Evie must have pulled some strings with someone, because after that, she doesn’t leave my side. She’s there when Billards comes in next, giving me an update on the latest scans—which, thankfully, look good. When the respiratory therapist comes by to make me blow into the tube of a machine, to check my healing lung, Evie holds my hands and looks into my eyes as they tear up from the pain of my ribs.

When the therapist leaves, she kisses both my cheeks and helps me lie back, then encourages more pain meds. A few hours later, she has someone deliver chamomile tea. That night, she checks my four small surgical incisions from the VATS procedure herself, running a finger over the unpunctured skin around the bandages, as if to tell my chest I’m sorry.

When I sleep, she sits right by me in a chair—until I wake up with a gasp, and then she moves onto the bed beside me.

She wraps an arm around the top of my chest, and, with her warm hand on my lightly bearded cheek, she turns my face toward hers. Evie presses her forehead against my cheek, and I let out a long breath. Her fingers stroke my hair around the spot near my forehead where I have a row of stitches.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. She kisses my jaw, then looks back down, so she can’t see my face. “It must have been so scary…”

I remember coming in on the stretcher with my arms pinned down, and my heart beats a little harder.

“I wish it had been me instead of you,” she says quietly.

I press my cheek against her forehead and swallow before I speak. “When the car stopped…” I take a few small, careful breaths. “I was…sort of stuck.” I stop at that, because I don’t want to tell her how the door and steering wheel had me pinned in, and I guess the nerve in my back was pinched at that angle, because I couldn’t feel my legs at all, for those few minutes.

“I took a little bit for them to get me out…and,” my voice cracks as my throat tightens, “all I could think about was you.”

“What do you mean?” Her red-rimmed eyes peek up at mine.

“I wanted you. I wanted you with me.” My voice sounds breathless. “I tried to tell myself that you were just a kid when you…when you had her,” I rasp. “I just tried to tell myself to be calm…and shoulder through, like you did.”

I feel something tickle on my bare chest, and I realize that it’s Evie’s tears. I lift my arm from where it rests by my side and wrap it around her back.

“I thought you must have been trapped…or scared,” she whispers. “IM Ketamine was on your orders.”

I don’t fully remember, but I think after they got me out and tried to force me down onto a stretcher, I hit an EMT. That must be why they gave the ketamine.

I rub Evie’s back, my fingers dragging gently in between her shoulder-blades. “You found me when I got here.”

“You asked me to go,” she whispers.

“I didn’t want you to see me,” I say, stroking Ev’s hair.

“Never let that be your instinct.” She peeks up at me, her gorgeous eyes intense. “If you’re crying—God, Landon—if you’re crying, then I really have to be there.”

That’s what goes against the grain, for me. Reaching out and grabbing on. But sometimes, with just Evie, I can do it.

I kiss her head. “About…Ashtyn,” I say thickly. “I had no idea. I would never have left you. When you didn’t write…” I shut my eyes and try to take some careful breaths.

“You thought I had forgotten?”

“Yeah,” I mange.

I was so lost when I fled the group home. I had never felt so hopeless. I hitchhiked south with any car that stopped, not caring what happened to me. I stole food, drank from sinks in public bathrooms, and slept outside two nights on the UT campus once I found myself in Knoxville. I slept behind some bushes, up against a building, and at night, I cried for Evie. I remember it so fucking well: the smell of the dirt, and how the building’s wall felt warm against my back. I would never, ever tell her.

“Did you hate me?” she asks in a small voice.

“Ev…” I kiss her hair again. “Why do you keep asking that? I never even tried to hate you. It’s beyond my capacity.”

“It is?” Her voice is soft and sad.

“It is.” I press my face against her hair and inhale. It smells sweet, the way it always has. “Did you hate me?”

I hold my breath until she nuzzles me. “Of course not. I craved you like some kind of drug. I never forgot how good it was. I never stopped wondering.”

I inhale deeply enough to sting my chest before I shut my eyes. “Why didn’t you find me?”

“I was so scared. Once you came back to the house that time and Em saw you…I realized that you— I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I thought you’d hate me. And I knew it wouldn’t change a thing. Once it was done, it was done. I guess I…” I feel her inhale. “I just wanted to let us stay the way we were.”

“How was that?” I murmur.

“Perfect.”

* * *

“Yeah…so tell me all about that—if you want to.”

Evie’s fingertips stroke my forearm, and it feels so good, it’s a struggle to think straight enough to answer her.

It’s the middle of the night, five nights after the surgery, and she’s sitting on the edge of my hospital bed, tracing circles on the inside of my arm after washing my hair with dry shampoo. I’m pretty sure it didn’t work, but her hands in my hair—good stuff.

I flex my wrist to wrap my fingers around Ev’s arm. She understands my wordless request; her hand clasps mine, and our fingers lace together.

