“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” he snaps, pacing across the small room. “I was such an asshole.”
He stills on the opposite side of the room, his back rigid. He drags a hand through his hair.
“You thought I wouldn’t love you if I knew?” he asks, turning back toward me. “That I’d actually give a shit? I’m nothing like our parents, Ash. I’m not heartless.”
A tired sigh slips out of me. “I’m sorry.”
Luke winces. “Stop fucking apologizing, Ash.Ishould be the one apologizing.”
He circles around to the side of my bed. When he finally stops, I see the shimmer in his green eyes. For a second, my brain can’t even process it.
Luke… crying?
Even though I’m the oldest, Luke was always the strong one. When our first barn cat died, I cried for days until Dad finallysnapped and called me a sissy, said he’d give me something to cry about if I didn’t shut up.
But Luke never cried. Not even when Dad made him bury the cat out behind the barn because I was too upset to do it myself. Luke always handled the tough things. The ugly things. The things I couldn’t.
But now he’s standing beside my hospital bed, tears spilling freely down his face as he looks at me. The ache in my chest at the sight hurts far worse than the broken bones.
Luke scrubs his knuckles over his eyes, sniffing once before letting out a shaky breath. “I love you, dude. You didn’t lose your family—not the ones that actually matter.”
I give a weary smile. “I love you too, bro.”
He steps forward. “Come here.”
Before I can protest—or remind him about my broken bones—he bends down and wraps his arms around me. Pain immediately explodes through my torso.
I suck in a sharp breath as my ribs protest, my casted arm awkwardly pinned between us. The hug is clumsy and probably medically inadvisable.
But Luke holds on anyway, crushing me like he’s trying to prove something.
I squeeze him back as best as I can with my good arm, my fingers gripping the back of his shirt.
“Easy,” I croak.
“Shut up, you wimp,” he mutters into my shoulder. “We’re having amoment.”
Despite the pain radiating through my body, I start laughing softly, tears sliding hot down my cheeks.
It hurts.
God, it hurts.
But I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the world.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ashton
Theridehomefromthe hospital is quiet.
Troy’s van rumbles softly beneath us as it pulls into my driveway, gravel spitting beneath the tires. The familiar shape of my house comes into view through the windshield, the porch light glowing faintly in the early evening.
The pharmacy bag in my lap crinkles as I absently twist the plastic between my fingers. Inside are four orange prescription bottles, each one rattling faintly when the van shifts. Pain meds. Anti-inflammatories. Something for nausea.
The nurse rattled off about a hundred instructions before they discharged me—when to take each pill, how often, how many. My brain was still foggy from the medication, and now the details blur together like static.
