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“Hush. Everything is all right now.”
“You were unconscious. And I thought-”
He doesn’t let me finish, choosing to possess my lips with a rough kiss. His tongue demands access to mine and I don’t hold back, kissing him with all the passionate desperation I’ve been storing for all these weeks we’ve been apart.
Never again will I deny him anything.
“I’m sorry.” I kiss his lips, his jaw, his cheeks, breathless with the need to cover every inch of him with kisses to make up for it all. “I’m sorry and today I was so afraid that I waited too long to tell you.”
Conner pulls back and curls one big hand around the back of my neck. His eyes now simmer with intensity. “What is it you want to tell me, Haven?”
“Everything,” I whisper, captive in his grip.
He approves of this plan with a nod and relaxes his hand. “I’m listening.”
But then he winces and flops back on the pillow with his eyes screwed shut.
“What’s wrong?” I’m already scrambling out of bed in a panic. “Hold on, I’ll call a doctor.”
“No.” He grabs my wrist and cracks an eye open. “Just a wave of dizziness. It’ll pass.”
An IV drips liquid into his left arm. Aside from the slight damage to his face there are no other visible signs of injury. But I remember his words all too well about the possible cost of a head injury. A renewed sense of fear eats away at my stomach.
Conner’s forehead has broken out in a cold sweat. Grabbing a bunch of paper towels from a silver dispenser on the wall, I run the stack under a stream of cold water at the sink and gently mop his brow.
He’s amused by my clumsy nursing efforts. “I think it was worth the ambulance ride to get this kind of treatment.”
“Bullshit. You better never scare me like that again.” I curl up next to him once more. “What have the doctors said?”
His grin wavers. Then disappears completely. He looks away, facing the window where dusk falls over Em City. “A few minutes ago I had a chat with the chief neurologist. He strongly advised that I ought to quit football for good. He said the risk of taking another knock to the head is too great. Next time I might not wake up.”
My chest tightens in panic. “What will you do?”
He shrugs. “Get a new doctor.”
“I’m serious, Conner.”
“So am I. And you should take those jeans off.” He flicks the button on my pants to make his point. “You’ll be more comfortable. But you can keep the shirt on for a little while. I like that you’re wearing my number.”
“Wiseass.” I push his hands away from my pants.
“Built into the name. Wiseman. Wiseass. Whatever you want to call me, I’llcome.”
“Oh my god.” I roll my eyes and swing my leg around to straddle him. We need to be face to face for this conversation. “Quit thinking about sex for a minute.”
He looks me over with obvious hunger and runs his hands over my hips. “And you think this is the best position to get me to stop thinking about sex?”
I take his hands from my body and hold them in mine. His are so much larger. Threading our fingers together, I keep my gaze trained on the sight of our joined hands as I collect the words I need to speak.
Then I look into the eyes of the man I love, take a deep breath and begin our story…
“Conner, we met for the first time as children on a West Emerald basketball court. It was the spring before your accident. I was ten and you were eleven. You were nice to me. You loved basketball and taught me everything you knew. I didn’t really have any friends so it meant the world when the most popular boy in school treated me like an equal. We started hanging out every Saturday when I was supposed to be in ballet class. You were funny. And smart. You would tell me stories about all the trouble you’d get into with Micah and Gage. You listened when I told you how it felt to be a twin who wasn’t nearly as well liked as her sister.
Once you asked me about my birthday. When you heard the date was June twenty-ninth you made me a promise. You swore that someday when you made the varsity basketball team, you’d wear number twenty-nine. For me.
“The day before my birthday I was waiting for you at the basketball court but you never showed because you were in the hospital. Tessie was the one who told me about your accident but she didn’t know we were friends. No one did. Except Lita. And even she didn’t know everything.
“But I thought about you all summer. I heard you had to go through months of therapy after losing parts of your memory. We didn’t see each other again until school resumed. Then there you were, standing beside Micah and Gage like nothing was wrong. I was so relieved. Despite all the rumors you looked just fine. I went running to you, shouting your name, but when you looked up I knew right away that you had no idea who I was. The fall from the tree had robbed you of many things. Our friendship was just one of them.
