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“And save you from yourself? No.”
Turning my back to the ocean, I lean against the balcony and peer into the kitchen where Lance is making dinner with Ave. He’s topless, hobbling around on one leg, his smile scrunching up his cheeks. “He’s too easy to fall for, Nina.”
“Fall for.” She chuckles. “I’d say we’re past falling.”
“You know what I mean.”
Now it’s her turn to sigh. “You can spend time with him, heal whatever you need to, and not cross the lines you’re not ready to. You don’t have to give anything you’re not ready to.”
“I know that.”
“Then enjoy the break. Enjoy his company.”
But what if I want more?
What if things feel like they’re changing?
I turn away from Lance and Ave, finding the view at my back less ovary-exploding. “You know the time before I got help—after Ave’s birth.”
Nina stays quiet on the other end of the line, giving me a brief pause.
“Before you helped me, and we spoke to the doctor, I wrote about how I felt in the letters to Lance. I didn’t think he was reading them. I can’t even remember what I wrote—”
“I read one.”
My heart sinks. “What?”
“I always told myself I wouldn’t bring it up unless you addressed them, just out of respect. But I can’t stand here and pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I don’t know. I only know my experience of that time, Scar. But you left it on your desk one evening, and Ellis got a hold of it. When I took it from him and was packing it all away, my eyes caught on one too many words, and… Scar, they weren’t words I could ignore. I’m so sorry.”
Shame burns in my stomach like acid. Nina saw me at my worst. She was the one who helped me speak up and get the help I needed, but the thought of her reading what was in my head at that time, that she, like Lance, read anything from that time… “I was horrible to you. Awful at times.”
“You weren’t,” she rasps.
“I wouldn’t have got through it without you, Nina.”
“I know.”
I smile sadly, a tear slipping down my cheek. “I love you.”
I hear her sniffle, but her words deliver me the dimple I know dances on her cheek. “I love you, too.”
A large, heated hand settles on my back, easing around to my ribs as his scent wraps the rest of the way around me. “You’re crying,” he says, quietly enough Ave won’t hear. “Everything okay?”
I place my hand on his, melting inside when he rolls my hand, letting his thumb dust down and around my cuticle.
“It’s good that he knows,” Nina says softly. “Not that anyone needs reminding, but he should see and appreciate the incredibly strong woman that you are. And, Scar, your words may have broken my heart back then, but I never thought less of you. You have to know that. Watching you fight your way up off the ground and become a mother made me the proudest friend on earth. You give that man whatyouwant to give him this week, nothing more and nothing less. More would be for him. Less isn’t fair to you.”
My teeth clamp together in a bid to stop the knot in my throat from snapping. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
“Text me later,” she rushes out, and I know she’s smiling again. “I love you.”
She hangs up, leaving me with a million scattered thoughts and a man at my back who seems to warm me from the inside out.
I turn to face him, finding his eyes narrowed carefully on me. “Who made you cry?”
I slide my phone into my dress pocket and smile. “Nina.”
He frowns, his head tilting a little. “You can’t make me hate her when I only just started to like her.”
