What comes out of my mouth sounds like air leaking from a punctured balloon, only the hole is in my heart. I clear my throat,like that’s an answer to her question. If I try to speak, I’m afraid I might blurt out ‘yes, I had sex with him twice last night, and then again a couple of hours ago.’ I’m guessing this nice woman in cheerful scrubs wouldn’t want that mental image.
“He’s one of our most dedicated volunteers,” she says as she loosens the blood pressure cuff and records my vitals into the chart, oblivious to my internal freak out. “Comes in at least once a month to play guitar for patients or just visit. He’s been doing it for years.”
“Is he—” My voice sounds like I had a sawdust omelet for breakfast. “Is he famous?”
Her easy laugh feels like jagged glass against my skin. “Anybody who knows the Nashville music scene has heard of Jensen. He’s played with just about everyone at this point.” She sighs like a schoolgirl with a boy-band crush. “Had the talent to see his name in lights, just wasn’t interested in fame.” Her hazel eyes go soft at the edges. “The story I’ve heard is that he lost his mama to cancer as a teenager and had to raise his younger brother on his own. So he knows what it feels like to lose somebody you love.”
The floor tilts. Or maybe that’s my stomach. Possibly both. Maybe even the entire building.
“You okay, sweetie?” the nurse asks.
“Fine.”
Not at all fine.
My brother and his doctor buddy enter the exam room, and I force a smile.
“What’s wrong?” Jeremy’s whiskey-colored eyes dart between the nurse and me. Why in the world does my brother choose this moment to develop a spidey-sense?
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “We were talking about one of the volunteers who plays guitar.”
One thick brow arches. “Are you suddenly into sing-alongs? I could probably hire one of the Backstreet Boys if music therapy is your thing. You were obsessed with them in seventh grade.”
The nurse and I look at him with the exact same “bruh, what” expression while the head of Vanderbilt Oncology chuckles.
“Please stop talking, Jeremy.”
“I’m just saying you have better options than a local guitar player.”
“You haven’t heard Jensen Grant play,” the doctor tells him, then introduces himself to me.
Ihaven’t heard Jensen play, either. But as we review my medical history, I think about him on the edge of a hospital bed, strumming his guitar for people whose bodies are turning against them in the same way mine is turning against me right now.
He lost his mother to the type of disease growing inside of me. He volunteers in the department where I’m now a patient. But when he pressed his mouth to the hollow of my throat and breathed the fake name I offered against my skin, he had no idea that the woman underneath him was already marked by the same thing that took the person he probably loved most in the world.
While the doctor discusses a treatment plan, I make a plan of my own.
I will not go back to The Alcove tonight. I will not let Jensen Grant look at me across that scuffed table or call me Sutton or slide his calloused hand into mine.
And I will never let him sit on the edge of my hospital bed with his guitar across his lap. I won’t let myself be a person who reminds him of the biggest loss of his life.
I won’t do that to him or to me.
Jensen told me he was born lucky.
The smartest thing I can do for both of us is to make sure that’s still true tomorrow by ensuring that today is the last day he ever sees me.
1
SLOANE
This Summer
Tracingmy thumb over the wolf shifter on the cover of Taylor’s latest book club pick, I tilt the paperback and wish the shirtless man with abs that could grate a block of Romano could give me the pep talk I so desperately need right now.
Realizing my friends have gone silent, I glance up. Six pairs of eyes focus on me, each of them a little too knowing. Which is completely my fault. I am one hundred percent responsible for surrounding myself with women who can call bullshit without uttering a single word.
I set the book face-down on the heavy table in the community meeting room of Cover to Cover, the bookstore I own in Skylark, Colorado, population— Well, I’m not sure how big we are. Large enough to keep local businesses booming, but small by most standards, and overwhelmingly friendly and kind.
