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“There what is?”

“The drugs.”

“No.” He shook his head, immediately wincing.

“No, you’re always pretty.” He drew out the last word. I reached across the center console and squeezed his hand. His fingers immediately curled around mine, like they remembered exactly where they belonged. The simple gesture softened his expression.

We drove like that for miles, his hand wrapped around mine. Sunlight spilled through the windows, warming the cab, until his thumb slowed against my knuckles and he finally drifted to sleep. And as I drove us home in a truck painted the exact color of my eyes—apparently—I realized there was nowhere else I wanted to be.

Sixty

Lane

Cali had barely let me sink into the couch before she tucked a blanket over my legs, pressed a bottle of water into my hand, and placed my medication on the coffee table like she was preparing for anything. Every time my head dipped too low, her eyes flicked up from whatever she was doing, checking on me without trying to make it obvious. Apparently having a concussion meant I lost basic human rights.

“I can take my own medicine.”

“You forgot your phone in the refrigerator fifteen minutes ago.”

I gave her my best offended look.

“That’s not related.”

“It absolutely is related.”

Jace had claimed my recliner like he paid the mortgage, one ankle resting over his knee and a bag of chips balanced on his stomach. “It was in the vegetable drawer,” he said around a mouthful of chips.

“I see how it is.”

A knock came a second before the front door opened without waiting for an invitation. Soren strolled in first, carrying enough take-out containers to feed a small army. Sawyer followed behind him with grocery bags hooked over both arms, her long hair braided over one shoulder, concern etched across her face. Landry came next with flowers tucked against her sweater, because apparently surviving a concussion meant I now deserved a bouquet. Hope, perched on her mom’s hip, was already trying to steal them with a chubby little hand. Jonah stepped inside last, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, jaw locked tight enough that I knew he wasn’t here just for dinner.

“Lane,” Sawyer said, dragging out my name the second she saw me.

“Good to see you too.”

“You look terrible. Are you okay?” Concern softened every line of Sawyer’s face, and had it been anyone else, I would have blown them off.

“I will be.”

Landry crossed to me immediately and wrapped me in a careful hug. The kind of hug you gave someone when words weren’t enough. “You scared us.” My heart missed a beat, the same way it had in the hospital parking lot. Everyone kept saying those words, and every time they did, they struck a little harder.

“I’m okay.”

She stepped back. Her eyes shined. “Don’t ever scare us like that again.”

I nodded, because I didn’t trust myself to answer.

The group quickly took over the living room. Food appeared on every available surface until the coffee table disappeared beneath containers, bags, and enough leftovers to feed the neighborhood. Nobody had coordinated it. Everyone had brought exactly what someone else hadn’t thought of. Maybe that’s what family looked like. Nobody asked what was needed. They just filled the gaps.

I eased into the corner of the couch while everyone talked around me. Conversation flowed around me without asking anything in return. Nobody expected me to entertain them or reassure them. They were just . . . here. I’d spent years believing love had to be earned. They strode through my front door like love had never come with conditions.

Jonah barely spoke as his eyes drifted toward the framed photo on the bookshelf. The two of us were seventeen, covered in mud after a football game, helmets tucked under our arms, grinning like we thought we had the whole world figured out. We hadn’t even come close. But through every mistake, every bad decision, every season where we didn't know what the hell we were doing, Jonah had still been there.

Eventually, the conversations splintered into smaller ones.

Cali disappeared down the hallway to grab a quick shower. Sawyer and Landry went into the kitchen to check on the soup they were warming up. Soren followed because apparently ten feet away from Sawyer was more than he could handle. Jace wandered outside to make a phone call.

Jonah stared at the floor, forearms braced against his thighs, jaw clenched. His thumb brushed over his knuckles—the same nervous habit he’d had since we were teenagers. Jonah only folded into himself like that when he was carrying something he didn’t know how to say out loud.