It has been hell.
Beautiful hell.
Addicting hell.
Impossible to forget hell.
“I shouldn’t have let it happen,” I mutter.
“Well,” Boone says dryly, “considering it takes two people to have sex, that’s weirdly self-blaming, but go off.”
“That’s not…” Heat crawls up my neck. “Look, it shouldn’t have happened because she’s… Faith.”
Boone tilts his head. “And what does that mean?”
“She left,” I say, too sharply. “She ran from a wedding. From a life she built in the city. From a man her father picked. I don’t even know what pieces she’s still trying to put back together.”
Boone watches me carefully.
“And if she leaves again,” I add, quieter now, “it’s not just me that pays for it.”
“She came back, Dallas,” Boone says simply. “You ever think about that instead of the part where she left?”
I glare at him.
He ignores it.
“And,” he continues, “you ever think maybe she’s not the only one scared to let someone in?”
My stomach twists.
“I’m not?—”
“Dallas.” Boone softens, turning serious in a way he reserves for middle-of-the-night emergencies and tough love interventions. “After Belinda… you shut the door on the whole damn world. We all saw it.”
My throat knots.
“And I know it’s been years,” Boone adds quietly, before I can bristle. “I’m not pretending time fixes that kind of loss. Losing your wife doesn’t stop hurting just because the calendar keeps moving.”
I stare at him.
“It isn’t wrong,” he says gently. “We understood it. Hell, I would’ve done the same. But you’re allowed to feel something again. You’re allowed to want something again.”
“Wanting is fine,” I say quietly. “Losing is the part that ruins you.”
Boone nods slowly. “I know. When you’ve already buried the woman you built your life around, wanting someone else feels like tempting fate. Like you’re daring the world to take another swing at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rose almost died having Wyatt,” he says. “Did I tell you that?”
I look at him sharply. “No.”
“Bad bleed. Really bad.” He swallows. “For a second I thought… it doesn’t matter. The point is, when I finally got to hold her afterward, I realized the same thing you did: if I lose her, I’ll break somewhere that won’t ever fully heal.”
Silence thickens between us.
“So what’d you do?” I ask.
