Page 117 of Alive At Night

I nodded absently, striding toward her before I could second-guess what I was doing. And then my hands were on her face, my fingers in her hair, my breath skimming the top of her head. I felt her stiffen and gasp and then momentarily melt beneath my hands.

I tipped her head back so she was looking up at me, my eyes and fingers focusing on the stitches sticking out from beneath a bandage along her hairline.

“You’re hurt.”

She swallowed, her throat working slowly in a way that I understood all too well. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Gemma—”

“Did you hit your head? You should sit down.”

“The seat belt.” She gasped as I brushed my thumb beneath her eyes, wiping the streaks of mascara away. “The seat belt cut into my forehead when the car flipped. I didn’t hit my head, Julian.”

Her words bounced around in my brain.

When the car flipped.

An image of it flashed before my eyes, and I didn’t even realize I was gripping Juni’s face too tightly until she squirmed in my grasp. I dropped my hands, balling them into my pockets instead. “What the fuck happened?”

She flinched, and I immediately regretted my tone. But I didn’t know how to control the emotions tangling inside me. I didn’t understand them, but I had to try.

“I hit a patch of ice when I was merging onto the highway, and it sent us flying toward the median—”

“You have to slow the fuck down, Juni,” I cut in, wringing my hands anxiously in my pockets. “You have to slow down when the weather gets like this. What were the two of you even doing out?”

“I know that,” she snapped, taking a step back as she glared at me. “I was taking it slow.”

“Clearly, you weren’t taking it slow enough,” I pushed back. “Jesus Christ, look at what happened to Gemma. And you, you could have—”

I bit down on my tongue, hard enough that the taste of metallic spread through my mouth. But Juni didn’t need to know how badly I’d been falling apart seconds before she called my name. She didn’t need to know that I was halfway down a spiral right now. She didn’t need to know anything.

I just needed her to never do that to me again.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

juniper

IWOKE UP TO a text from Julian, and I smiled into my pillow—two events I never thought would happen.

JULIAN: Can you meet me at Georgia’s before work?

Georgia’s? Why?

JULIAN: I need help with something. And you said it’s your favorite.

I’d told him that Georgia’s was my favorite bakery once.Once.And he had been making fun of me during the entire conversation. How did he possibly remember that?

What time?

One glance at the clock told me that I’d already slept longer than usual, and if I planned on making a stop before work, I should leave soon.

JULIAN: I can be ready whenever.

Since when did you become an early riser?

JULIAN: Since I had a pretty girl to impress.

I stared at my phone for at least a minute, telling myself that none of this was real. Even after everything he’d said last night, this felt too much like fiction.

JULIAN: I’ll see you there at 8.

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