I drop down into the chair, bringing Sloane’s hand to my forehead. I feel it turn over and she splays her fingers along my cheek, lifting until my eyes meet hers. She’s awake. And her face is shining with love and fear and bravery.

I close my eyes. I can’t look at her, knowing that the doctor might say that this is the beginning of the end. However long it might take for the end to get here, it’s too soon.

“She has the flu.”

My eyes fly open. Sloane’s are wide as they stare into mine. At the same time, we both glance at the doctor.

“What?” she asks quietly, like she might be afraid she heard him wrong.

“You’ve got the flu. We did a nasal swab that tested positive.”

“All this from the flu?”

“Well, you had a very high fever and you were severely dehydrated. So much so that you had a significant electrolyte imbalance. It caused a cascade of other problems, but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“So, she’s not…” Sloane’s father says in an unsteady voice that trails off.

“She’ll be fine, Mr. Locke.”

I see the relief that I feel as it overwhelms him. He slides limply into the other chair at Sloane’s side. “Thank God,” he breathes.

“No wonder I’ve felt like crap for the last few days,” Sloane says.

“You could’ve mentioned that, young lady,” Mr. Locke gripes good-naturedly as he raises his hand to brush Sloane’s hair. “You scared the life out of me.”

Sloane’s brow wrinkles. “You thought…because of Mom…?”

Mr. Locke nods, his eyes still shining. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever lose you, Sloane.”

She reaches up to still his hand, wrapping her fingers around his. “You can’t live afraid like that, Dad. None of us can. If it happens, it happens. The most important thing is to live life the best we can until then. Nobody has the promise of tomorrow. The only thing we can control is living today with no regret.”

“I know, hon, but it’s hard for a parent to do that. I hope one day you’ll understand that.”

“I hope so, too, Dad. But—”

“No buts,” he says with a smile. “We have today. And today you’ve got the flu. The flu we can handle. The flu you can recover from. The flu is…well, the flu,” he declares with a smile. “So, what’s the plan?” he asks the doctor.

“All we can really do is treat the symptoms. If she does well the rest of the night, I’ll think about letting her go home tomorrow. She needs to be taking good care of herself, though. Lots of rest and lots of fluids. Tylenol for the fever. Maybe some chicken broth thrown in there until you feel like eating more. We’ll talk more about that in the morning. How does that sound?”

His smile and demeanor are reassuring. They feel like a cool breeze on a hot day. They ease the ache in my soul, leaving me with only the determination to not lose one more second of time with Sloane. I never want to feel the way I have these last twenty-some hours again. Ever.

Sloane’s right. None of us have the promise of tomorrow, which means I need to start making the best of today. Right now.

“We’ll make sure she gets everything she needs, Doctor,” I say, glancing at Mr. Locke meaningfully before I look back down at Sloane.

He nods. “I’ll let you work out the details then, and I’ll be back in to discuss more in the morning.”

He smiles at Sloane, pats her foot and then makes his exit.

“Come to my house,” I ask, not caring that her father is still here. “Let me take care of you. I want to take care of you.” I see the indecision in her eyes. “Please.”

“But what about work? You can’t just take off to baby me.”

“The hell I can’t! I own the place. I can do whatever I want.”

Sloane looks aggravated for just a second before she sighs and rolls her eyes. “You forgot to mention that little detail. I thought you were just the manager.”

“Nothing but my truth, right?”

Her smile is slow, but it comes. “Right.”

“Then come home with me. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. And probably a lot you don’t.”

Her smile turns soft and she yawns. “Bring it on, big boy,” she says sleepily.

“You got it, little girl,” I whisper, leaning forward to kiss her cheeks and her nose, her chin and her drooping eyelids. “But tonight, you rest. We’ll all be here when you wake up.”

I don’t tell her that, until then, I’ll be planning ways to fill her days with happiness and adoration and every wonderful thing her beautiful mind can ever think of.

