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It’s a bag that’s holding a person’s life, their memories and hopes and dreams.
A picture drops onto the floor in front of my feet, and Nova gasps, leaping for it.
I reach for her. “Don’t—”
But I’m not fast enough.
She drops to her knees.
Right on top of the tacks.
Nine
Nova
The painin my heart is so intense that, at first, I don’t feel it everywhere else.
Then it begins to creep into other places. My knees. My shins. My palms.
I manage to tear my eyes from the photo of me, George, and Ashley, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, sand on our bare feet, waves and the setting sun in the background. I look down, and—
“Fuck.”
But it’s not me saying that, even though I’m the one with thumbtacks sticking out of my body.
I try to sit back on my heels, to find a way to stand, but I’m being jabbed all over.
And suddenly, there’s an arm wrapping around my middle, lifting me straight up and out of the tangle of my belongings, going tight around my belly and leaving my arms and legs hanging loose as Lake starts walking forward.
Pictures and notes are scattered by his bare feet and he somehow avoids the tacks when clearly, I couldn’t.
Not a surprise considering I hurtled myself toward them.
And then I’m not looking at the notes and pictures and memories.
I’m being carried into the house like I’m a stray piece of luggage.
Or Steve misbehaving.
“Sit,” Lake mutters, setting me on the counter. “Stay,” he adds, turning for the cabinets and pulling open a door. He grabs a bowl, a bunch of paper towels, and sets both at my side.
“I—”
Hazel eyes flicking to mine, their furious depths freezing me in place. “Stay,” he says again, the gruff order at odds with the gentle way he wraps his fingers around my wrist and lifts my hand toward him.
“I’m not a dog,” I mutter.
His eyes are on my palm. “You behave about as well as that demon you call a pooch.”
Outrage in my belly. “Steve is not a demon.”
He turns my hand over, still handling me in a gentle way that has my heart squeezing. “Steveis currently eating my underwear and won’t come out from beneath my bed.”
Since this is true, I don’t acknowledge it, and instead say something even more dangerous, “Which brings us back to the fact that you only have one bed.”
He carefully removes a pin from my palm, the slight pinch of pain almost immediately disappearing when he rubs his thumb lightly over the small hurt. “Who was in the picture?”
I still. “No one.”
