“Do you mind breathing between those questions? It might help me keep up.”

I scowl and Logan attempts to smother a smile.

“Movies and TV often get it wrong. With type 1, my body no longer produces insulin. With type 2, the body doesn’t use the insulin it produces properly. I’m allowed to eat sugar, I just got to watch how much. I can explain testing and my shots as I go. As long as I take care of myself, I’ll be fine.” Logan links our fingers together. “And we’ve got time for me to answer all of the questions running through your head.”

I search his eyes. Never once did Logan look away. His body didn’t twitch. His movements weren’t off. He means all that he says and more importantly, he truly believes he’ll be fine. Good because I can’t stand the idea of losing him.

I inhale. Five days, four minus today. Four days away from Grams, four days being MIA from Ricky, Linus, and my clients, four days’ loss of money.

I breathe out. Four days to possibly fix my crumbling life. Four days to figure out how to handle Tommy and Linus and Ricky. Four days to figure out how to salvage what’s left of the Abby I want to be. Four days to explore who I want to be. “Okay.”

Logan flashes that gorgeous, crazy smile then tugs on my hand. “Come on, but be quiet.”

“Why?”

“I saw the look on your face when Chris asked you to drive the tractor. I bet you don’t know how to drive one.”

I raise my chin at his forever arrogant assumptions. “I’m a smart girl and can figure it out.”

“You’re smart.” And his grin only grows. “But it doesn’t mean you know how to drive a tractor. It also doesn’t mean that you had the forethought to steal the keys from Chris.”

I mock gasp and place a hand over my mouth. “Stealing? Logan, are you suggesting that we do something illegal?”

“You want to learn or not?” Logan opens his palm in front of my face and keys dangle from his fingers. “You’re going to be cranky when you can’t start that puppy up and go.”

“I hate it when you’re right.”

“Then you’re mad an awful lot, aren’t you?”

“Then you’re mad an awful lot, aren’t you?” I sarcastically mimic.

Logan tugs on my hand again and I go with him because...I don’t know how to drive very well, and I especially don’t know how to drive a tractor...and because, right now, I’d probably go anywhere this strong hand leads.

We walk through the yard and a dozen bunnies gloriously spring out of our way. Bunnies surrounding me, a hot guy holding my hand, and I’m pretty sure tractor theft in my future. Life can’t get much better than this.

Logan

Green corn stalks fly at us and Abby squeals in a combination of delight and horror. I reach around her and one-eighty the tractor. It’s tough to do with her on my lap, but can’t say I’m not enjoying Abby being this close.

One of those barn bunnies hopped in front of Abby and the result was a detour through the cornfield. A huge grin spreads across my face and Abby laughs as pieces of green stalks fall down around us like rain.

Abby’s laughing as she helps me maneuver the huge machine away from the corn and back into the empty pasture. She has a magical laugh, a light laugh, one that I could listen to for the rest of my life.

“Good thing Chris put up the dairy cows otherwise we’d be offering steak for dinner,” I say loud enough for her to hear. She elbows me just enough to nudge me, but not enough to hurt.

“Better cow than bunny croquets.”

We’ve been driving for the past half hour and she caught on quick. Turning the big wheel with me, pressing the clutch when we have to shift, and resisting the urge to use the clutch as a brake when she wants to slow.

The tractor climbs a hill and when we reach the top, I put my hand over

Abby’s to show her how to take the tractor out of gear, into Park, and turn it off. It’s deafening when the loud engine rumbles off and the only sounds remaining are Abby’s leftover tingling giggles.

Abby giggling. Feels like a gift.

Abby slides off me and onto her feet on the ground and I follow. Like me, Abby wears jeans. The day was scorching, the night is humid, but being out on the farm requires pants. Too many things out and about that can scratch the hell out of your legs.

She’s a sight in her jeans though. Hip-hugging. Worn and threadbare in all the right places. Her blue tank is perfect for Abby. Not cut too low, but just enough for a nice peek of her breasts, ends right around the waistband of her jeans, and it has sparkles.

“How far away are we from the cabin?” Abby asks.

