AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But I knew none of those were the reasons we’d been given a no to the new treatment. We’d simply run out of time. The test results had not come back with good news.
Faring much better than I, Duke calmly slid off the examining table and bent to pick up the pamphlets, one by one, skimming through each as he shuffled them into some kind of order.
“Let’s go with this one,” he finally announced, holding up the brochure for Compassus Hospice. “It’s got ass in the name.” Then he snorted at his own sophomoric snark.
My chin trembled, and I nearly lost my shit, right then and there. I think I was going to miss his stupid, juvenile sense of humor the most.
Somehow corralling my emotions back under control, I nodded once and rasped, “If that’s the one you want.”
“Yep.” He nodded too. “I’m going to put in my two weeks’ notice at Beriss tomorrow. I don’t feel like working anymore, and advertising firms weren’t really my thing, anyway.”
Closing my eyes, I shuddered out a breath. “Okay.”
It was official. Our ship was sinking. There would be no all-saving miracle cure to keep him alive.
God, but I wasn’t ready.
Opening my lashes, I looked at my little brother, at the man he’d become and the person he’d never get to be. There was nothing worse on earth than knowing I couldn’t save him. I had no control over what was happening.
As everything inside me spiraled in a dizzying wave, I hitched my head toward the door. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Duke grinned and bound toward the exit. “Hell, yes. It’s like you read my mind, brother. Can we go through a drive-through on the way home? I’m craving some french fries and chicken nuggets like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Sure,” I murmured as I followed him out the door, studying the way he moved and filing it all away, trying to save every little memory I could as he strolled down the hall, calling over his shoulder for me to hurry.
He’d been prepared for this, I realized. He’d known what was going to happen today, and he’d already made peace with it, while I had been living in absolute denial.
It amazed me how he could do that because that ability had never been gifted to me. I was the worrier, the planner, the one who held on tight. I’d never even considered the possibility of having to let go.
It scared me. And all I could do was follow his lead on this one, hoping it didn’t destroy me completely.
He never mentioned me asking anyone else on a date again. And honestly, I forgot all about squirrel-feeding Lucy from his work until two weeks later, when I went to Duke’s bedroom to wake him for yet another appointment, this one with our hospice representative.
I’d just lifted my hand to knock on his door when it opened, revealing a woman who was trying to exit. Dark hair a complete mess and shoes in her hand, signifying that she’d stayed the night, she was glancing back into the room as if to make sure Duke was still sleeping, all the while moving forward to escape and nearly colliding into my chest in the process.
She turned back just in time to jar to a halt and yelp out her surprise before crashing into me.
“What the hell?” I cried, not at all expecting anyone to be sneaking from my dying brother’s bedroom. Especially a woman.
I wouldn’t have thought sex was something he’d want to attempt or could even accomplish anymore. In the past few weeks, he’d lost a significant amount of weight, his regular activities had slowed, and even that ever-present, bright and mischievous light in his eyes had been starting to dim.
But I was apparently very wrong about his libido. Proof positive here.
The woman looked up, then, her bright sapphire blue eyes stealing the air from my lungs before I realized I was looking at the very female I’d watched eat a sandwich in front of Beriss a few short weeks before.
Lips parting in shock, I could only gape at her for the longest moment.
Well, I guess I knew what color her eyes were now.
2
LUCY OLIVIA
The first time I met Vaughn Merrill, he was a total asshole.
I mean, there I was, trying to make the walk of shame as silently and inconspicuously as possible. But when I opened the door to the guy’s bedroom I was sneaking from, boom, this massive wall of chest covered in a maroon Henley blocked my path.
It startled the ever-loving crap out of me. So, of course, I screamed.
