“Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped,” grumbled Guy from inside the ambulance. I’d been right. He was older and clearly tired of everyone’s bullshit. “We can only advise.”
“I appreciate it,” I told them, looking down at my feet. Feet I wanted to carry me away from all this and back to her. “I do.”
“But you’re not going to listen?” Oscar smiled flatly.
I shook my head, looking up at him again. “No, sir. But thanks all the same.”
He looked ready to argue with me one last time, when a car came screeching to a halt only a few metres away from us. Within seconds, Nina, James, and Lillie hopped out and camerushing towards the ambulance with worry etched in every crease of their expressions.
I glanced at Andy and scowled.
“Sorry.” He wasn’t sorry at all. “I had to tell them. Lillie knew we should have been home ages ago, and what with the storm…” He pushed up from the edge of the ambulance and stepped beside Jace, giving me some room as Nina rushed over, her hands carefully finding my cheeks with a tenderness only a mother could give.
“Oh, my boy,” she cried out, her fingers trembling against my skin. “Look at you. Just look at you.”
“Looks worse than it is,” I assured her, only for Oscar to clear his throat and raise his brows again, giving me one ofthoselooks.
She turned to her actual son, frantically trying to take us all in. “Andy, you sure you’re okay?”
“I told you on the phone, Mum, I’m fine. Better than I should be. But Cohen… he…”
Nina turned to look at Oscar as though seeking out professional opinions instead of those of her son. “What’s wrong with my Henry?”
“Are you his mother?” he asked.
“In theory and in heart, yes.”
“Good. Maybe you can knock some sense into him.” Oscar looked me up and down. “Physically, he’s better than he should be on the outside, but we’ve advised him to go to the hospital, and he’s refusing. Seems to think he knows better than the trained professionals.”
“Snitch,” I pushed out.
He shrugged. “It’s my duty of care not to lie.”
“Henry!” Nina admonished. “What on earth are you thinking?”
“Nina, love,” James said, coming up behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “Give him some room, yeah. He’s a grown man now who can make his own decisions. If Henry says he’s okay, he’s okay. Aren’t you, Henry?” He cast a comforting smile my way, ever the rock of the family, the strong father figure who hadn’t batted an eyelid when Nina had opened up their home and offered to take me in.
“Yeah, I’m?—”
“He’s not okay, Jim. Look at that cut on his head.”
“It’s a graze, that’s all,” I lied.
The two of them discussed my condition among themselves before asking for more advice from Oscar, with grumpy Guy pitching in every now and again, clearly ready to kick me off the ambulance and get back to working on someone who would no doubt appreciate his help.
I appreciated it. I just didn’t need anything but the one person I knew would really make me feel better.
Instead, someone else took Phoebe’s place.
Lillie stepped forward from behind her dad, catching my eye, and the two of us held each other’s gazes without saying a word. I drew a weighted breath into my chest, then released it slowly through my nose as I stared at her, hating the pain I’d caused, hating that I’d dared to ruin what I considered to be family now.
Pushing past her mum and dad, she came to stand in front of me while the others talked among themselves, closer now than we’d been since I broke her heart.
“You’ve taken quite a beating,” she said, as though nobody else stood around us. As though we were an island again, like she’d always wanted us to be.
“I’ve had worse,” I told her, my voice not sounding like my own as I took her in. Lillie’s beauty couldn’t be denied. Her eyes sparkled no matter the circumstances, and she had a hell of a lot of love to give someone good. Someone who saw her and onlyher every time they entered a room full of people. I just couldn’t be that guy—the one she deserved.
“I know you have.” She smiled that sad smile of hers.
