Page 73 of Reckless Love

Stephen backs away, and the head of my bed begins to rise until I’m straight enough that I can peer across the space to where Landon’s small body is sleeping deeply. His little chest rises and falls, and I watch it, mesmerized, the same way I used to be when he was an infant, like I couldn’t quite believe that someone so amazing came from me.

Then the pounding in my head registers, and I wince from the sensation.

“Do you need more medication?” Stephen checks his watch. “You’re almost due. If it’s worn off, I’ll get them in here.”

“No,” I say. “It’s okay. The pain is tolerable.” It almost isn’t. “How’s your mom?”

Stephen raises his eyebrows and lets out a long breath. “Someone told you?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Recovering. Broken hip. A long road, I think. Vanessa and I are moving them into an assisted-living place in Rockdown. Dad’s already there.”

“Oh, really?” I breathe out, trying to ignore the way my chest aches with the motion.

“You should take the pain relief,” Stephen says, lowering my bed again. “It’ll help.”

“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“They can give you something that won’t knock you out. They were keeping you sedated because you were a danger to yourself.”

“If they’d put Landon in here instead of a different room, they’d have had no problem.”

Stephen just looks at me.

“Less of a problem,” I concede.

His knuckles sweep across my cheek again, tenderness in his gaze, his touch. And it’s like my whole soul releases a swoony sigh. How did I exist in the world without him? It seems unfathomable now. That I could be any version of happy without him. Everything in me wishes I was well enough to curl into him, crawl into his lap, and let all my worries ease. I never understood what a privilege his presence was. Sometimes, without saying a word, he took all my hopes and fears and melded them into things that felt possible instead of impossible.

I was such a fool.

He takes my hand, and his thumb moves back and forth over the back of it, a steady motion. “You scared me.” His voice is gruff. “You both scared me.”

“I’m sorry for everything I said the night you left.” My voice is hushed, but life suddenly feels short, fleeting, and I’ve fucked up so much already. I want him to forgive me, even if it’s unreasonable.

“You can’t help how you feel,” he murmurs.

“But I didn’t mean it. Not in the truest sense.”

“We don’t need to talk about this right now. The doctor’s told all of us not to put any unnecessary stress on you.”

“The stressful part is that you don’t believe me.”

“You meant it, Ava,” he says, giving me an exasperated glance. “Would you have changed your mind later? Maybe. I’ll concede that much. Maybe you’d have changed your mind later.”

“But I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

“I’ve never hated you for it. I hated myself for wanting you and that life so badly.”

“Stephen,” I say, his name garbled by the sudden lump in my throat.

He places a lingering kiss on my forehead, one hand cupping my cheek, the other hand still engulfing mine. I savor the warmth of his presence, how his familiar scent drifts down, settling over me.

“It’s okay.”

“It doesn’t feel okay at all.” I push out around a partial sob, and this almost crying is doing a number on my chest, my newly inflated lung.

“You can’t help how you feel, Ava. Neither of us has ever been able to help how we feel. Would have been so much easier if we could have, huh?”

When he tries to draw back, I grip his neck, keeping him close. I want to burrow into him and never leave again. “I have a lot of regrets.”

He searches my expression with an unexpected intensity. “Why did you get the DNA test for Landon?”