Too Late

“Oh, God,” Ryan says. “He’s not making any sense. This isn’t good. I’ll go get the doctor.” He runs out of the room before I can tell him that Luke is perfectly fine.

I lift my hand to Luke’s face and touch his lips. I whisper, “Depressed baguettes linger on the playground eating bowls of cereal until the slugs wilt.” My voice cracks with my relief—with my happiness—with my gratefulness. My lips meet his, and even though I know this isn’t good for him and he’s probably in a lot of pain, I hug him wherever I can and kiss him in all the places I can reach on his face and neck. I wrap myself around him, careful to keep my arms and hands away from his injuries. I lie quietly with him while the tears roll down my cheeks.

“Sloan,” he says, his voice gravelly. “I can’t remember what happened after I fucked everything up. Did you end up saving me?”

I laugh and lift up on my elbow. “Not really,” I say quietly. “You shot Asa’s gun out of his hand and then I ran over to you and put pressure on your wound until the paramedics got there. I’d say it was a mutual save.”

He tries to force a smile. “I told you I wasn’t very good at my job,” he says.

I smile in whole-hearted agreement. “It’s not too late to quit, you know. You could go back to school and become a Spanish teacher.”

He winces with his laugh. “That’s not a bad idea, Sloan.”

He struggles to lean forward in order to kiss me, but it takes everything in him. He’s only six centimeters away.

A mere six centimeters between breath and life.

When I close that six-centimeter gap and kiss him, I know I’m closing a chapter. A really dark chapter that I’ve been waiting more than two years to end.

And this kiss is just the beginning of a whole new book. A book where maybe miracles aren’t that far-fetched.





I sit up straight and open my eyes.Not that I was sleeping. No one could sleep in this goddamn place. I breathe in through my nose and out my mouth, wondering why it’s just now hitting me.She didn’t say harder. She fucking said Carter! “Fucking whore!”





The End





I tap lightly on the door to his hospital room, but no one responds. When I push it open and peek inside, Luke is asleep. The volume to the TV is low, but audible. I glance over to the couch and Ryan is lying on his side, a ball cap covering his eyes. He’s asleep, too.

I hold the door while it closes, not wanting to wake either of them, but Ryan hears me and sits up on the couch. He stretches his arms over his head and yawns, then stands up.

“Hey,” he says. “You gonna be here a while?”

I nod. “I’ll probably stay here tonight,” I whisper. “You go get some rest.”

He glances over at Luke again and says, “The doctor came by earlier. Says he’ll get to go home tomorrow, but he’ll need someone to stay with him for a while. He’s on strict bed rest. I would offer, but I’m sure he’d rather you do it.”

I set my purse down on the couch. “It’s fine. I can stay with him if he’s okay with it.”

“I’m perfectly okay with that,” Luke says from his bed. I glance in his direction and he’s smiling at me lazily.

Ryan laughs and says, “I’ll stop by in the morning after my meeting with Young.”

Luke nods and then motions for me. “Come here.”

I walk toward him as Ryan leaves the room. Just like every other time I visit him, he scoots over and makes room for me to lie with him.

I wrap my leg over his and my arm over his chest, resting my head on his shoulder.

“How’s your brother?” he asks.

“Good,” I say. “Really good. You’ll have to go with me soon if you’re up for it. He kept looking up at the door like you were going to show up, so I know he was disappointed that you weren’t with me.”

I feel the light laughter in Luke’s chest. “I tried to sneak out and go with you today, but someone is being overprotective.”

I shake my head. “You got shot in the chest, Luke. You almost died. I’m not taking any chances.” I lift my head from his shoulder and rest my head on my hand. “Speaking of taking chances, what exactly did the doctor say about your release tomorrow? Bed rest? No strenuous activity?”

He runs a hand through my hair and smiles at me. “What if I told you he said plenty of bed rest and strenuous activity?”

“I’d call you a liar.”

He makes a face. “Four to six weeks,” he says. “Doctor says my heart needs to take it easy. Do you know how difficult that’s gonna be with you taking care of me?”

