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With that in mind, I jerk my chin toward the door. "So, did you wanna stand out here and pace some more, or do you wanna come in and actually give me whatever's in that bag?"

Lenny freezes instantly, eyes wide, body stiff, panic written all over her face.

"What?" she asks, distracted. Like she didn't think the rest of this through.

"The bag," I say, nodding toward the thin plastic now strangled by her white-knuckled grip. "Do you want to—"

"I heard you."

I swallow, waiting. Wondering if that silence is all I'll ever get.

After seconds that somehow both crawl and fly by, she looks at me—the Lenny from before. Not the ghost of who I knew, or the twenty-four-year-old nurse. But the old Lenny.

The one I loved.

And the one I lost.

"Okay," she says, swallowing hard. "Yeah, okay. I'll come up."

12

Lenny

Stepping into Jace's high-rise, I finally take my first breath. It's not full—not even close—but it beats the suffocation I was dealing with downstairs.

It was hard enough finding air when he asked if I was coming up to his place, but that elevator ride here—just the two of us—stole every last ounce of oxygen from my lungs.

You'd think I'd be used to it by now. That was not the first time I've been stuck in a metal box with my ex after six years of separation. But if those slow-crawling twenty-two floors could talk, they'd say otherwise.

They'd explain how my heart rate climbed right along with them. How my stomach dropped the second the elevator chimed at his floor. How I panic-talked about the leaves outside being more deep gold today than the mustard yellow they were last week.

But now we're finally here, and the open space must be all I really needed to return to something resembling normal conversation, because in the first few seconds alone I've managed to say Nice place and I think my brother has that same TV.

Thrilling stuff.

Still, my hands are clammy as I grip tighter on the bag, and my eyes dart around like I can't possibly take it all in fast enough.

Because—holy shit.

I'm in Jace's apartment.

And I don't mean that because he's Jace Holloway, starting shortstop—or because the art on the wall probably costs more than my car.

I mean because it's his home.

This is where he eats. Where he sleeps. Where he… showers.

That thought does things I wish it didn't—suggests images I definitely don't need flashing through my mind. And as if I didn't feel awkward enough after the whole back-door-stalker situation, that really seals it for me.

"Thanks for letting me come up," I say, addressing the elephant still stomping around the room, my words spilling out to fill the silence I managed to let in.

Jace purses his lips. "Yeah, sure." He walks toward the kitchen, sliding his phone from his pocket before leaning his elbows on the island. "I thought about leaving you out there," he adds. "But I figured security might call the cops on you for loitering."

Heat floods my cheeks as I step forward and set the bag between us.

"I know it seems creepy, but I really did just see this stuff and thought maybe it would help."

"It's not creepy," he says quickly.