I lean my head against the top of the bed and shut my eyes. I do want to tell her—or rather, I need to.

“Almost two years ago,” I say, with my eyes still closed, “I hired a PI.” My lungs start into a fortifying breath before I freeze, clenching my jaw.

Evie’s hand squeezes mine. I take a few more shallow breaths and try to think around the pain.

“The PI…it took him a while at first, but eventually…he traced her by my name.” I look at Evie, who is listening with wide eyes. “Checked around the time of my estimated birth for a baby born in the Asheville area with the name James Landon. Turns out, I was born near Fairview,” I say softly. “My real birthday is March 5…and my mother’s name is Laura Stern.”

“Wow…”

I swallow hard, then let my eyes find Evie’s. “High school physics teacher now. When she…left,” I whisper, “she was twenty. Came from poverty,” I say in an impassive tone. “She was arrested once for trying to buy drugs from an officer. PI said she told a woman at her church back then that she had let me go live with my dad.”

Evie’s eyes widen, and I shake my head to shut down her excitement. “Nothing on him. PI thought she didn’t know.

“When I was six,” I go on, “she remarried…to another teacher. And they applied to foster children.” I inhale deeply enough to ache, then shake my head. “They got rejected. Couldn’t pass the background check. The drug arrest, I think.”

My body hurts so fucking much. Telling this story hurts. But I want Ev to know. I want to hear her thoughts. Despite what happened between us—what she didn’t tell me—I still love her just the same as always. I need her just the same.

“Not long after that, they started having kids. Three girls…and a boy. They live in Charlotte now.” I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head. “You know…I almost dislike that the most,” I tell her quietly. “That she left Asheville. Isn’t that illogical?”

Ev strokes my hand and leans in closer. “I don’t think so.” I’m wearing a back brace, and I’m reclining slightly in the bed, so I can’t really move closer to her. “I can understand that,” she says softly.

After a quiet moment, Evie lets go of my hand and shifts to sit beside me in the bed, hip to hip with our backs against the raised mattress. She takes my hand gently in hers again, and rests her head against my upper arm.

“You’ve never met her,” she surmises.

“No. I want to, though. In my head…I have these fantasies where I say all this shit to her. Where I tell her that she’s a fucked up bitch—and where I tell her I’m a surgeon, and she’s thrilled and cooks me dinner.” I laugh darkly.

“Do you want to, really?” she asks. “Want to meet her?” Her fingers squeeze mine gently.

“Oh, of course. But I think we know how that ends.”

“No we don’t.” She shakes her head. “And listen—I think anyone would feel this way. You want to have some clue of where you came from. That’s just normal.”

“Ashtyn’s lucky that she knows you.” I can barely say the words without my damn throat knotting up.

I can’t turn my torso to see Evie’s face, but I can feel her chest expand. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you, Landon. God, I’m sorry. When we were younger, when you showed back up that time and Emmaline talked to you—” her voice cracks. “I had gone off to this…camp thing. Kind of like a rehab almost.”

My pulse surges. “What?”

“For depression,” she says, looking up at me. “Even though I thought I did the right thing, it still bothered me a lot back then. And—” her voice catches— “I missed you.”

I grit my teeth. I fucking hate to hear that. I hate that I left her when she needed me, when Ashtyn needed me. Evie’s come to terms with it, but I still have my share of guilt.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “We were both just doing things the only way we could.” She blows her breath out. “When I found out you’d been by, though…and she was already gone…” Her voice is whispered. “It was not a good time.” She curls her legs up to her chest and leans her cheek against my arm. “After your own story, I just knew you’d hate me—and be heartbroken for her. I questioned that a few times, telling you or not, but I figured what you didn’t know wasn’t hurting you.”

I feel her shoulders shake as her voice cracks, and Evie’s crying. Fuck. I lift my arm up slowly, bringing it around her even though it makes my torso light up. I tighten my bicep, urging her to scoot in closer.

“If she got curious,” Ev says through tears, “I figured we could look you up. I didn’t think that you would want her wondering. I thought you’d be okay to find out then. Truthfully, I was so young, I didn’t know. Nothing seemed right. I knew it would break your heart.”

“Just not my back.” The words slip out, and Evie stiffens. I chuckle, and then stifle a groan as my ribs ache. “Supposed to…be a joke,” I hiss.

I feel like an old man as her hand strokes my shoulder. “You want something?” she whispers.

I shake my head.

“You could get more Toradol.”

“Saving up,” I whisper-hiss. In the dim light of my room, I see her chew her lip. “Just…rub my arm,” I tell her.

It feels good, of course, but more importantly, it makes Ev feel less helpless.

She stretches my arm out in her lap and starts to stroke it like she has the last few days, when we both need distracting.

