“Hi, Momma.” I kiss her on the cheek and visually examine her. Millie has a bunch of errands to run so this afternoon it’s just me and my momma. Times I both relish and dread with equal measure. “You look good today.”

“Hi,” my mother replies tentatively, staring at me like a stranger.

It makes me sad. I miss her so much. I miss how she used to sing me to sleep and tried hopelessly to teach me to sew. I miss being able to talk to her about anything and everything. And after these past few days with Shaw, I need my mother more than ever. I need a nonjudgmental ear to bend. Someone to be happy for me. Someone to simply listen, a skill Sierra is incapable of. And my friend, Jo, would just as soon scold me if I told her I went and fell in love with a client than go with me to pick out a bridesmaid dress.

Patting her on the arm, which is cool to the touch, I grab the water glass by her recliner and head to the kitchen to refill it.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, setting the drink on the table beside her before sliding onto the couch.

“Fine, I think.” She pauses, contemplating. “Yes, I feel fine.”

“You seem cold. Do you want a blanket?”

Sparse brows twist in as she thinks. “Yes, I suppose that would be nice.”

I hop up and grab one from the wicker basket sitting by the bay windows and settle it around her legs. “Feel good?”

She nods. I don’t think she’s sure but I’m glad she’s playing along.

“Can I get you anything to eat?”

“No, thank you,” she answers politely.

“Do you want to watch Jeopardy?”

“Oh, yes. That would be lovely.” I smile at the excitement in her voice. The one thing that hasn’t changed in all this time is how much she loves Jeopardy. Grabbing the remote, I flip on the TV and settle in for a marathon of the world’s toughest trivial pursuit game. She even surprises me a few times by getting the answers right.

Alzheimer’s is a confusing disease. Useless random facts can be recalled on a dime, but the faces of your loved ones often remain elusive.

About an hour in, I’m nearly stunned silent when she looks over at me and says completely out of the blue, “I miss your father.”

My eyes water. Hers do, too. I don’t know if she thinks she’s talking to me or to Violet, but if she’s having a moment of lucidity, I choose to believe it’s me. “So do I.” That was hard to get out.

“What happened?”

“To Daddy?” I ask, my voice shaky. As sad as it is to say, most of the time I’m glad she doesn’t remember losing her husband of thirty-two years because when she remembers, I can tell the wound is as fresh as the day it happened. Though the steps I’m wading through feel like sludge sometimes, at least I can try to move forward. She’s just stuck in some sick time warp where she’s constantly treading water.

She nods slowly, confusion furrowing her forehead. “I…I know he’s gone, but…”

“It’s okay.” I reach over and take her hand, stopping her before she becomes agitated. “He…” Jesus, this is hard. I swear if I look over at the stairs right now he’ll be lumbering down them, his hair all disheveled from spending hours raking through research. “He got into a car accident,” I lie.

She will never know the truth about what happened that night. It will absolutely kill her like it does me.

She presses her lips together, and her gaze falls to her lap. She’s quiet for such a long time I’m sure she’s slipped away from me again, but then she asks the same question she always asks when we talk about him in the present tense. “Was anyone else hurt?”

She wants details. I don’t have them.

She wants answers. I don’t have those either.

The ever-present guilt I’m married to rears her ugly head. Are we both living without my father because I was too caught up in my own life and missed something? I can’t bear the answer.

“No. No one else was hurt.”

Her lip quivers. “I get scared sometimes. I forget things. Why can’t I remember? I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”

I don’t understand either.

I slide from the couch and kneel in front of her, my heart clogging my throat. I take her hands in mine and give her all my strength. “I know, but I’m here. I’ll always be here for you, Momma. I promise. I love you.” I’ll never leave you like Daddy did.

Her trembling lips turn up. She strokes my cheek, pinching it at the fullest part like she always used to do when I was little. Then she blinks, drops her hand, and I watch our precious moments together evaporate. She studies me blankly for several beats and turns her attention back to the TV. I head to the bathroom and take the next few minutes to pull myself together before spending the rest of the afternoon bingeing on Jeopardy while she naps.

Later that evening, I’m back home cooking dinner when Sierra makes an appearance. No doubt the smell of food drew her out of her cave. I swear she’d starve if it weren’t for me. I’m not sure how she survived those few months I lived with Reid.

“How’s the hot toddy?” she jibes. Picking up a stack of pancakes with her fingers, she drops them onto an extra plate I already set out. Don’t like breakfast for dinner? Uh-huh, right.

