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“Kristen.” She put a hand on my wrist. “He misses you so much. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

“I’m doing the right thing for him.”

Whether it’s right for me isn’t relevant.

I hugged her one more time and made my way down the hall. When Valerie buzzed me out, Josh was coming in.

It was the first time I’d seen him in over a week. We both froze.

His presence was a physical caress, like a gust of warm air.

My eyes pored over him. He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and he wore the shirt he’d won at trivia night—he wore the shit out of it too.

It was amazing how anything he had on looked sexy on him. The man could wear a burlap sack and look incredible. I knew just looking at it what it would smell like, and I wished I could put my nose to the blue cotton.

He’d lost weight. His muscles were more defined. His dimples didn’t show, because he didn’t smile.

He looked good—but he looked sad.

He’d get over it soon enough. A few babies from now and he wouldn’t even remember me.

He didn’t make any move to get out of my path. I looked away and walked past him, and he stood like a statue, eyes on me. Then suddenly a hand shot out and touched my arm. It trailed lightly down my forearm as I walked on, across the top of my hand, over my fingers, and then it was gone.

I didn’t jerk away because that would have been acknowledging that he was even there.

But the few seconds of contact moved through my whole body.

I felt it the rest of the day.

THIRTY-FIVE

Josh

I took off my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose, setting the book down on the table by Brandon’s hospital bed. “Sorry, I gotta take a break. Shantaram is long, man.”

It would take me a month to read it to him, but it was the book he’d started at the station before the accident, and I knew he’d want to hear it.

It only took me a minute before my thoughts slid back to Kristen. My mind always slid back to Kristen.

At least at work I had distractions. I picked up extra shifts when I could so I wouldn’t be at home, staring at the walls of my studio, thinking about her or worrying about Brandon. I went to the gym on my days off after visiting the hospital. I went all day sometimes. I’d unpacked my apartment, bought a couch and a TV. Tried to stay busy.

But inevitably, no matter what I was doing, I was thinking about her.

And now, without the book to read, sitting there with Brandon in the middle of the night, I had nothing to do but think.

I checked my watch: 2:12 a.m. I pictured Kristen, sleeping on her side under her flower bedspread. Her hand tucked under her favorite pillow—the one with the beige flannel pillowcase. Stuntman Mike curled up on top of the blanket in the tangle of her legs. The clock on her nightstand giving me just enough light to see her long lashes across her smooth cheeks.

I mentally pulled the blanket up to her chin and kissed her forehead and saw her eyes flutter open as she smiled at me.

Fuck, I missed her.

“I wish you could talk to me,” I said to Brandon. “Tell me what to do. I need you to wake up and straighten me out. Or even better, wake up and straighten her out.”

I dragged a hand down my face. When I saw her today, it just confirmed what I already knew. I wasn’t ever going to get over her. I wasn’t ever going to not miss her.

She was punishing me for a crime I didn’t even know I’d committed. For things I had said and things I wanted before I knew what they’d mean later. Every comment had been a nail in the board across the door she’d closed on me.

“I don’t even know how to begin to convince her,” I said. “She won’t even speak to me.” I snorted. “Leave it to me to be in love with the world’s most stubborn woman.”