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Fear claws at my throat. Even if the tuition makes my stomach hurt, I’ll make it happen. If I have to be an escort for the next ten years to cover it all. But what do I do if she doesn’t get in here? I don’t think I can handle the look on her face if we go through the interview process and they end up telling her no.

Which makes it doubly painful when we’re walking back to my car and I get a text from Prince:

Sorry man. Gonna have to cancel on your interview thing. Something came up.

My fingers clench around the phone. I’d love to hit something, but I can’t. Not here, not now. Not in front of my girl.

I’m about to ask him what’s up when another message comes through:

Prince: Hey none of my business I know but is there something up with you and Michael?

Oh. Hell. I should have known.

I get Ella in the car and buckled before I reply.

Dean: What did he say to you?

Prince: Nothing much but I don’t want to get in the middle of any drama. You have questions about the application or whatever I’ll help answer but it’s probably better if I don’t pretend to be your boyfriend or anything.

Should have mother-trucking known. If there’s anything Mike loves to do it’s mess with me. Well, he can come after me any day of the week, but if he messes with Ella’s education?

I won’t hesitate to pay him back, guilty conscience be damned.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dean

Too many nights I wake up in the middle of a scream.

Tonight, thank goodness, it’s only just started. I’m also thankful Ella usually sleeps like a rock.

My heart hammers as I get my bearings. The dream always starts the same way. Billie handing Ella to me like she did in the hospital. It always ends with a nurse ushering me out into another room after Billie tries to get out of bed and collapses on the floor. I’m chased away by the sounds of blaring alarms and shouting doctors while they lift her onto a gurney.

It was the last time I ever saw Billie.

In real life, what I did was ask a nurse to take Ella to the nursery, and then I sat in the hall and had a meltdown. In the dream, I chase them down, begging them to help her, to try something, to let me see her.

No matter how many times I’ve been through it, I’m always shaking and out of it when I wake up again. No amount of reminding myself it’s over and done does a damn thing.

“Another bad dream?”

My racing heart skips a beat. “Jesus, Mike.”

I don’t know how he always seems to know. I also don’t know what I’d ever do if he stopped showing up.

Even sometimes on nights when I thought he had a boyfriend experience, was still here when I woke up.

It confuses me, honestly. I’ve asked him about it but he never really answers.

Finally fully awake, I remember the text I got earlier from Prince. “Did you make Prince bail on helping me with Ella’s interview?”

Michael sits next to me on the bed. It almost feels like a parent sitting on the edge of a kid’s bed, the way I’ve seen it in movies and on TV, except he’s wearing suit pants that are too tight in the crotch and I’m missing my shirt.

He puts his warm hand against my bare chest, and I catch myself leaning forward. Taking comfort from the pressure of his fingers against my hammering heart.

“I didn’t make Prince do anything. Asked a few questions, that was all. He decided it was better if he didn’t go. All on his own.”

Right. “Didn’t make him, my behind. He said he didn’t want to get into whatever drama was going on between us. You can’t do this, Mike. Mess with me any day of the week, but do not mess with Ella’s education. She deserves this even if she’s stuck with someone you hate as her dad.”