“Hello,” he says. “Can I help you?”

I force a smile. “I’m just here to meet my friend. He gave me the name of the hotel but not the room number.”

The older man raises his brows.

“His name is Nathaniel Alexander.”

He tilts his head to the side and nods. “I’ll ring him, find out if he’s expecting you.”

Shit.

He reaches down and lifts the phone, dialing a number.

“Mr. Alexander, yes, it’s Timothy from reception. I have a young lady here saying that you were expecting her.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“What’s your name, miss?” the man asks, staring at me.

“Avery,” I whisper.

“She said her name is Avery.”

He nods a few times and then says, “Very good.”

He puts the phone down and turns to me. “He’s in room two. Head out the door, turn to your left, and follow the doors down until you see it.”

“Thank you,” I say, turning and rushing out.

I follow his directions until I reach the fading yellow door with a rusty 2 hanging on it. I hesitate with my hand in the air, ready to knock. Have I truly made the right choice coming here? Before I can bring my hand down, the door opens and Nate is standing, looking at me. His eyes widen when he takes in my expression and my damp clothes. I know I must look like hell.

“I know you don’t really want to see me,” I croak, “but I had nowhere else to go.”

“You’ve been crying,” he says, his voice low and throaty. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of low-hanging sweat pants that are a light grey in color. They hang on his hips in that way.

My lip trembles as memories of this afternoon swell in my mind. “I . . . got news about my mother and I ran out. I didn’t know where else to go.”

He pushes the door further open, his eyes softening. “Come in. Tell me what’s happening.”

I take a step in the room, going to move past him but he stops me with a hand to my upper arm. He closes the door and turns to me, running a finger over my cheek. “You’re freezing, Dancer. Before we do anything, you’re going to shower.”

I nod, too weak to argue.

“I have some clothes you can borrow. Come on.”

He takes my hand, warming it with his larger one, and he leads me to the bathroom. It’s got an older-style shower, with lime-green tiles and a glass door. The towels match the tiles in a really, really bad way. Nate watches me, his eyes worried as I slowly pull my shirt off.

“You going to be okay?”

I nod, not lifting my eyes from the floor.

“Shit, Dancer,” he says, stepping in closer and putting his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to look up at him. “You’re scarin’ me.”

“They can’t be right about her, Nate. If they’re right about her then everything I ever believed was wrong,” I croak.

He runs his thumb over a tear that slips out. “Your perception of someone is just that: yours. What you believe can only be changed if you let it.”

I close my eyes and nod, turning my cheek into his hand.

“Shower, honey,” he murmurs. “Then we’ll talk.”

He drops his hands and turns, leaving me to shower alone and in peace. I’m so grateful for him in this moment.

So grateful.

~*~*~*~

NATE

She looks like hell. She’s sitting on my couch wearing one of my long, black Cubs shirts. She’s got her knees tucked up to her chest, her arms firmly wrapped around them. Her hair is damp still and she hasn’t yet brushed it, so it matts around her face. Even like this, she’s still breathtakingly beautiful.

“Tell me what happened,” I say, my voice as affectionate as I can make it.

She doesn’t lift her head when I speak, but she begins talking in a low, soft tone. “Max said they found another lead. He said there was a hotel owner that came into the mix and gave them the name of a man who used to stay there often. This man was seen with my mother a few times. Max contacted him and he said . . .” She takes a shaky breath. “He said they were having an affair, that they were going to run away together but she suddenly went missing.”

“Oh, baby,” I murmur, my heart breaking for her.

She begins to cry again, her tiny body shaking. “It can’t be right, Nate. She was so pure, so perfect. She loved us, loved my dad; there wasn’t a time she wasn’t full of smiles and laughter. How could she have been having an affair when she was so happy?”

“People can pretend,” I say carefully. “A smile can cover so much pain.”

She looks up at me with tears sliding down her cheeks. “But her smile was so real, so beautiful - so amazing. I just can’t believe it wasn’t right. I can’t sleep at night thinking she might have been slowly dying behind it.”

“Whatever was happening between your father and your mother wouldn’t take away from the fact that she adored you and Liam. The smiles she gave you, the happiness she shared with you—that was all real, Avery.”

“How would you know?” she croaks.

“Because I give Macy the smiles that are real, the love that’s real. I give her everything I don’t give Lena.”

She stares at me for the longest time, her eyes searching my face. “Can you tell me she was truly happy? That is was possible for it to have been real?”