“That’s a lot,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“I’m just gonna say now, before we end this, I know I’m not going to be able to take that away. That hurt. The anger. I’ve never lost anyone close, but I had a friend who had a girlfriend get really sick suddenly, and she didn’t make it, and my friend still isn’t the same. Grief isn’t a journey to getting over it or getting past it. It’s about adjusting your life to accommodate it. So I’m here to help you with that or just,” I shrugged against the bed, “to listen.”

Boone stared down at me and he did this so long, it began to freak me.

“Or, maybe you can get over it,” I said quickly. “Maybe—”

“Quiet, Rynnie,” he whispered.

I shut my mouth.

“I never thought of it like that,” he told me.

“Oh,” I replied stupidly.

“I thought one day I’d just get what he did, and understanding would make it right in my head. Or I’d wake up and be on the other side of it and it would just be another thing that happened in life.”

“Well, I don’t have personal experience, Boone, but I don’t think it happens that way.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, clearly shaken by the epiphany I’d led him to.

I considered not saying what I wanted to say next, but since we were here, and Boone wasn’t shutting it down, I went for it.

“And I don’t want to get too deep into the philosophy of suicide, but only Jeb knew where he was at. And I hope at least you can find your way past the anger you have at him for what he did, even if it’s shifting it to anger at a system that failed him.”

At these words, all of a sudden, he rolled to his back, taking me with him so I knew he wasn’t upset about what I said. And I knew it more by how tight he was holding me against him.

“Boone,” I semi-wheezed, lifting my head to look down on him.

He took some of the pressure off.

I barely felt it when I saw what was in his green eyes.

Yeah, I was leading my man to a number of epiphanies that morning.

“Only Jeb knew where he was at,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“I hate that he was at that place,” he told me.

At the tone of his voice, I felt tears I did not try to fight wet my eyes, and I lifted my hand to stroke his jaw.

“I hate it too, and I didn’t even know him.”

“He would have loved you, Rynnie. Just loved you for you, but also for me.”

I loved he thought that.

A tear fell over and slid down my cheek. “I’m glad.”

Boone lifted his hand and swept the wet away with his thumb.

Then he focused on my eyes, not my cheek, and admitted, “You have these really shitty thoughts that you feel like a total dick for having, about how selfish someone is who does that, seeing what they left behind and not understanding why they didn’t get that. It never occurred to me, not once, Ryn, to think where he was at. Not where he left us. But where he was. I didn’t think once about my friend who was in pain.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

“And that’s really it, my friend was in pain in a way he had to end that pain and I hate that he was in that much pain, and I wish there was another way he could find his way out of it, but it’s not my choice how he dealt with it.”

I nodded again.

“So, even though I promise you my parents aren’t, I guess with this, I was being judgmental.”

“No,” I refuted. “You were just grieving.”

His eyes sparked before he framed my face in both hands, and said, unbearably sweet, “Thank you, baby.”

I gave him a shaky grin.

For comfort, I had to shift my hands from his jaw when his brought my face down to him and he pressed his mouth hard against mine.

When he pushed me gently away, he asked, “You good to get out of the heavy?”

“Only if you are.”

“I am.”

I nodded again.

Boone did another surge, this time to roll us out of the bed.

We held hands as he guided me to the bathroom.

And there, he loaded my toothbrush for me.

Chapter Nineteen

Meet the Parents

Ryn

It was Friday.

The day of doom.

Boone was right then picking his parents up from the airport.

He was going to check them in to their hotel, then for a drink and some catching-up time, just mother, father and son.

And Mag was dropping me off for dinner with them in a couple of hours, after we stopped by Boone’s place so I could unload my stuff.

I was in my bedroom, packing my bag for the weekend, Pepper and Evie lazing on my bed with Juno.

Mag was in my living room, avoiding any further girlie time like the plague.

Even though Lottie and Mo offered to let me stay with them for the weekend so Boone could have some one-on-one (on-one) time with his folks (and I might get a break), Boone had decreed we weren’t changing how we did things because his parents were around.

I was sleeping in his bed.

And we were spending our weekend together (just for a lot of the time, with his parents).

I could have fought this. I knew Boone would have given in. I knew he didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.

But after that convo about Jeb, even if I had to do it around his parents, it was important to me to stay close to my guy to keep my finger on his pulse.

Boone had come to terms with some things, but I knew with my realizations about how deeply my father had affected my life (and I didn’t know it), understanding it didn’t mean you were beyond it.

Especially not the “it” Boone was dealing with.

I was nervous because Boone really loved his folks, and so I needed them to love me.

I was also not in a good space because, in her daily check-in call, I’d also told Mom Boone’s folks were coming to town, and I was meeting them.

She didn’t say anything outright, but I could tell she was hurt that she lived in Denver, and she was sensing he was important to me in a way that he’d be important to her, and she hadn’t met him yet.

And they lived in Pennsylvania, and I was meeting them.

Honestly, we should have figured out how to let Mom meet Boone that would be safe for her.

But I was so in my happy, I-finally-found-the-best-guy-ever daze, okay, it didn’t say much about me as a daughter, but it didn’t occur to me.

So I was nervous, about to meet the parents and then there was all of that.

I already had a lot of stuff over at Boone’s.

But I was packing because I’d just hauled my girls’ asses (plus Mag’s, hence him in the living room, as far away from us as he could get) through Flatiron Crossing mall on a whirlwind shopping spree where I’d spent far too much money.

And now—even though I had a house I had to invest in, a mortgage on that house, rent I was paying on a pad where I hadn’t slept in weeks, and a job I was on hiatus from (though, with pay, but Smithie couldn’t do that forever, because I wouldn’t let him, and this Brett/Dirty Cop sitch seemed like it was going to take that long to sort out)—every outfit, including undies, shoes and handbags, was brand-new for my weekend Meet the Parents.