“You should rest, babe. I’ll go start dinner.”

She nods, and less than two minutes later, she’s asleep.

Once I’ve prepped dinner and it’s in the oven, I go back in to check on her. She’s sitting up in bed, and I watch from the doorway as she slowly puts her top back on. “You need any help with that?”

She shakes her head and looks up at me with those eyes, and I’m quick to go to her, to kneel at her feet, because I’m that guy.

“You need to stop doing that, Luke.”

“I’m trying, babe.” Honestly, I am. “But it’s hard for me. You weren’t there—I mean, obviously, you were, but…” I take her hands, look in her eyes. “I came so close to losing you once, to having my greatest fears come true, and I’m sorry that I’m fussing over you like this, and if the roles were reversed, I’d hate it, too. But, Lane, I fucking love you—”

She giggles, cutting me off. “You’re so romantic.” God, I miss her laugh.

I roll my eyes. “Sorry. I fucking love you, babe.”

“Much better.”

“You ready for rehab tomorrow?” I ask.

She quirks an eyebrow. “You ready for your 4:45 run?”

“Why do I have to do that?” I whine. “It’s summer.”

“You ran every day last summer.”

“But that’s because I was on the track team.”

“And you’ll be on the track team at UNC. Did you call them yet? Tell them you’re going?”

The oven timer goes off and I exhale, relieved. “I made a chicken and cheese pasta bake.”

At 4:45 the next morning, Lane’s alarm goes off. Mine doesn’t. She knew I wouldn’t set it, so she set hers instead. Sneaky Lane.

“Have fun!” she shouts, and I roll over to my side and face her.

“You’re mean.”

She smiles. “Old times, baby. I want old times.”

I don’t recall the last time I’d gone this long without running, and it’s not fun. At all. I almost give up halfway through my standard route, but I push on because I know it’s important to Lane. When I get back to the cabin, I shower, make breakfast. I take it to the bedroom on a tray and she sits up, puts on her new glasses. “You’re the best boyfriend ever,” she says, then looks down at the food: juice, yogurt, granola and dry toast. She looks up, nose scrunched.

“You have to eat healthier. No spleen means low immune system.”

She frowns. Those eyes. “But I’ve been eating hospital food for weeks and this is…”

“This is mine.”

“Thank God!”

I get her tray from the kitchen. Coffee, Pop Tarts and a Snickers bar.

She licks her lips, looks up at me. “I swear, as soon as I’m healed, you are totally getting a handy.”

“I can give myself handies, Lane. This,”—I point to her tray of sugar—“totally earned me a blowy.”

“You’re such a dork.”

“Will you at least let me shower with you?”

“You just had a shower.”

“But not with you.”

“Luke…” She drops her Pop Tart on the tray. “I have to shower without the dressing and—”

“And I’ve seen your wounds,” I tell her.

“But not lately and they’re all oozy and gross.”

“Did you miss the part where I told you I love you?”

She sighs. Concedes. I win.

And just FYI, fooling around in a shower is fucking rad.

When we leave for Laney’s rehab, Dad and Lachlan (dressed in a police costume) are waiting outside the cabin. “What are you doing, Lachy?” I ask, holding the door open for Lane to hobble through.

Dad answers for him. “He wants to do a sweep of the property, make sure no baddies have been here.”

“So cute,” Lane says.

I leave the door open for him, tell him to go for it.

Dad says, “Thought we’d swap trucks for a while. Mine’s got the bench seat in case Lane needs to have her leg elevated.”

“So thoughtful,” she says, going over to him. She tries to kiss his cheek, but he’s too tall and Dad laughs, bends at the knees so she can give him what she wants.

“Good luck,” he tells her. To me, he says, “Drive safe. Precious cargo.”

The rehab facility is more like a five-star hotel, and Laney doesn’t stop looking around, touching everything she can reach. Alfie and Roger—the two male doctors in their mid-forties who are assigned to us are also the owners of the place, and they assure us that Laney will be a priority with them. Thank you, Kennedys’ Fuck You money.

The entire appointment is them telling us about Laney’s injuries, going through X-rays and other scans, and then telling us what their plan is. There are two bullets still inside Lane, one near her hip, one in her thigh. They were able to remove the one in her abdomen (goodbye spleen) and the one near her knee, but it’s the aftermath of that last one which will need the most help. The bullet clipped her kneecap, tore through her ACL. “Do we work on it like we would any other ACL injury?” I ask.

“Yes and no,” Alfie says. “It’s going to take a lot longer to rebuild the muscles.”

“Are you familiar with ACL injuries?” Roger asks me.

I tell them, “My buddy tore his last year. He runs long distance so he was out a while.”

“You run track, too?” Alfie asks.

“I used to. In high school.” In another life.

“You joining the team in college?” he asks.

I look over at the X-rays. “So a lot of wading in water initially, getting it used to subtle movement, right?”

“Right,” Roger says. “Do you have access to a pool?”

“We have a lake,” I tell them. “But the wounds are still healing, so I don’t know about lake water. In the meantime, we can use the facilities here?”

“Doctor Lucas Preston,” Laney announces, and the real doctors laugh. Smartass Laney.

In the car on the way home, Laney thanks me for asking all the right questions and knowing what to say. She admits it was all a little overwhelming for her. It was overwhelming for me, too, but while she’s focused on life getting back to normal, I’m just as focused on fixing her.

“Are you looking forward to the tryouts this afternoon, Coach Lucas?” she asks.

“Yeah, it should be good,” I tell her. “You want me to take you home, or you want to come watch?”

“I want to come. Leo’s going to hang with me.”

I watch her from the corner of my eye as she sends a text on her phone, a smile tugging on her lips. “I never really noticed how close you and Leo were.”

She nods, her smile growing when a response comes through.

“Is that him you’re messaging?”

“Yep.”

“Did you guys… I mean not that it matters, but did you ever consider… you know?”

“Dating him?” she asks, all Casual Laney like.

“Yeah.”

“Only to make you jealous. We had it all planned out, but then it got to the part where we had to kiss in front of you, and the thought alone was awkward enough so we vetoed that idea real quick.”