“Are you telling me you spell your name with a silentg?” He arched an eyebrow at me.
“What? No. You know what I mean,” I said. “Guess I’m not nearly as funny as you.”
“Guess not.” His grin widened.
Not embarrassing myself in a second encounter had decidedly failed.
Guys didn’t normally frazzle me, but the heat I felt spreading across my cheeks said otherwise, and I could have jumped off a cliff and into those gorgeous ocean-blue eyes of his to cool myself off. When I figured he was studying me in a similar way, that fuzzy static erupted through my whole body.
A breeze whistled through the trees, and it seemed to reground us both. He had a reason to be there too. We both moved to the front door at the same time, sharing a half awkward, half sincere chuckle.
“It’s not really my business, but are you visiting someone?” he asked.
“I am.” I nodded. “My sister.”
“Got it.” He paused and stopped in front of the door, pressing his hands together in front of his mouth. “I’m sorry, that was so—was that overstepping? I’ve been told I’m a yapper, and the foot-in-mouth stuff comes naturally to me. You don’t have to tell me.”
Whether I was put off by his blunt foot-in-mouth question didn’t matter, it got me to laugh all the same. I had never met someone who lent themselves to being so effortlessly endearing. It was nice, andsodistracting. “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind. I mean, you’re here, too, so.”
He reached over me to open the door, motioning for me to walk in front of him.
“Are you visiting someone too?” We made it into the air-conditioned lobby, and I hadn’t realized how warm I’d been out there. “Or are you just hanging around looking for your next latte assassin hit?”
I imperceptibly flinched, realizing there was no way he would have gotten the joke that only my internal monologue had heard. Instead, he seemed to take the joke in stride.
“Nah, you’re my only mark.” He paused, and the lines in his forehead faded as his expression softened. “So, the thing is—”
“You’re late.”
A red-haired nurse I didn’t recognize stood beside Beck at the check-in desk, her hands on her hips and her gaze narrowed on Brooklyn.
Brooklyn made a dramatic showing of checking his smart watch. “By like three minutes.”
“Punctuality matters, Brooklyn.” Her voice was kind even as she scolded him. “You’ve got a week left. Let’s try not to have any more setbacks before this is over, okay?”
Brooklyn heaved out a resigned sigh as he turned to me. “Guess I should go. I’ll see you around?”
The realization of it all shocked me cold, like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on me. He wasn’t there to visit someone. He was there because he had to be. I didn’t have time to grapple with the revelation as he looked at me with those blue eyes, enticing me to jump off that cliff again.
“Sure.” I nodded.
He gave me a comical salute before following the nurse down a separate hallway, and I watched him, tall and gently swaying like a big tree in the wind, until he was out of sight.
“Ready to go?” Beck recaptured my attention.
“What?” I whipped around to face her, looking up at me with a puzzled expression. “Oh, uh, yeah. Let’s go.”
I should have been less surprised. Otter House was big, and they treated a variety of different mental health illnesses and disorders. In the throes of my research, I’d learned that they also did partial hospitalizations as well as outpatient therapy. It just hadn’t even occurred to me thatthatwas why he was there.
As Beck took me back to Nikki’s room like she had half a dozen times already, I couldn’t stop the questions from swirling in my head. Why was he here? Was all that cool and charming bravado only a front? Was he going to get better?
When I walked through the door of Nikki’s room, seeing her standing there braiding her hair, looking so goddamnokay, a feeling of gratefulness surged through me, and I flung my arms around her. The realization hit me all at once, and for the first time I truly believed that Nikki was going to be all right.
“Hello, hi, to you too.” She hugged me back with a chuckle. “You okay?”
I pulled away, holding her face in my hands as I smiled at her. She and I shared the same hazel eyes as Mom, and for once in what felt like weeks, a brightness twinkled in hers. “Yeah. I’m all right.”
I took a step back and cleared my throat. “Actually, I need you to fix a chip in my nail.”
