I had spent those two hours making plans—plans I should have made a long time ago. Plans that ripped me open. Plans that had meant unplanning big portions of my life. For him.

Plans, I knew, that might leave me bitter with him in five, or ten, or twenty years.

Plans to cancel myself so I could help him.

When Knight opened his eyes, he closed them again as soon as I came into view. He put his big paws on his face, half-laughing and half-wincing.

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“I’ve really screwed it up this time, haven’t I?”

“Seems that way.”

“How’s Mom?”

I loved that he cared more about Rosie than himself. At his core, Knight was inherently unselfish.

“Same,” I said softly. “I just came back from checking on her. Everyone’s there.”

“Do they know about this?” He opened his eyes again, motioning with his finger to his hospital bed.

I shook my head, running my hand over his high cheekbone.

He took a deep, relieved breath and nodded. “What time is it?”

To grow up, Knight. To collect the pieces of your broken spirit and patch them up for your family. For yourself. For me.

“Ten at night. How are you feeling?”

“Never been better.”

I chucked his nose, leaning back.

He gave me a lazy, dark smirk, reaching for the collar of my shirt and yanking me so we were face to face. Half-dead and hospitalized or not, Knight Jameson Cole looked like every girl’s wet dream and her daddy’s nightmare.

“I’m hard.”

“Stop it.” I pulled away, standing up. “Stop pretending everything is okay when it is so unbelievably not.”

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t touch him. Hug him. Break down because he was alive, and lucky. So very lucky.

I needed to make a point, and it was high time I did, before he joined his mother in an early grave. It was going to be the hardest, most selfless thing I’d ever had to do, but it was far more important than entertaining my romantic dreams.

Every day of my life, since the moment I’d laid eyes on this broken, beautiful boy, I had dreamed of him being mine. And now that he was, I had to let him go.

“I’m leaving you.”

He rolled his head on the pillow to catch my gaze. He answered by ignoring me, yanking the IV from his vein and tossing it on the floor indifferently. I winced.

Dixie was outside, making calls to her family in Dallas, giving them updates about her son they didn’t know but apparently deeply cared for—the same son who wanted nothing to do with her.

Knight next ripped his hospital gown from his broad pecs, getting ready to stand up.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Chasing you,” he said tiredly, swinging his legs to the side of the bed, his feet hitting the floor. He looked like death—exhausted and pale, a far cry from his usual self. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Luna? I always have to fight for you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want that now. You don’t understand, Knight. It’s over.”

Now he looked at me with different eyes. Darker. The air shifted, moved differently in the room. It bunched around my neck. I couldn’t breathe.

“For real?” His voice leaked pain and apathy.

That’s when I knew this was the right decision. He was close to giving up. I couldn’t let him.

“For real.”

“You can’t do this to me,” he said emotionlessly, stating a fact. “My mother is dying.”

“I’m not bailing on our friendship; I’m breaking up with you. I will still be here for you every day. I dropped out of my semester to stay here as long as you need me.”

I looked away so he couldn’t see how sad that made me. Because it did. Boon had changed me, and I was walking away from my growth, from my own accomplishments.

But wasn’t that exactly what he’d done for me all these years?

Missing football practices when I needed someone to hold my hand.

Sitting with me in the cafeteria, snubbing the rest of his friends, even though he knew he’d get shit for it.

Staying a virgin, and inexperienced, waiting for me to open my eyes, my heart, and—finally—my legs for him.

He’d given so much to me over the years. The least I could do was repay him with the same token. But not at the cost of watching him waste away. Not that.

“I told you I will not tolerate this behavior, Knight, and I won’t. I made a promise to your mother to take care of you. This is my way of taking care of you. This is your wake-up call.”

“You’re the only thing I have left.”

“You have your family.”

He looked away, his silence speaking for him.

“You have us, your friends. Vaughn. Hunter. You have Dixie,” I pressed.

His head snapped up, his thick eyebrows furrowing over his thunderous eyes. “I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do,” I cut him off sharply. “You do need her. She saved you. Twice.”

Dixie had told me about his meltdown at the beach the other day. Knight was obviously spiraling, and it was hard to watch. He needed some tough love, even amidst all the pain and anguish. He had to understand he couldn’t get away with self-destructing.

“So, you’re team Dixie.” He smiled acidly.

“I’m team Knight, and Dixie is on the same team, so I play nice.” I slapped the wall, losing patience.

If someone had told me last year that I’d be the one to save Knight Cole and not the other way around, I’d have laughed in their face. He was so formidable. Untouchable. Powerful. Yet, here he was, small and lost and in real danger.

“I don’t want her on my team,” he seethed.

“You’re not the coach. You don’t get to make that decision.” I shook my head.

“Who is? Who is the coach?”

I knew the answer to that question, but it wasn’t my answer to give.

I took a step forward and scooped his hand in mine. It was heavy and big. I couldn’t believe these hands weren’t going to touch and caress and pleasure me any time soon. Maybe not ever. I hoped to hell the plan was going to work, because there was a lot at stake.

Two hearts, two lives, and too many missed opportunities.

“I can’t live without you,” he croaked, flipping my palm so it faced him and putting it to his lips, tracing every line inside it with his hot mouth.

“So don’t.”

“But I also can’t contain all this pain, Moonshine.” He let out a desperate breath.

I stared at him boldly, perhaps more courageously than I ever had before. I could feel the strength oozing from me.

“Then let me carry some of it, too.”

It was just a simple white gown.

“A long, satin chemise,” Aunt Emilia had called it.

Like I had any goddamn clue what the fuck that was supposed to mean.

I stared at it, hung alone in an entirely empty section of the massive walk-in closet my father had built for my mother with his own hands, even though she was never big on clothes.

“Get her the white gown. It’s her favorite. She picked it exactly for this occasion,” Aunt Em had said to me.