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Luke scoops up some pillows, and he and Miller gently lift my leg and prop it up. I notice as they’re doing that that it smells like flowers because there are flowers—roses, in a vase that looks like it’s stuck to the desk in the corner.
“We grabbed you some flowers,” Luke says, smiling as he comes to stand in front of me. He lifts a brow and looks at Miller. “Break your leg, and you should get some ‘get well’ flowers, don’t you think so, Miller?”
Mills nods. “Ez deserves all the flowers.”
“Nah…”
Luke nods. “I agree with Miller.” He waves toward something I can’t see, and the two of them turn away from me. My eyes sag shut as I hear him say, “The fridge has got what you wanted.” Something about a courier, and then that pain pill Josh forced on me in the car is hitting. They turn back around and look at me, and that makes me laugh. I don’t even know what’s funny.
Josh is sitting on the bed beside me. “Look at you.” His hand strokes my hair off my forehead. “Somebody’s gonna sleep the whole flight home.”
“The skies are clear, so…” I frown up at Luke, not sure what he’s talking about. The skies?
I have the thought that I should be embarrassed by how hard these pain pills hit me. Then I feel Josh climbing into bed beside me. He’s tucking blankets around me, and I hear myself murmur, “Hold me.”
“Oh yeah, angel. I’ve gotchu.”
Sometime later, I hear something on the intercom and sense us taking off. I lift an eye open, figuring I should be concerned, but then I realize Miller’s in the bed with me, his arm over my chest and his forehead nuzzled against my neck.
Next time I open my eyes, he’s waking me to take some Advil.
“How long till Tuscaloosa?” I ask.
“Still more than two hours.”
He strokes my hair until I fall back asleep. Then I’m awake because my ankle’s throbbing—and I find Josh is asleep.
God, I love it when he’s wrapped around me. I lean my cheek against the top of his head, overwhelmed for a moment at how much I don’t deserve all his goodness. But I’ve got it. He doesn’t seem to want to ditch me yet.
And he won’t, I tell myself.
Maybe you do deserve it.
Greeley says they don’t think I acted wrong at Alton. I’m working on letting go of the idea that what Paul did to me was my fault—for having too much wrath or too much disrespect or whatever.
I know from what my mom said before I moved to Fairplay that Paul’s stroke hit him hard. Afterward, he couldn’t walk or talk like normal, and he wasn’t working at Alton last I heard. I told Greeley that it’s hard for me not to feel awful that he got messed up like that for life. And Greeley asked, “What about what he did to you?”
I said, “Well, it’s not for life.” And they said that’s a turning point for me. Me thinking that it’s not for life…that I’m not head-fucked for the rest of my life. They thought that was a big deal.
“And you’re right,” they said. “You’re not. Healing from those things is possible. You’re doing it now.”
I think about that as I look down at my bandaged leg, then at the flowers.
“Ez deserves all the flowers.”
I look at Miller, at his arm wrapped snug around me and his legs stretched out the other way, so they won’t get near my hurt ankle.
Josh thinks I deserve flowers. Even after everything I put him through, he loves me. It’s so weird. It’s almost unbelievable, but so much time has passed, and so much shit has happened, I believe him.
I’m taking deep breaths for the ankle pain and dreaming up a plan for filling Miller’s new apartment with flowers on Valentine’s Day when Vance steps into the room.
He smiles at us. Then he turns away from the bed and crouches down, and when he rises up, he’s holding a blue Icee. I can’t help a shocked laugh. “What the fuck?”
He grins. “Your boy, the OG Miller, told us you can’t fly without your Icee.”
I can’t help laughing my ass off.
“Miller’s crazy,” I whisper.
“About you.” Vance waggles his brows as he hands it to me. “Miller texted as he fell asleep and asked if I could check on you at this time, offer you a pain pill?”
I don’t want to take it, but I nod, and he says, “Don’t worry about it, man. I took them too, after my accident, and I came off them just fine. You’ve just gotta taper off.”
I swallow the pill, and Vance smiles down at Miller again. “You two need anything? You want me to take the Icee, or—check out this cool thing…”
He pulls a small tray-like thing out of the wall. He does something to lock it into place, and he says, “Cupholder. If you need.”