It’s been almost a week since I’ve last seen my roommate. I’ve been spending more and more time at Shaw’s, but tonight he’s visiting with his dad. He asked me to wait for him in his bed and while it was more than tempting, for some odd reason I wanted the comfort of my own house. And my friend.

“He’s fine.” I hand her the syrup, which she generously pours and I wait with bated breath. Sierra’s not much of a paper reader and I’m not about to bring up the article in the 7-Day if she doesn’t. I’m still trying to mentally bleach the lingering vision from behind my eyeballs. The last thing I want to do is talk about it.

“Really?” Her eyes find mine. They challenge.

Dammit, she knows.

“Really.” I shut my mouth. Try to keep cool.

“Hmmm.” She licks the stickiness from her fingers, and I wait for it. Unapologetic Sierra. “So…how was your trip?”

I watch her cut a perfect triangle through her pancakes and stab them with her fork. She swipes them in the syrup spreading on her plate before bringing her fork to her mouth and her gaze back to mine.

Well, let’s see: I had a hedonistic dream about a threesome with Noah and Shaw. Later there were professions of love (minus Noah), damning pictures made public (including Noah), and a life-altering connection against the bathroom vanity where Shaw made it perfectly clear there would be no Noah. So, yeah…it was weird and exciting then devastating all in a span of twenty-four hours.

“Uh…it was fine.”

She observes me while she finishes chewing a huge bite. “Fine?”

“Yeah. Fine.” I shrug, going for nonchalant. The mound of pancakes in front of me is enough to feed an army. I flip off the griddle. I may have gotten carried away.

“Lots of fines,” she says impassively.

I laugh, setting the large bowl still filled with batter in the sink and turning on the water. “Yeah. Lots.”

“Mmm.”

This is so not over. Not by a long shot. I give her five seconds, tops.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Tw—

“So, that picture of your boy toy and his slutty friend doing the blonde didn’t bother you then?”

“Jesus Christ, Sierra,” I scold. That barb she threw jabs and wounds me deep.

“What?” She shrugs. She can be utterly clueless sometimes.

“What? That was a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“You know, I told myself this morning I was turning over a new leaf. That I was going to test run this ‘filter’ thing that everyone is so goddamn convinced makes this world a better fucking place because God forbid we hurt someone’s feelings by saying what we’re really thinking even if it’s the truth.”

“Well, I think you need to try a little harder.”

She smashes her bee-stung lips, the color of them like ripe strawberries even without any tint. She stands and dumps her half-eaten contents in the garbage, then puts her plate in the dishwasher. “Back to your hot coffee and the bimbo in the pic.”

“Stop,” I tell her firmly as she takes her next breath. “It’s not what you think, Sierra.”

“Not what I think? He was with another woman when he was supposedly with you.”

He wasn’t, though.

I finally made myself read the article earlier today when my mother was napping. It basically insinuated that Shaw had been caught cheating on his “girlfriend” with a waitress from an exclusive club. True, the date time-stamped on the picture was mere days after he rear-ended me, but it was before we started “officially dating,” only that’s not how the reporter portrayed it because that’s not what we told her when she interviewed us last month.

We essentially dug our own hole with the lies we’ve spun, and while I’m not happy with the whole situation, my guess is this reporter thought she was doing me a weird sort of favor since she thinks Shaw cheated.

“That’s not how it was, Sierra. It was all lies.”

“Says who? Him?”

Irritation crawls on me like bedbugs. “Says me,” I pipe back, irritated. “It was before we started seeing each other.”

She snorts. “He’s paying you to be his girlfriend, Low.”

But everything has changed, I want to scream. We love each other. I’m a blank page he wants to write our life on. But none of that will matter to Sierra. She sees what she wants and she’s stubborn as hell about it.

“Nothing happened with that woman while we were together.”

We stand on opposite sides, a chipped counter between us. She crosses her arms over her ample chest, her protective stance almost comical. Her unerring love for me shines as bright as a diamond. Her approach is harsh and direct but her friendship is limitless.

“But it’s happened with plenty others, I bet. This is the reason he had to hire you in the first place. Am I right?”

Bull’s-eye.

I feel sick. “It’s different now.”

“Is it?” she challenges, head cocked.

“Yes.” I pick up the remaining pancakes and place them in a Ziploc bag, my appetite ruined.

“Willow.” She sighs. “I’m not trying to be a negative Nancy here. I’m just worried about you. I’m worried he’ll hurt you.”

