USATODAY bestselling author, Nicole Williams.

Nicole loves to hear from her readers. You can connect with her on Facebook: Nicole Williams (Official Author Page) Twitter: nwilliamsbooks Blog: nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com

Other Works by Nicole: CRASH, CLASH, and CRUSH (HarperCollins) UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK) LOST & FOUND, NEAR & FAR, HEART & SOUL FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS WEEPERS STEALING HOME COLLARED THE FABLE OF US THREE BROTHERS HARD KNOX, DAMAGED GOODS CROSSING STARS GREAT EXPLOITATIONS SAGA THE EDEN TRILOGY THE PATRICK CHRONICLES