Page 51 of Faking It with the Bad Boy

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Below the note was a detailed set of humidity readings from throughout the night, carefully documented in his precise handwriting. He'd monitored the artifacts hourly, maintaining perfect preservation conditions even after I'd left.

I filed it all under "Things That Can't Be Categorized," right next to "Ways Love Doesn't Follow Museum Protocol" and "How to Heal a Heart with Victorian Medical Tools."

None of these categories existed in any proper organizational system.

Maybe that was the point.

Because some things – like trust and doubt, love and fear, like historical knowledge earned through genuine interest rather than calculated pretense – couldn't be contained in careful classifications.

Some things had to be felt.

Even if they hurt.

Even if they healed.

Even if they left scars that no amount of Victorian medical knowledge could treat.

And maybe that was the hardest lesson of all: that some forms of trust, like some forms of healing, required more than just professional distance and careful protocols.

They required courage.

They required risk.

They required believing that something could be real, even when believing meant risking being wrong.

And even when being wrong meant breaking more than just museum rules and mentorship boundaries.

Even when being right meant admitting that some people were worth shattering your carefully constructed world for.

The Victorian medical displays gleamed in their cases, silent witnesses to a different kind of medical history – one where hearts were broken and maybe, just maybe, could be healed.

If we were brave enough to try.

If we were strong enough to trust and believe some things were worth risks taken.

Chapter sixteen

Motorcycle Lessons

There are exactly twenty steps between the museum and the parking lot. I know because I counted them three times, standing in the rain, staring at my decisively dead car. The engine made a sound that would have impressed nineteenth-century plague doctors with its ominous finality, followed by an alarming amount of smoke that certainly wasn't part of any proper automotive function.

The Civil War surgical kit sat in its custom preservation case on the passenger seat, watching my breakdown with the same stoic dignity it had shown during actual battlefield operations. The brass fittings gleamed in the rain like they were mocking my predicament.

"Come on," I pleaded with my car, jiggling the key like that might magically fix whatever had just died with such theatrical flair. "The preservation specialist is coming. These bone saws have survived actual combat. They can't be late to their own evaluation."

The engine made another sound – something between a Victorian death rattle and a modern car's last gasp. More smoke poured from under the hood, this time with the kind of determination that suggested permanent retirement.

Of course, this would happen today when the preservation specialist was coming to evaluate our Civil War surgical kit for a major grant, and I had precisely thirty-seven minutes to get across town. When the collection's future literally depended on this meeting. When the only person who could possibly help was the last person I wanted to ask for anything.

I tried calling Dex first – straight to voicemail. Then the museum's maintenance staff – all out on a plumbing emergency in the Egyptian wing. Even my father's car service had a two-hour wait.

Thunder cracked overhead as I weighed my options:

Walk three miles in the rain with priceless medical artifacts

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