Page 19

He’s blinking rapidly, and with one last look at Rina, he turns and hightails it out of here.

I squat beside my girl and brush her hair off her face. Touching her for the first time feels like a goddamn dream. She scowls as she starts to come to, and then her eyes flicker open, and when she sees me, she scampers back from me, out of my reach, shaking her head.

“Whoa.” I put my hands up as if I’m trying to calm a wild animal. “Take a breath, Sunshine.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “How?” It’s a whisper. “You aren’t real.”

“I’m real, baby. Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

Her lower lip quivers, but she clears her throat and stands up, leaning against the door. She blinks and frowns, looking around. “Where⁠—?”

“He’s gone.”

“Oh. Good. If going out on a date was the thing that brought you back from the dead, I should have done that a long time ago rather than waiting until now.” She presses her hand over her mouth and stares at me. Does that mean this was the first time she’s been out with someone other than me? “I have to go inside to see to . . . oh God. I don’t know . . . there’s so much⁠—”

“I know. I know, and it’s okay. Go do what you need to do. I’m staying next door.” I gesture to my house, and she follows my gaze and then frowns.

“You know the Hudsons?”

“No, I bought the house from them. Get him settled and then come over when you’re done. We’ll talk.”

“Wait. You’re my neighbor?”

“Yes.”

Her hands are shaking as she pushes them through her hair. “Am I dreaming? Or dead? Or did I fall through a wormhole into an alternate dimension? Like, what the fuck, Carson?”

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” I reply, keeping my voice gentle. Fuck, I want to touch her. But she’s shaking, and she’s scared, and fuck.

I have to exercise patience that I don’t fucking have.

Her eyes move over the tattoos on my neck, ink that wasn’t there the last time she saw me.

“He needs me,” she says at last.

“I know.”

She nods, pulls in a long shaky breath, and then turns to the door.

“Ree.”

She stops and looks back at me.

“What’s his name?”

Her lips tip up into a small smile. “Charlie. Charles Roman St. James. And he’s so perfect, Carson.”

Fuck. Me.

Without another word, she walks inside the house, and somehow my feet carry me back to my own place. I don’t bother turning on lights as I make my way to the kitchen and pour myself two fingers of whiskey.

She named him Charlie. After my dad. And Roman, for my brother.

And she gave him my last name.

All this time, I didn’t even know he existed, and I thought she was long gone, and I had a whole family right here.

I glance out the window and see the old woman walk home, and then I pace the living room as I wait for her.