“Far enough away that Chris is going to wonder what the hell happened to the corn.”

Her eyes widen. “We’ll tell him aliens. I’ve seriously been wanting to use that excuse for a while—aliens. Crop circle aliens. No one seems to appreciate the alien answer for anything else. Like Abby, where were you—I was abducted by aliens. They don’t even pretend to buy it, but this time—I can totally own the crop circle defense.”

“Can I show you something?”

She bobs her head. “Besides how to harvest corn early? Okay.”

“Lie down.”

Abby releases that dangerous grin that’s half seduction, half fear-inducing. “Is this where the thing you show me involves dirty secrets?”

“Only if you’re good.” I drop onto the grass. “I’m serious, come here.”

Abby plops down beside me and looks over at me expectantly. “What’s my prize?”

“Close your eyes and lie back. Then when I tell you, open them.”

Wariness hovers in Abby’s eyes, but she does what I ask, closing her eyes and lying back. I ponder lying down beside her to see what she’ll see, but instead stretch out beside her and prop myself up on my arm, settling for her reaction.

The grass is cool against my warm skin and the humid night. Beyond us pond frogs croak and the stalks of corn rustle in the slight breeze. Abby looks peaceful tonight. One day of rest and those dark circles she’s had since she was shot are fading and there’s a smoothness to her usually razor-sharp expression.

She’s a vision. She’s beautiful. Just like the natural night painting I’m about to show Abby.

“Open your eyes.”

Abby does, and after the blinks to readjust her sight, wonder and awe race across her face. “Oh...my...God. There’s thousands of them.”

Stars. She’s referring to the stars. We’re hours away from any city, a good forty-minute drive from the nearest expressway. We’re as far from civilization as we can get and by being here, we get to witness the world as God envisioned it, as God created it, and it is absolutely good.

I ease down beside Abby, allowing the skin of my arm to touch hers. “I was in eighth grade the first time my parents allowed me to come down here with Chris and his grandfather. Chris brought me and Ryan out here and we camped. Long after Chris and Ryan went to sleep, I lay on the grass and stared at the stars in the sky. Made me feel small.”

“You liked that?” There’s an unsure tone in her voice. “Feeling small?”

“Yeah. If I was small, then maybe my problems were, too.”

“I get that. I get that more than you’d think.”

We’re quiet for a bit and I don’t mind the silence. I tried counting the stars once, and I never got far. Always fell asleep before one hundred. “I’m going to quit the band.”

Abby leans up to her elbow. “Why?”

“Those guys—all they could talk about was music. Their music, other people’s music, arrangements, instruments, shots and dreams...I was more interested that they had a gig in Florida before the summer ended.”

Abby cracks a grin and nudges my ankle with her toe. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Beaches sounded good at the time. Don’t get me wrong, I like to play. Gives me something to do with my hands when I’m bored, but a deck of cards can do the same thing. They deserve someone who loves what they do as much as they do.”

Abby nods like what I said was insightful. “So you’re going to play baseball again?”

My stomach knots. “Maybe, but being a baseball player...that’s not me, either. I like to play. Gives me a hell of a rush, but Ryan’s a baseball player. He can’t live without the game.”

Just like Isaiah can’t live without cars and Chris can’t live without dirt beneath his feet. Sometimes, I think I’m more like Chris. I like the idea of owning something, not being underneath anyone else, my own successes and failures dependent on what I do or don’t do. Working in a place where I’m reminded, in a good way, how small I am.

I’m off-kilter with my diabetes admission and Dad’s rant. More than I care to be. Now that my friends know and they haven’t shoved me into a wheelchair or deathbed yet, I’m lost.

I’ve worked my entire life to not be the guy with diabetes, taking on whatever it is that was in front of me to prove it. If I’m the guy with diabetes and no one cares, then who am I? “Maybe I don’t know who I am.”

“I disagree with that. I think you’re mixing up what you want to do with the rest of your life with who you are. For instance, I think I would make a kick-ass high-level agent for the stars. Nobody would say no to me. I know what I want to do, but I have no idea who I am.”