“Anyway,” she sighs, “I screwed up. I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I would never have…”

But I was gone when she gave birth. Evie doesn’t have to tell me she might have chosen differently had I been there.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Damn it, Evie. Is she happy?”

“You saw her. She seemed like a normal kid, right?”

“I don’t know.” My voice shakes, which surprises me. As do my words when I say, “I don’t even know what that is.”

Evie cuddles up to me. Her hand sifts through my hair, stroking gently even though I know it must be sweaty and unclean.

“Let me tell you, then,” she murmurs. “I think she has a really nice life. Happy.”

“Is it fucked up that she didn’t feel like…ours, that time I saw her?” My words are rough and quiet.

“It’s not fucked up. I’d argue that, I think, though. You knew her at first glance. Landon…she does look like me, but not that much.”

“You don’t think?” I ask, surprised.

“Not really.”

I blink a few times. My damn eyes keep leaking every time I think about this—or my mother. It’s the fucking hospital. Being a patient here is getting to me.

“You know what’s awful?” she whispers.

“What?”

“I want kids,” she tells me quietly. “I want more kids…later, just like—” my mother, I fill in. “I still have this…hole, you know?”

“It’s not the same.” I reach my arm around her. I cup Evie’s shoulder, rubbing through the T-shirt that she’s sleeping in. “It’s not the same, Ev. You did right.”

“Maybe your mom did right too, though. Please don’t hate me for saying that.”

“For having an opinion?” I squeeze her gently. “I would have hated you a long time ago for the blasphemy of plain avocados.”

“They’re not plain. That’s just misinformation. They’re salted and peppered and they’re very flavorful, I’ll have you know.” I can hear the smile in her voice. She leans against me again, and I can feel her wanting to hug me. It’s almost amusing how much Evie’s having to hold back. She’s a hugger, and she wants to plaster herself on me, I think. Hug it out and shit.

I move my arm from around her shoulders, and I twine my fingers back through hers. Then I pull our joined hands onto my lap…over my thigh…until they’re resting where I really want to feel her. I can tell the moment that she notices, because she stops breathing.

“Landon.” She giggles in the dark. Her voice goes high as she says, “Are you serious?”

I don’t dare flex my hips, so I can’t rub my dick against her. I rub our hands against myself and groan, because goddamn, I fucking need this.

“All day,” I confess. Spines go into shock after a vertebral fracture. In my case, my lower half was tingling painfully, like an irritated funny bone, until this morning. “When I stood up early today, I realized the tingling was gone. And I guess with the big cutback on the morphine…” Her hand rubs against me, gentle, tentative, as if she wants to be sure my dick really is hard as fuck and wanting her attention.

I groan. “I want to move my hips. You make me fucking crazy…”

“Oh my God, you’re crazy.” She laughs softly.

I take her hand and make it cup me. “Feel this miracle?” I rasp. “Think of what could have happened to him.”

She giggles as she rubs me. I’m panting and groaning—throbbing. “Ev…you’ve gotta make me come.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” She giggles.

“I am. I need relief…and only one woman can help.” I twist her nipple. She yelps. “Landon…I am shocked.”

“Don’t be shocked,” I rasp. “Just help me out, and I’ll help you.”

She laughs, as if I must be joking. “How can you do that?”

I would twist her nipple again, just to show her who’s in charge, except she’s bending down, moving my blankets. Her hand finds me, skin-to-skin, and it takes all my effort not to jerk my hips as Evie pumps my cock and, with her free hand, starts to roll my balls. I grit my teeth and try to keep my faster breathing shallow.

“Ahhhh fuck. Ev…” I grab her arm and squeeze it as her fingers play with my balls. “Fuckkk. That’s good… A little faster on the…yeah.” She gets the pace of her stroking just right, and I give in and let myself breathe deeply, even though it hurts…it also feels good.

“Ahhhhhh—my Evie.” My voice shakes on her name.

“Am I?”

“You know…you are.” I grunt, and for a moment, I’m afraid to come, but then she does this thing where she lifts both my balls and kinda grips them, as her stroking hand grazes the rim of my head just right. I suck a big breath back, and pain shoots through my ribs—right as she grips me hard and strokes me faster. Her hand comes over my head, then strokes back down. And up, then down…and up. Oh fuck, I’m leaking precum. God. Her finger tweaks me right there on the tip. I’m panting harder. “God…I think I’m…gonna…”

“Come?” she whispers.

Evie’s finger traces down the seam of my taut, aching balls, and that’s it. I unload in her hand, in a railed bed—on the third floor, no less.

I should be embarrassed, but instead, I’m energized.

We play a game where we measure how fast I can make her come with just my fingers. I score 3:55 the first time and 2:48 the second.

Winning.

Really winning.

I know better than to question it.