“Then show me.” She pulled my arms apart, gripping my face between her hands. “Tell me how I can…”

“You want to help me,” I told her, moving my head to get her to release me. “Everyone does. There is no helping me. She’s in my head. I hear her all the time. She tells me how to serve my penance.”

“Ransom…”

“I serve,” I said, cutting Aly off. “Until you, I only serve. I serviced so many girls I couldn’t get hard anymore. My body failed me and I let it. I was glad for it. I didn’t want to fix it because I knew how much I deserved it. What I did to Emily, to her family, it’s the least I could do, to never take pleasure from anything. I killed my first love. It’s the only way I could also kill myself.”

“You have to forgive yourself. You have to let her go.”

“No, I don’t get that.” When Aly stepped closer, I moved away from the window, not wanting her comfort just then. “I deserve to be punished.”

“You think I do?”

“What?” I jerked my gaze to her.

She stood in front of me, her chin lifted like she was laying down a challenge. “I killed my mother.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I did.” She worked that small shrug like she meant to be flippant, but her eyes were tight and I wondered how she managed to look guilty and proud all at the same time. “She died having me.”

I lowered my shoulders, managing a smile I knew was likely more sympathetic than she wanted to see. I’d caught on quickly that Aly didn’t like pity. “It’s not the same, sweetheart. Not remotely. You were a baby. You had no control over what happened.”

“You were a kid, too.” When Aly reached me, it was to hold me again and I let her, too selfish still, too needy to keep her from me. She leaned into me as I lowered onto the sofa, helping her move over onto my lap. “You were angry, you were scared but did you climb in that boat intending to hurt her?”

“Of course not.”

“People get into cars every day,” Aly said, smoothing her fingers over my brow. “They act stupid with their friends, they text and drive and I bet not one of them sets out to get into accidents. Sometimes they do. Sometimes those accidents end lives.” She reminded me a little bit of myself when I was younger and had brushed aside every negative thought, ever doubtful word I came across. My mom used to call me Pollyanna, always eager and ready to see the good in every situation. God, I wanted to be that innocent again.

“It’s tragic, yes, incredibly, horrifyingly tragic. They all are, every single one of them, those things that take our loved ones away from us because of chance, circumstance, bad decisions. The point is, you were a kid too. You didn’t know that messing around like that would cause all of this damage, otherwise, you would have stopped. Sweetie, you can’t keep paying for it. You’ve punished yourself enough.”

Her advice, well-meaning as it was, was flawed wisdom, and had me shaking my head. I wished it was that simple. And I wished that Aly wasn’t looking so hard to rescue me. I didn’t need a savior. Maybe I just needed her. “I’m not the bad boy who needs saving, Aly.”

“Non, cheri,” she said, scooting closer as though I hadn’t hurt her twenty minutes before, as though she’d already forgotten how badly I’d fucked up. “You’re a good man who needs to forgive himself.”

21

Ransom wasn’t an easy man to love but God help me, I did.

Which made my little addendum to our, whatever we were, that much more difficult to bear.

“What do you mean you don’t want to have sex with me?” he’d asked just a week or so after he’d finally told me about the day Emily died. If I hadn’t been so sure about my conviction and wanting to make sure it was just the two of us in this—well, this—then I would have laughed at the frozen frown on his face. “But we’ve had sex twice. Really hot sex.”

“It was good, wi?” I’d only meant it to be flippant, just a comment on how compatible we were together. I wasn’t teasing, or taunting, but Ransom must have thought I was.

“Yeah, it was good and now, what? Now you don’t want to do it again?” He’d gotten me against the wall, something he liked to do so that I couldn’t find in me to complain about. “You want me, who has gone ages with anything resembling sex, to have a little nibble and then nothing again?”

“Nibble? Cheri, that was a gourmet meal.”

“Uh huh,” he’d said, leaning right against me and he had my mouth again, tongue and passion and working need all at once before I pushed him back, laughing at his growl. “Aw, baby, I’m hungry again.”

“I’m sure.” I pushed away from him, left him leaning against the wall while I dressed. “I just wanna make sure you call out the right chef’s name next time.”

He didn’t complain after that.

It had been nice, actually, despite the lack of being together, that we still talked every day, we still hung out at my place, sometimes on campus, though not at the team house. I minded Keira’s warning about that place.

Keira and Kona welcomed me back and Koa hung onto my leg, followed me everywhere as soon as I walked through the door the next Sunday morning. I’d expected a lecture, but I thought both Keira and Kona were so happy I’d come back that neither of them said anything to me. Sarah didn’t even mind that I’d come back. She had found Koa to be somewhat… overwhelming.

Being back with them, listening to Keira sing while Ransom played the guitar, watching after Koa, smiling at him and Ransom reading together or playing football, it all made me feel like something was happening. Something I’d never expected to get out of life. It started to feel like a family.

But with family came annoyances and worry, especially when the person you might consider building something permanent with still kept to himself when life started to bog him down.

Like two days ago when Ransom picked me up from the diner. He’d wrapped up practice, was readying for the game and as soon as I slipped into the car, I caught on quickly that he’d had a rough day.

“What happened?” I’d asked, turning toward him.

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

He did that a lot, down playing things, and it was equal parts stupid and frustrating. I wanted him open, for there to be nothing between us. I thought he wanted the same thing, but Ransom was an island with only one bridge open for crossing. That bridge was a little frayed, the ropes holding it together, a little worn and you had be damn careful that you didn’t break it trying to cross. And he too easily drew up the drawbridge when the going got tough.

He’d get this weird wrinkle between his eyebrows any time Emily was invading his mind. I’d caught on to this quickly, watching him as he slept, when something from his day wouldn’t let him relax.

He’d worn that same wrinkle as we drove through the city, heading toward I-10. “Ransom, what’s wrong?” I tried again, ignoring the non-committal grunt he released when I touched his arm. “Is it...is Emily in your head again?”

“What?” The question came out loud, shocked, and was followed by his foot on the brake and his gaze snapping at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I heard you,” I told him, not cowering from that quick scowl or his temper. “In the shower the other night, you were talking to her. And you’ve told me she was in your head.” He jerked away when I tried to touch his face and the small gestured pissed me off. “Whatever. Can we just go?”

“I’m not crazy,” he tried, voice lower, softer then.