Page 50 of The Wild Card

“You were bribed with baked goods.”

“A lifelong weakness.” She props her chin on my chest to look at me. “My mom always knew how to handle me, even when I was being dramatic.”

“Were you dramatic often?”

“I was eight. Everything was dramatic.” Her eyes crinkle. “One time, I cried for an hour because Gavin ate the last popsicle. I wrote a formal complaint letter and slid it under my parents’ door.”

“A formal complaint letter? At eight?”

“I was very advanced.” She grins. “It said, ‘Dear Mom and Dad, Gavin is the worst brother ever. Please send him back. Love, Emmie. P.S. We need more popsicles.’”

Something rumbles in my chest. It takes me a second to realize I’m laughing—actually laughing, not the half-smirk I usually manage, but real laughter that shakes my ribs and makes my eyes crinkle.

Emmie’s staring at me, lips parted.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing. Just.” She shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “You should do that more often.”

“Do what?”

“Laugh.” She settles back against my chest, ear pressed to my heartbeat. “It looks good on you.”

We lie there as the minutes stretch. She places her head back on my shoulder and tells me about the time she set the kitchen on fire trying to make crème brûlée at fifteen, about her dad teaching her to ride a bike and refusing to let go even when she begged him to, and about Sunday dinners at the Marshall house—loud, chaotic, and full of love.

I don’t have stories like that. My childhood is a patchwork of temporary rooms, forgotten faces, and learning not to get attached.

But I tell her anyway.

About the group home where I taught myself to read because no one else bothered, about the foster father who let me help him fix cars in the garage—the only adult who ever treated me like I was capable of something, and about the military, which gave me structure, purpose, and a whole new set of nightmares.

She listens to all of it, doesn’t try to fix it or minimize it, just holds my hand and lets me talk.

“Crew?” she says eventually, her voice sleepy.

“Yeah?”

“This is what boyfriends do, you know.” She yawns against my chest. “They show up. They share things. They let someone in.”

I think about that, about all the walls I’ve built, about how easy it would be to keep her out, to go back to my routines, my control, and my perfectly organized life.

“I’m not very good at letting people in,” I admit.

“You’re doing pretty well right now.”

Am I?

I look down at her—this woman who crashed into my life with cookies and chaos and refused to be scared off by my seventeen-page contract. She’s half-asleep on my chest, fingers splayed across my ribs, completely at ease in a way I’ve never felt with anyone before.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe this is what it feels like to let someone in. And maybe—just maybe—that doesn’t have to be terrifying.

“Emmie?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

She smiles without opening her eyes. “For what?”