I run my fingers over his chest, feeling the bandages beneath his hospital gown. “Four to six weeks is nothing when we have forever.”

He laughs a little. “Easy for you to say. Guys think about sex every seven seconds.”

“That’s a myth,” I tell him. “I learned in biological science that it’s actually only thirty-four times a day.”

Luke stares at me for a few quiet seconds and then says, “That’s still almost a thousand times in the next four weeks I’ll have to refrain.”

I shake my head with a smile. “I’ll try to make it easy on you, then. I won’t shower or brush my hair or put on makeup for the next month.”

“That won’t help,” he says. “Might even make it worse.”

I lower my head and press my lips to his neck. “If it’s too hard on you, we can hire a male nurse to take care of you instead of me,” I tease.

Luke tightens his arm around me and yawns. “No one is taking care of me but you,” he whispers.

I can hear the pain meds kicking in by the sound of his voice, so I don’t respond to him. We lie there for a while, until I’m almost certain he’s asleep. But then he says, “Sloan? Where are you staying?”

I was waiting for this question. He’s been here in the hospital for two weeks now and every time he starts to bring up my living situation, I tell him we’ll talk about it later.

I have a feeling he’s not going to let me redirect the conversation this time.

“In a hotel.”

He instantly stiffens, reaching to my chin to lift my face to his. “Are you kidding me?”

I shrug. “It’s fine, Luke. I’ll find an apartment soon.”

“Which hotel?”

“The one on Stratton.”

His jaw hardens. “You’re checking out today. You shouldn’t be there alone, it’s not a safe neighborhood.” He tries to adjust himself to where he’s sitting up, lifting the head of the bed several inches. “Why have you not told me this?”

I flick my hand at him. “You almost died, Luke. The last thing you need right now is to stress over my situation more than you already have.”

He drops his head back to his pillow, raking his hands over his face. He locks eyes with me. “You’ll stay with me. I need the help, anyway. There’s no point in you paying for a hotel.”

“I’m not moving in with you. I’ll come take care of you for however long you need me to, but we barely know each other. That’s too much, too soon.”

He lowers his chin and stares at me, hard. “You’re staying with me, Sloan. I’m not asking you to make it permanent. But until I’m recovered and you have your own apartment, you aren’t going back to that hotel.”

It really is a scary hotel, but it’s all I could afford. After Asa was arrested, I grabbed my hidden stash and a few items of clothing and haven’t stepped foot back inside that house.

I nod. “Two weeks, tops. Then I’ll have my own place.”

He sighs, relieved that I’m not arguing. But I honestly have no idea how I’ll be able to afford an apartment in two weeks. I’ll have to find a job and a car. I had to borrow Luke’s car to visit Stephen today, but I can’t keep doing that.

I feel Luke’s hand slide through my hair and wrap around the nape of my neck. When our eyes meet, there’s a softness in his that wasn’t there a few seconds ago. “Stop overthinking it,” he says quietly. “You aren’t in this alone anymore, Sloan. Okay?”

I release a sigh. “Okay,” I whisper.

It’s the first time in my life I feel like my burdens aren’t all mine. I’ve never met anyone who brings more relief to my life than they do stress. Until Luke.

Love shouldn’t feel like added weight. It should make you feel as light as air.

Asa made everything in my life heavy.

Luke makes me feel like I’m floating.

I guess that’s the difference between being loved the right way and the wrong way. You either feel tethered to an anchor...or you feel like you’re flying.





“You need anything else?” I ask him.

It’s the first time I’ve ever been to Luke’s house, and I was shocked to see that it’s very normal. A home in a neighborhood about an hour or so from where I lived with Asa. It’s even closer to my brother’s facility.

Luke says he rents the house, he doesn’t own it. He never knows what his jobs are going to be, so he hasn’t been ready to commit to a mortgage yet.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Stop worrying. I’ll let you know if I need anything, okay?”

I nod. I glance around his bedroom, not really knowing what I should do with myself. He probably wants some sleep. It just feels weird with this not being my house.

“You want to crawl in bed with me and watch a movie?” he asks, lifting the blanket.