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Silence lingered between Harry and Duncan. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year, but it didn’t matter—the quiet was comfortable. The only thing strange about it was that his younger brother hadn’t yet made some kind of wiseass comment or a dick joke. That Duncan was being so sedate made Harry realize how deeply messed up his family must think he was.
“Nicola know you left California?” Duncan asked.
Harry slid his hands together and looked down at the water, like he could somehow conjure a decent answer from it. He’d managed to hide from Dr. Bridger—his own therapist—that it had been a year since he and Nicola had lived under the sameroof. That put him on some kind of next-level plane of fucked-up denial, he was sure of it. What was the point of having a therapist if he didn’t tell her the truth?
His relationship with Nicola had been in a state of mostly benign but irreversible decline over the past two years, but they were both too busy with residency to bother with the formalities of ending it. Her cardiology career had skyrocketed, and she slept at the hospital most nights, by choice. It wasn’t until Harry’s world crumbled after he lost a patient and she’d been incapable of being there for him—physically, mentally, and emotionally—that he realized he needed more.
He needed…real.
Nicola agreed, and did the thing he’d been too much of a coward to do.
Dr. Bridger had suggested a change in scenery. Get out of the city, she’d said. Maybe a trip into the foothills, or tent camping on Catalina Island.
Instead, Harry dumped most of his belongings into a suburban Los Angeles storage unit, took a leave of absence from the job he’d barely been at a year, and got on a plane east. Home.
Was this reallyhome,though? The only thing that made this place home was the fact that his folks were here. He didn’t even know where he was sleeping tonight.
“I’m not Nicola’s problem anymore,” Harry eventually replied.
Duncan made a low sound in his throat. “You’re not a problem, man. For anyone.”
Losing a patient in his first post-residency year hadn’t been a thing Harry had prepared for. All doctors acknowledged the inevitability of this loss, and they learned tools to cope. Counseling. Meditation. Morbid humor, emotional numbing. Harry hadn’t been able to do any of it. Hell, he’d barely been able toeventry. Maybe he was too naive. Maybe it was hubris. Maybe he was a shitty doctor.
All of the goddamn above.
Whatever it was, he hated himself for it.
Duncan clapped a big hand on Harry’s knee and squeezed before he stood. “All right, enough emotional shit. I need to get back. This entire soiree will collapse without my rakish charm to hold it together.”
Harry gave Duncan a tight-lipped smile as he left. The dock swayed in the wake of his heavy steps.
For a while, he stargazed, looking for constellations—another thing rural Pennsylvania had on L.A. There, light pollution made it difficult to see many stars at all, unless he drove into the foothills. But he’d barely left his condo for most of the summer, let alone gone out of his way to stargaze in L.A. County.
He found Cassiopeia in the near-midnight sky, then let his eyes drift shut.
What in thefuckwas he doing here?
The reset button on his life had been pounded with an unflinching hand, with a third of it already behind him. Four years with Nicola, over. Six figures of school loan debt, and no career in medicine to show for it. All because he was unable to get a fucking grip on his mental health.
Harry pulled and squeezed locks of hair in closed fists, hard enough to make his eyes water.
After a moment, he looked up. The greenhouse sat there, on the hill.
Cloudy moonlight turned it into a dully gleaming diamond. The skin of his forearm was ravaged with a dozen razor-thin cuts from the thorns of some renegade plant, and by tomorrow, souvenir bruises would bloom all over his aching body.
But hefeltsomething other than despair. And it wasn’t only the physical discomfort of his injuries.
He felther.
Her name was Rowan.
Earlier in the car on the way from the airport, two of his brothers had sent texts to taunt him about missing the inaugural Team Tag at the new homestead. When the cab had pulled up the drive to drop him off, the game had just gotten under way, and she’d been the first person he’d seen, running up the hill. Nobody else around. Flying completely under anyone’s radar.
Her long braid had slapped rhythmically down her back as she’d loped away, as if to beckon him. He’d paid the cab, dropped his bags in the grass, and took off toward her before greeting anyone else. Ma had given him hell later for not saying hello before diving in to the game.
Rowan.
She’d moved through the forsaken glass building like a nocturnal animal. For every time she’d woven through the maze of tables, or sailed effortlessly over a bench, Harry had bounced his shins against them like a Ping-Pong ball. He was convinced a skeletal hand had snagged his ankle and yanked him to the floor, like the greenhouse itself had come alive to prevent him from reaching her. He’d been so desperately outclassed and outmaneuvered by her, he should’ve given up in the first five minutes.
