“Yes,” I replied. I didn’t think about the repercussions or how I’d feel when I saw him with other girls. At that moment I just thought about how it felt to be with Slate and that my sadness seemed to dissipate when he was around.

He closed the distance I’d put between us, then placed his hands on my waist to pull me closer to him. Before I could even take a deep breath to calm my racing heart, his mouth was back on mine and I was holding on to his biceps again for fear my knees would give out on me.

This was enough. It was all either of us could promise the other right now. Or ever. That made my heart twist and I couldn’t think about why. Facing my feelings for Slate meant accepting things were changing for me. If Crawford woke up, I would go back to him. That was what I did know.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BREAKFAST? WAS THE text that woke me up the next morning. It was Saturday and after ten, so it was time for me to crawl out of bed anyway.

I’d replied Yes. And then got up and quickly dressed. In the dark. Like always.

Slate met me outside my dorm with a cup of coffee twenty minutes later. After last night I wasn’t sure what to expect next, but this had not been it. His slightly-too-long dark hair was tucked behind his ears, and he wore a tight gray T-shirt with the Kappa Sigma crest on the front. The jeans he was wearing weren’t bad either. He definitely turned heads when he wore them.

“Morning,” he said with a sleepy smile. It was well after ten now, but it was still too early for him.

“Good morning and thank you,” I replied, taking the coffee.

“Sleep good?”

I nodded and took a sip. I had actually slept really well. I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or my decision to date Slate.

“You good with going in to Nashville and getting something to eat?”

The only other good breakfast place around here was the one where I had run out on him, and I didn’t want to remember that.

“Sure,” I replied.

“I need to go see my uncle, too. He’s back in the hospital. The chemo has been hard on him. Want to ride with me? Maybe stop by and see your folks?”

That I hadn’t planned on. Going back home and facing Crawford and my memories. I missed my parents and seeing them would be nice. Slate needed to see his uncle, and he obviously didn’t want to go alone.

“Okay,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.

“I’d like you to meet Uncle D. I told him about you this summer and he’s curious.”

“You told him about me?” I asked, surprised.

“Hell yeah, you were the most interesting thing happening up at the hospital.”

I had told Crawford about him, too. While I talked to him at night. I decided not to bring that up with Slate. We walked out to his Jeep and he opened the door for me. Again. Something Crawford had always done. Something I didn’t expect from Slate.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling almost ashamed that I was so surprised by this.

He smirked as if he knew what I had been thinking, then went around to his door and climbed in. His Jeep smelled of him. His cologne. I liked it in here.

When he pulled out onto the road, I glanced over at him and decided I didn’t really know much about him at all. He knew much more about me. But then, he’d asked. He’d tried to find out. I’d done nothing like that.

“Have you always lived with your uncle?” I asked.

“Since I was six. My dad ran off on my mom shortly after I was born. Never knew the man. And my mom died from a bad case of pneumonia when I was six. She didn’t have medical insurance and one day she just didn’t wake up. Her older brother was her only living relative and he came to pick me up.”

While he was telling me, my chest grew tight and began to ache. “How long were you alone with her before someone came to check on you?” I asked through the lump forming in my throat.

“When she didn’t wake up for a whole day I called 911. She’d taught me if I thought something was wrong and she couldn’t help me to call 911. I often wonder if I’d called sooner if they could have saved her. But I was just a kid. Uncle D helped me work through that guilt.”

All I had known was security. It’s all I’d ever seen. In my life and in Crawford’s. Now Slate was watching the man who had raised him slowly die and it seemed so unfair. He’d suffered enough.

After the accident I had been so focused on Crawford that I never considered how easy our lives had been until that moment. To me, nothing could have been as terrible. Yet it could have. Things could always be worse.

“You were smart to call 911. I don’t know if I’d have thought to do that at six,” I admitted.

He shrugged. “You would have. I think kids think things through and make smart decisions before adults do. Oftentimes adults panic and react poorly.”

There was so much I didn’t know about Slate, but the more I heard, the more I respected him. Sure, he liked to sleep around and he was aware that his good looks could get him his way, but his life hadn’t been an easy one.

“So you began working on a farm when you moved in with your uncle?”

He nodded, then grinned like it was a fond memory. “Yeah. Uncle D doesn’t believe in feeling sorry for yourself. He had me out learning to feed the chickens and getting their eggs the day after my mother’s funeral. I hadn’t even started my new school yet or unpacked in my new room. I worked two full hours on his farm before I got to go inside and get ready for school. It was hard work, but I think it was what got me through those first few months. Losing my mom, moving five hours away from the only life I knew, a new home, a man I hardly knew being all I had—it was a lot for a six-year-old to adjust to. The work on the farm helped me. I didn’t sit and think about it too much.”

When I was six, I was playing with dolls and begging to go to the park. The ice cream truck would come down our street playing its music loudly and I would meet Crawford outside to go get an ice pop. It had been a storybook life where nothing bad ever touched us.

“He sounds like a good man,” I said simply.

Slate chuckled. “Yeah, he is. He also uses foul language and says whatever he’s thinking. His temper is terrible, but he never hurts anyone. Just yells and fusses a lot.”

I looked forward to meeting him. Seeing another part of Slate’s life. The more I knew, the more I realized just how special he really was. That was probably dangerous talk and I didn’t need to think of Slate as special. But I did … because he was.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WALKING BACK INTO the hospital where I’d spent most of my summer was more difficult than I imagined. The things I’d been able to put out of my mind while I was at Bington were resurfacing. Like the night we’d come here after the wreck, and being told Crawford was in a coma. Not memories I liked to think about.

I wanted to see Crawford while I was here. Even if it wasn’t a scheduled time Juliet was prepared for. I was past letting her make all the decisions.

Every other nurse we passed waved, winked, and called out a hello to Slate as we passed. I was trying not to count them, but it was hard when it never seemed to end.

“Wipe that judgmental expression off your face. I didn’t fuck all of them,” he said a little too loudly as we stepped onto the elevator.

“I don’t have that expression on my face,” I argued, and he just laughed and shook his head.