“I uh . . . I don’t have a car.”
“Okay, that’s okay. Do you have a room in the house that locks from the inside?”
“Yes.”
“Can you go to it and lock yourself inside for me?”
It took everything left in me, every aching muscle, every last shred of willpower to hobble toward the en-suite bathroom. I shut the door and twisted the lock until it clicked into place, then I crumbled onto the tiled floor, letting the cold leach into my skin.
“I’m in the bathroom,” I whispered.
“Good, Oliver. You’re doing really well. Would you give me your address? I can come to you.”
I rattled it off with effort, each word gritted through injury, panic, and the disbelief I was doing this.
Luke repeated it back to me, confirming he had it right. “Alright. I’m on my way,” he said, the sound of a car flaring to life in the background. “Would you like to stay on the phone with me until I arrive?”
I nodded, then realizing he couldn’t see me, croaked out, “Yes.”
“Okay, I can do that. I’m right here, Oliver, hang tight, we’ll get you somewhere safe.”
His deep voice filled the bathroom with its warm gravelly tone. Perhaps the shock or the nauseating pain had dulled my conscience, but in that moment, I found it oddly soothing.
Chapter 5
Luke
Oliver’s call wrecked me. I’d been telling myself his silence the last three weeks was a good thing. That it meant he was okay. I hoped I'd misread the situation, projected my own junk onto him, dragging old ghosts into a brand-new room. But every time I tried to shrug it off, doubt kicked up in my chest.
I couldn’t explain why Oliver stuck with me the way he did. He just . . . did. He'd gotten under my skin, settling somewhere between instinct and memory. I kept telling myself that I was being responsible. Careful. Concerned. Which, yeah. I was. But there was more to it than that. I'd built my whole career around it; I was chasing amends.
“I just passed a diner with a sign out front that said ‘Pumpkin Spice Milkshakes are back!’ It’s still spring, why are we resurrecting the great gourd this early? Perhaps it’s a seasonal promotion they never took down. Can you imagine? Some poor soul rolls in, heart set on cinnamon-nutmeg nostalgia, only to be told it’s off the menu. I’m a mint milkshake man myself. Always in season, refreshing, green enough to count as a vegetable in an emergency.”
I thought I caught the faintest huff in response. Oliver hadn’t said a word in ten minutes, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t speak to encourage conversation, I spoke to anchor us. To offer a presence he might hold on to, even if all I had to give was thesound of my voice and a rambling tangent about milkshakes and the ridiculous theater of seasonal capitalism.
The directions led me to a neighborhood that screamed money. The streets were full of houses plucked straight out ofVanity Fair. I pulled to a stop in front of the address Oliver gave me, got out of my car, and walked the steps up to the front porch.
“I’m here, Oliver. I’m at your door. Can you let me in?”
Silence met me. Long, still silence.
I opened my mouth to speak again, when the deadbolt clicked. The door opened with tentative slowness.
Oliver leaned against the doorframe for support. Violent purples covered his pale skin. Puffiness swallowed the fine structure of his features, making him almost unrecognizable. One eye had swollen shut. A gash split across his brow and down the bridge of his nose, crusted with dried blood. His lips were bleeding. He clutched his ribs with one arm, his entire posture curled inward in pain and defense.
Before I could think to hold it back a half gasp, half curse left me. I coughed to cover it up. “Hey,” I said, but the word came out thin and raw. Not the controlled tone I’d been trained to use.
I’d sat through the workshops, repeated the scripts, studied every “right” response. And none of it meant jack shit staring at Oliver like this. You could rehearse scenarios a thousand times, but nothing prepared you for when the hypothetical turned into flesh and pain standing three feet away.
A memory slammed into me. A different doorway. A different bruised face, another broken body that had gone unseen until it was far too late. For a shaky breath, I thought I might cry. I swallowed back the tightness. That was not an option. Not now. Not in front of him.
Taking a single step, Oliver’s legs buckled. My arms closed around him before he fell, and his face pressed into the front of my shirt, shallow breaths hitching against the fabric. Slidingmy free hand up to the back of his head, my fingers threaded through his amazingly soft hair.
“It’s okay,” I murmured. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you.”
“I’m going to be sick.” Tearing himself from my hold, he staggered to the edge of the patio.
Torn between wanting to hold him and not wanting to crowd him, I knelt beside him as he collapsed onto his hands and knees and vomited into the hedges. My hand went to his back anyway, rubbing small circles because I needed to do something, even if it wasn’t textbook approved. When the retching tapered to dry spasms, he sagged sideways, his cheek landing above my knee. His breaths came in jagged, uneven pulls.