If she’ll just say yes.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - Sloane

I wake to the smell of frying bacon. My appetite is coming back and I mentioned last night that bacon sounded good. Hemi wanted to go get some and make it right then, but I was tired, so I told him not to bother. Obviously, he didn’t forget.

He has been absolutely wonderful these last four days.

Although my father wasn’t too happy about me coming home with Hemi, he didn’t put up too much of a fight, which surprised me. It makes me wonder what kind of conversation they had while I was out.

My mouth waters reflexively when another burst of delicious aroma comes wafting into the bedroom. I roll over in bed, sliding my hand over the rumpled sheets where Hemi slept and burying my face in his pillow. I could wake to this every morning for eternity and be the happiest girl on the planet.

I feel the tickle of the sheet receding and I smile into the pillowcase. I don’t move a muscle until I feel Hemi’s lips at the base of my spine. Finally, I turn my head, opening one eye and fixing it on him.

“Good morning,” I mutter.

He smiles warmly at me, his eyes holding mine for a few seconds. Then I see them drop down to where I feel his fingers moving over my hip.

“You ever gonna tell me what this tattoo really means?”

I roll slightly onto my side, exposing more of my h*ps and ribs to Hemi. “Dad told you about me being sick when I was little, didn’t he?”

Even before Hemi nods, I knew what his answer would be.

“I figured.”

“How did you know?”

“You’re treating me like glass, like Dad and my brothers always have. I’m too familiar with it not to notice.”

“I can’t apologize for wanting to take care of you, Sloane. Or for wanting to make sure you’re around for a long time, and that I get to treasure every minute of it with you.”

My stomach leaps at his words. He’s made several references to the future lately. But I don’t want his desire to spend it with me to have been colored by the uncertainty that lies ahead for me.

“I don’t want you to. I’m just saying that I’m familiar with it. That’s all.”

“Just like your dad and your brothers, I do it because I love you.”

I smile. It spreads across my face like the glow that’s spreading through my heart. “I love you, too. That’s why I don’t mind.”

He leans forward and brushes his lips over mine. “I’m glad,” he says. I feel the stir of desire, but I don’t want to act on it just yet. I need to let Hemi get this babying out of his system first. I don’t want him to baby me. I want him to love me and touch me and treat me like someone he wants to live life with, not have to cater to and care for forever. “So, the butterflies…”

“Ever since I was sick, my family, for all intents and purposes, kept me locked away, protected from the world like I was in a big oyster shell,” I explain, reaching down to trace the shell that Hemi inked on my skin all those weeks ago. “But when I turned twenty-one, I drew a line in the sand. I was going to live. Despite my family’s insistence that I have to walk through life like I’m fragile, I was going to live. Like a butterfly, emerging from a cocoon, I was going to spread my wings and live what time I had left flying high, bathed in beautiful colors.” Silently, Hemi touches each butterfly, dancing his way along my ribs. “A butterfly only lives for two weeks, but in those two weeks, they flutter all around, spreading their incredible wings and bringing magnificent color to the world around them. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Just like my mom did, I want to bring happiness and beauty to the world while I’m here. I want to smile and laugh and make a difference to the people I love. I want them to carry those good thoughts of me in their heart long after I’m gone. However long I have, be it two weeks or two years or two decades, I want to really live.”

Hemi says nothing, just nods slowly as he trails his fingertips over my skin.

“I can understand that. Death has a different effect on everyone. Whether it’s because they’ve seen it or they dread it, or that they’re simply ignoring it, everyone reacts. That’s why I got this,” he says, tugging up his shirt on one side so that I can see his tattoo, the one he let me shade for him. “These are my brothers initials and the date that he died. I had a string of wire inked around it each year the date rolled past and I hadn’t found his killer. For me, death put my life on hold. I wasn’t living at all until I met you. You brought color and beauty and life back to me, even when I didn’t know it was missing. I got lost inside these letters. But even so, Ollie was always speaking to me. He’s the one that used to say, ‘Live, no regrets.’ Even in death, he was finding a way to help me get over the loss of him. Over the guilt and the pain and the regret. That’s why I wanted you to do the letters for it. As early as that was, that first night at the hotel, I think some part of me knew that I had to move on or I’d have even more regret. Regret over letting you go. Regret over letting something that I can never change rob me of the only future I’ll ever want now.”

