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Itistorture.
Especially when we have to get on the ice right afterward.
But I’m right too.
It’s good for us.
And for those couple of hours, I stop thinking about Nova and the complicated feelings in my head and heart.
I stop thinking about everything.
At least until I walk into the house and she’s lying in my bed, a movie on the TV, the smell of something delicious in the air, her expression relaxed and her face warm.
She smiles at me.
And the punch to my heart almost sends me to my knees.
“Woof!” Steve barks, tongue lolling happily as he tries to get up and greet me.
I move toward him, scoop him up, and get a kiss on my cheek.
And another punch to the heart.
Christ.
My mind is working—too much and too fast, erasing everything I thought I knew and wanted and reducing it down to this woman in front of me.
I want her.
But how do I let go enough to actually keep her?
Forever.
Thirty-Nine
Nova
“I still don’t understandhow George knew where you were?”
I rub my forehead, toes digging into the mattress, phone on speaker as I talk to Ella. “I don’t know, either. I just…I asked and he didn’t answer, and it was chaos for a couple of hours before he was hauled off by the sheriff, and…”
“What?” she asks when I don’t say anything else.
“Ashley,” I supply on a sigh.
“Babe.” A beat. “I knowyouknow that I think you shouldn’t have given her the jewelry.” My heart pulses, hand going to my jacket pocket, running my fingers over the butterfly charm. “But I get why you did it. Some part of you loves her and always will. She’s your sister, and you went through a lot together.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“So, I get it. I wish you didn’t feel that you had to do that. I wish that she saw you for how wonderful you are, but she’s…not good, babe. And I don’t think she will.”
“I told her I don’t want to see her again.”
An inhale rattling through the speakers. “I think that’s a good boundary, but also…”
“What?”
“Just don’t beat yourself up if that changes. Family is complicated.”