I set down the bag with a huff. My heart’s pounding. I’m angry with her and where this conversation has gone. Her concern is valid, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced she has the shoe on the wrong foot.

It’s me who could hurt Shaw and it’s not that I don’t love him. I do, with everything in me. But I’m still holding critical pieces of myself back. I said he was in, but…is he? Really? Am I keeping certain parts to myself because I’m unconsciously preparing for the worst and when that happens, at least I won’t have handed over everything I am? Is that why I haven’t told Shaw about Violet or the fact I was engaged? Have I conditioned myself to be so emotionally secluded I’m completely incapable of a real relationship and don’t realize it?

What we have is unconventional and beyond complicated, but regardless of his past womanizing or trysts with Noah or the fact he hasn’t loved another woman before me, I don’t think he’ll be the one to hurt me. I think I’ll be the one to hurt him.

I sit down on a stool, all the fight leaving me. She slides next to me, and I stare ahead silently while she stares at me.

“What if it’s the other way around, Ser? What if I hurt him the way I did Reid?” I ask, turning my head her way.

“So it’s too late then, huh?”

I laugh, sort of. “That train has left the station.” I unzip the plastic bag and zip it back up again. “What if I can’t love him the way he deserves?” There. I said it. My deepest, darkest, biggest fear caught wind.

“You have a big heart, Low. I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“No. I have a guarded heart, Sierra. That’s the problem.”

Her head moves back and forth. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it. “God, woman. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, and I don’t want to watch you sink back down into that pit of despair again. You’re finally happy and content.”

And apparently I am an even better actor than I realized. I’ve fooled the one person who’s known me since I was eight. The one person who knows me better than anyone else in the world.

I am not happy.

I am not content.

I am lonely. And reserved. And worst of all, I’m a giant poseur who has everyone snowed. Except for Shaw. He didn’t fall for my act for a minute. He challenged me on this very fact after our first date when I told him I’d managed quite well without him my entire life. He always saw my lies for what they were.

“That’s the thing, though, Sierra. I never crawled out of that pit until Shaw gave me his hand. And now that I have it, I’m not sure I know how to hold on to it.”

Blowing out a long, stoic breath, she gauges me. “Know what I think?”

The edges of my mouth lift. “I think I can’t stop you from telling me.”

She barks a short laugh. “You know me so well. It’s simple, really. If you love him and you think this has a real shot at working, hang on to that hand like your life depends on it. Just don’t let go. Not for any reason.”

If only it were that easy.

Maybe it is. What would I know?

“I haven’t told him about Violet yet. Hell, I haven’t even told him how serious Reid and I were. Every time I go to do it the words kind of get stuck.”

Sierra lays her hand over the top of mine, squeezing. “It’s a gritty process to lay yourself open, Low, even if that’s what you want.”

It is.

“It’s terrifying,” I agree.

“It doesn’t have to be all at once, babe. If he’s the right one, he’ll wait as long as you need. One step at a time.”

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“Trying new things usually is,” she says as the doorbell rings.

We exchange knowing looks. My belly flutters. The only person ringing our doorbell this late would be—“Your boyfriend’s here,” she singsongs sarcastically.

Pushing herself up, she pulls me in for a quick hug. “If you’re happy, I’m happy. Sincerely. I know I’m a mother hen and cynical, but—”

“I get it. I do,” I interrupt. “If someone tries to fuck with you I am the same way. I appreciate it, but I need you to cut him some slack.” The bell chimes again, this time twice. “I love him, Sierra.”

Her reply is slow and resigned and maybe a little sad. “I know.” With a kiss to my cheek, she takes the stairs up to her room, two by two, leaving me to let in our impatient visitor.

I cross our small living room in a few strides. My hair is a mess and I’m wearing lounge clothes. I didn’t expect to see Shaw tonight, but I don’t care how I look and I doubt he will either.

Excitement replaces anxiety with every step I take. A smile splits my face by the time I turn the knob, only it falls flat the second my gaze lands on him.

“What’s wrong,” I ask, opening the door wider to let him enter.

But he doesn’t. He stands there looking all twisted up, his face a mixture of shock and…hurt? No. It’s not hurt. That’s too mild. It’s devastation, and it’s a mirror of the other night.

“Shaw?” I reach for him. Fear pinches my chest when he flinches away and utters four words no woman wants to hear from the man she loves.

“We need to talk.”