Page 62 of All It Takes

The craziest thing of all was I believed him. All this time, I’d felt like something was inherently wrong with me. I’d carried my mother’s baggage when it wasn’t even mine to carry. I’d held on to secrets that weren’t mine to keep and the painful lessons my mother never quite learned. Or if she did, I couldn’t tell.

“Promise me you’ll always be a little prickly, but with that heart of gold who loves everyone,” he said.

“If I loved everyone, didn’t that mean automatically I would love you?” I teased.

Wes chuckled. “You know what I mean. You give everyone a chance but yourself. Iseeyou, Tiffany, and I love you just the way you are.”

My throat felt tight, and I swallowed through the thickness.

Just then, I heard the distinct slide of the door and the curtain being pushed back as Holly called out, “Are we decent?”

A startled laugh sputtered out of me. “I’m decent,” he teased in return as Holly peered around the curtain.

She waggled her eyebrows as she stepped into the room. “Just checking. Ross and your mom are waiting to come in.”

“Should I go out front?” I asked.

Holly slid me a look and put a finger to her lips. “Just stand in the corner and stay quiet.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing as I nodded.

Ross and Wes’s mom came in. His mom fussed over him a bit. When I saw the worried look in Ross’s eyes, I almost started crying. Yet he was so happy Wes was okay. He chattered nonstop for a few minutes, updating Wes on my dad, how Nilla was doing, and how he would make sure to be quiet when they played video games during Wes’s recovery.

Just before they were about to leave, his mom glanced over. “I’ve already talked to your dad, and Ross is going to stay with him tonight. Then he’ll come to my place for the next two nights. We’ve got the whole thing lined out, food and everything.”

“Nilla can go everywhere too,” Ross said with a big smile.

Holly was coming back in as they left. She checked a few things on the monitor and then glanced between Wes and me. “He can discharge in about a half hour. We need to make sure you feel okay sitting up. All signs look good. How are you feeling?”

“Ready to leave,” he said.

A short while later, I was driving, feeling unaccountably nervous. I felt like I was carrying precious cargo. Yet Wes was a grown-ass man. My God, he was a hotshot firefighter.

Perhaps what felt fragile was my heart and the depth of my feelings. Wes had looked straight into my eyes. I’d felt that he could see me just as I was—a little messy, not so trusting with romance, and maybe kinda pushy too. He loved me anyway.

ChapterForty-Two

WES

Tiffany had wanted to stop by her place, but Alice and Farrah, my two favorite people in the universe tonight, had refused to let her do that. Farrah had even threatened to take her keys away. They were going to go to her place and get her a bag and her things. We had to go up the stairs to get to her place, whereas I only had to climb three stairs to get inside mine. Even though I was pretty sure I was fine, I could feel the threatening ache under the anesthesia and numbing starting to fade on my side.

Roughly an hour or so later, after Alice and Farrah had delivered a bag for Tiffany with clothes and toiletries for the next few days and done a quick run to the grocery store and brought some food for us, it was just Tiffany and me. She was nervous. She flitted about my place, putting away the groceries, and asking me if I wanted some soup. Even though I knew I was going to be hungry later, I wasn’t right now.

She put the backpack in the hallway by my bedroom door, inexplicably not carrying it in. She had me situated on the couch with my legs propped up on the cushioned ottoman and a blanket draped over my waist. “Tiffany,” I finally said.

She was in the kitchen making tea for me even though I didn’t give a flying fuck about tea. She turned, mug in hand. “I’m coming.”

She hurried over, setting the mug on the coffee table beside the couch. She fussed over me, adjusting the blanket on my lap and checking to make sure I had enough pillows behind me. She’d collected every loose pillow on the couch and piled them around me. I felt like she would’ve wrapped me in bubble wrap if it was possible.

I shoved the pillows over, patting the couch beside me. “Sit, please.”

She sat down, her worried eyes coasting over my face. I took a moment to study her. She had her hair pulled up in a messy bun with a pen stuck through it to hold it in place. Dark locks had fallen loose around her neck. I wanted to kiss every freckle scattered on her cheeks.

“Thank you for the tea,” I said, genuinely grateful she was fussing over me even if I didn’t care about the tea itself.

She laced her fingers together, her thumb rubbing over a silver ring on one of her fingers. I reached for one of her hands, and she didn’t hesitate, unlacing her fingers and curling her palm around mine.

“You’re worried,” I said.

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