Once more, I feel the twitch of my muscles, reacting to what he sometimes says without coming out and saying.

“I love that philosophy! It’s why I’ve never made promises. We’re humans. Frail and short-sighted. We don’t have the right to make promises we have no way of keeping. Until I met you, I didn’t really want any. No promises meant no regrets. No lies, no broken hearts. But now I see what a promise can mean, what kind of life they have, weaving in and out of the words. Some promises are hope. Like my butterflies were hope.”

Hemi climbs in bed and stretches out beside me, pulling my na**d body close to his and pressing his forehead to mine.

“You are my hope. You are the promise of my future. Without you, I have only regret. Nothing good. Or colorful. Or beautiful. Just death and sadness. You brought me to life, Sloane, and I don’t ever want to be apart from you.”

His lips brush mine, softly, tentatively. Despite my determination to wait, I lean into him, turning my head into the kiss. Hemi is hesitant at first, but when I thread my fingers into his hair, I feel the heat rise in him. I feel it in the way his tongue sweeps over mine. I feel it in the way his fingers dig into my hip. I want to show him I’m not glass. I want him to love me like I’m made of steel.

I reach down to tug at the hem of his shirt, pulling it up until I can feel his warm skin against my na**d breasts. I moan into his mouth as he rolls me onto my back, his h*ps sliding between my legs like he was made to fit there.

I bend my knees and clamp them on either side of his waist, unwilling to let him go now that I’ve got his fire back. He flexes his h*ps and grinds them into mine, giving me friction where I suddenly need it most.

I tear my mouth away from his just long enough to whisper, “Hemi, make love to me.” And then I bring his mouth back to mine, my free hand working its way under the waist band of his jeans to cup his muscular butt.

“Sloane, you’re sick,” he says breathlessly, his palms still roaming up and down my sides, teasing the edges of my breasts.

“I’m not, Hemi. I’m not sick anymore. I feel better. I’m strong. And I’m healthy. And I want you to do to me all the things you promised you’d do.”

He growls, diving back into my mouth with renewed zeal. I can’t help but wonder which vivid conversation he’s thinking back to. We’ve had so many.

But then he stops. I could almost cry when he extricates himself from my arms and legs. I try to hide the pout from my face. Hemi moves to the end of the bed and stands there, looking down at me. He does this for several seconds before he reaches for the button fly of his jeans. He strips them off first, then his shirt, before he crawls back onto the bed, kissing his way from my foot to the top of my thigh, his hot breath stirring me even more.

“Not today. I want to do depraved things to you every day after today. But not today. Today, I’ll make love to you. I want you to feel it every time I slide into your perfect body that I love you. Yesterday. Today. And as many tomorrows as we might have, I love you Sloane. I’ve always loved you. Let me show you with my body what’s been in my heart all this time.”

Hemi kisses me again, his hands travelling over my breasts, teasing my nipples, then down to my stomach and beyond. With his fingers, he brings me right to the edge, but before I fall, he moves over me, guiding his thick head to my entrance.

Looking down at me, his eyes boring holes into mine, Hemi brushes his lips back and forth over my mouth, his breath tickling as he says. “I love you, Sloane Locke.”

“And I love you, Hemi Spencer,” I reply.

With his eyes fixed on mine, Hemi enters me in one smooth motion. I gasp and he groans, the feeling of his body buried in mine nothing less than exquisite. He fills me so completely, fits me so perfectly, that I know it’s meant to be. It’s natural. It’s fated.