What’s going on is that I’m supposed to be getting married in five months, and I don’t want to talk to my fiancée about any of this because every cell of my body wants to be back upstairs with Ames.
“I’m tired,” I say.
“It’s not tiredness.” She pauses, choosing her words. “You’re upset at me. About our argument. I was upset last night, too, when you left so suddenly. I… I said some things I shouldn’t’ve said because you hurt my feelings.”
It takes me a full five seconds to remember what thefuck she’s talking about—the bar, the band, the discussion with her parents I blew off. It feels like it happened to a different Robbie in a different lifetime.
“Do you even know what last night was like?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Can you imagine how I felt, having to pull Ames out of that building?”
“Of course. You must’ve been worried?—”
“I didn’t think he was breathing, Lissa. I thought he was dead. I thought…” I shake my head. “Right now, all I want to do is make sure that Ames is okay. Then I need to go to the station and get to work.”
It sounds so good right now. Going to the station. Grounding myself in paperwork and routine. Solving problems I know how to solve.
Just when I think Lissa’s going to be angry about my “priorities,” her face goes soft with sympathy and reminds me why I fell for her in the first place.
“I understand. It’s okay.” She manages a small smile. “But just to say, I think you can leave Ames in Auden’s hands now. That’s probably what he wants, anyway. Auden seems like the caretaking type.”
My heart lurches painfully.
“Wouldn’t it be fun,” she says, smile growing, “if they ended up together long-term, and the four of us could all hang out? I’m getting ahead of myself, I know, but I’m thinking dinner parties, barbecues. Our kids and Ames and Auden’s kids, growing up as friends. That’d be a dream come true for you, right?”
I try to picture it—a barbecue where Ames and Auden are together. With Auden as the father of Ames’s children, Lissa as the mother of mine.
A couple of weeks ago, I naively told Dr. Colburn thatwas my vision for the future. Now, the idea makes my stomach rebel with such violence, I’m really glad I didn’t touch the sandwich.
I shove away from the table, my chair scraping loudly against the linoleum.
“Robbie?” Lissa’s on her feet too. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. Ames isn’t supposed to be with Auden. He’s supposed to be…
Mine.
The thought hits me like a cartoon anvil falling from the sky, and my ass lands back in my chair with aplop.
He’s notminein the casual way we’ve always belonged to each other. Notmineas my best friend who’s dating someone else.
He’sminein a way that explains why I suddenly can’t stop noticing the way his lips look when he licks them. Can’t stop soaking in the sight of his muscular legs and arms, even when he’s in a freaking hospital bed.
Minein a way that means I should be in that room with him.
Minein a way that makes panic claw at my chest because I’m with Lissa, and Ames is with Auden, and it’s all wrong?—
“Honey, you’re trembling. Please let me drive you home.” Lissa squats beside my chair and grabs my hands. I feel like I’m looking at her from a long distance away.
“Lissa, I—” I hesitate. “I think we need to talk. I don’t know if I… if we… I don’t think we should get married.”
“What? No!” She looks taken aback, and I can’t blame her. “Robbie, honey, you’ve had an awful night. You’re not in your right mind. It was wrong of me to push you for anapology. To push you aboutanything. Maybe it was wrong for me to come here at all. You need rest.”
Lissa’s soft and contained and calm. So unlike Ames, who snaps and snarls and snarks… and would die for me in a heartbeat.
I open my mouth to speak again, feeling a crushing weight of guilt on my chest, but Lissa shakes her head. She’s staring at me like I’m breaking into pieces right before her eyes.
And she’s not wrong. It feels like a whole bunch of pieces of me fell away and burned up in the fire last night. All the pieces that hid who I really am and what I really want.
But I also recognize that I’m running on no sleep and pure adrenaline.
