Page 90 of Crossed Sticks

Caleb placed a hand on my knee. “There’s more. He’s planning to check himself out tomorrow so he can come here.”

“He hasn’t been there long. Is he ready to leave?”

“I don’t think so, and there’s apparently a question about whether he’s there voluntarily. He thinks he is, but his chart says he isn’t. He says he’ll leave whether it’s voluntary or not because…”

I scoffed. “Because what? Don’t stop now.”

“He has some things he wants to tell you in person.”

My anger disappeared, replaced by desperation. “Is he out of his mind? He can’t just leave.”

“He will, though. You know how stubborn he is.”

The world narrowed to a single, terrifying fact: if I’d gotten over myself sooner and told Luca I wanted to stay together, none of this would be happening. After the week in D.C., I never doubted I wanted to be with him. I just worried I wasn’t good enough to be what he needed. Now he was hurting worse than I could imagine, and it was my fault.

My self-control shattered, and I cried so hard I shook. Caleb pulled me into his arms and held me while I sobbed against his shoulder. In the unlikeliest twist of fate, I found myself being comforted by the man who’d caused all this misery. “Luca is everything to me,” I choked out. “I love him, but now…”

When the tears finally stopped, Caleb sat up but kept his hands on my arms. “You need to talk to him, Harper. Can you go to Buffalo?”

My decision was already made, and there was no time to waste. “How did you get here?”

“Drove.”

I stood up. “Will you take me to Luca?”

Caleb nodded while he got to his feet. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

36/

luca

I texted Adam after dinner,and he called me a few hours later. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to take our client out to eat.”

“No problem. I’m?—”

“Before anything else, listen to me carefully. Under no circumstances are you to leave that hospital until your doctor gives the okay. If you do, I’ll come back up there and kick your ass.”

It was no idle threat, because Adam had always worked out. He was bigger than me, and he was more than capable of kicking my ass if he wanted to. In my text, I’d told him I was planning to leave the hospital, and now that he’d said I shouldn’t, he asked for details about why I’d thought it was a good idea. I filled him in on what had happened and shared some of Harper’s messages. Finally, I said, “That’s why I still think it would be a good idea to go to Ohio.”

“We already discussed that.” Adam’s voice had taken on a stern edge. “It would be doing something that might gain an advantage short-term, only to come back and bite you in the ass later. I know the idea of a grand gesture sounds romantic, butdon’t you want to get well? Then you can be the man Harper needs, and you can both enjoy life.”

Adam’s words showed why I trusted him. He was an intelligent, mature man, and his thoughts were so sound I couldn’t argue with them. “So, what should I do?”

“That’s a no-brainer. Get Harper on FaceTime and tell him you’re in love with him.”

That was easy for Adam to say, but it wasn’t that simple. “What if he has other ideas?”

“Even if that’s the case, he deserves to know how you feel, so you have to tell him.”

I scoffed. “What makes you so sure it’s a good idea?”

“You just read me his message. Harper loves you. He sounded heartbroken, thinking you might want to break up.”

“Maybe, but?—”

“Look, if he wanted to end things, he’d have done it when he got back to Buffalo after he went away. But he didn’t, did he?”

“That makes sense, but who says ‘I love you’ on a video call?”

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