by Shen, L. J.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Her posture was bowed, defeated. Like a wilted flower.
“I’m the girlfriend,” I said breathlessly, sticking my hand in her direction.
“I’m…” she started, biting down on her full lip.
Lips. That’s what Knight had inherited from her. Her luscious, round Cupid lips.
“I don’t know what I am to him.” She put her fist to her mouth, trying to swallow back a sob.
Without meaning to—and perhaps without wanting to, either—I wrapped my arms around her. Having the person who’d brought Knight into this world at my fingertips overwhelmed me with gratitude. As far as I was concerned, she was an ally, even if Knight didn’t see her as one. She’d brought him here, hadn’t she? That was enough for me to give her a chance.
“Dixie.” She sniffed, trying to gather herself together. “I’m Dixie.”
“Where did you find him? Did he call you?”
It made sense. He wouldn’t have wanted to call anyone else with what they were going through with his mom, but Dixie wasn’t wrapped up in that sorrow.
I put my hand on her shoulder and ushered her to the folding chairs lined up against the wall. We both took a seat. Silent tears slid over her cheeks.
“No.”
“No?” I slid my hand from her shoulder to her back, rubbing it. By the way she collapsed against my hand—sobbing harder, yet somehow more silently—I gathered she hadn’t been touched by another human in a long time. A very long time.
“You can tell me,” I whispered.
“This is going to sound crazy to you, probably, but I followed him.”
She pressed a tattered piece of tissue to her nose. Parts of it snowed down to her lap.
“I’ve been following him around for a while—only when he’s alone. Never when he’s with you or with his family and friends. I’m so sorry. I know it’s wrong. But I’m worried. So worried. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I left my job—I’m a secretary in my father’s company—and I’ve been living in a hotel off the promenade for months now. Knight’s been drinking and popping pills every day. He is not okay. He needs help.”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I knew Knight had been drinking heavily, but judging by what it had come to, I’d mistaken the severity of the issue. I’d chalked it up to stress from Rosie’s situation escalating. He’d always been eccentric and moody. He was a goddamn teenager, for fuck’s sake. Knight was also good at hiding his vulnerability behind his nonchalant smirk and herculean frame.
“So after you dropped him off at his house—God, I sound pathetic,” Dixie said.
“Please continue.”
To me, it didn’t sound crazy at all. He’d rejected her, but she couldn’t let go. I knew what that felt like, because the same thing had happened to me with Val, but in reverse. If I could’ve followed Val around the world like a lovesick puppy, I would have. If I could have prevented her death, her addiction, nothing would have stopped me.
“Well, after you left, a Mercedes pulled up at the Coles’. Two big guys with gold chains came out. Knight met them at the door. They talked for a minute; then they handed him a small paper bag. When the guys left, I waited for Knight to come out, but he never did. I started calling him. He didn’t answer, which wasn’t out of character for my so…for Knight,” she amended, shaking her head. “But I had a really bad feeling. Call it a mother’s intuition, although if he ever heard me say that, he’d laugh in my face.”
She threw her head back, staring at the ceiling. “The door was unlocked,” she explained. “And I…and I…”
She’d walked in.
This was El Dorado, on a cul-de-sac where everybody knew everybody. Of course the door wasn’t locked. Our parents only locked the doors at nighttime.
“It’s a gated community. How’d you get in?” I scrunched my nose.
“Someone put me on the list.”
“Who?” I pressed.
She looked away, shaking her head.
“I found him lying in a pool of his own vomit in the living room, unconscious. I called nine-one-one, flipped him over, and followed the ambulance with my car. It’s been forty minutes since he got to this room, and they’re not telling me anything. I’m scared for my baby.”
She clutched the tissue in her fist, pressing it to her heart. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if something happens to him.”
“You did the right thing.” I squeezed her thigh, trying to swallow and push the ball of emotion down my throat.
“Thank you, Moonshine. You’ve got such a pretty name. Very unique.”
Blinking at her for a beat, I proceeded to burst out laughing. In the hospital. In the middle of a double-Cole tragedy. Guess it’s true that human nature is programmed to fight. And laughter is the best medicine for almost every problem.
“Luna,” I corrected. “My name is Luna. Knight’s the only one who calls me Moonshine.”
She gave me a tired smile. “Despite everything, it’s nice to meet you, Luna.”
Two hours later, I sat in front of Knight, who lay in a hospital bed just a few hundred feet away from his dying mother.
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 s
aid 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.
Like the occasion was a wedding or someone’s bar mitzvah. The detail to which my mother had gone to plan her own death made me sick to my stomach.
Frazzled, I reached for the hanger. My fingers were shaky. Withdrawal was a bitch even though they’d kept me in the hospital a few days and given me a ton of shit to help wean me off all the crap in my system.
I’d had every single goddamn symptom in the book—shaky hands, fever, sleepless nights, and blood pressure so low, it’d make a thrice-dead corpse proud. I was still taking medication that was supposed to help, and Dad had slapped me with a twice-a-week therapist for coping, maintenance, and all the other bullshit.
I’d hated every single part of my existence during those days in the hospital—especially because it kept me away from Mom. But I also finally knew I had no choice. There were so many things on the line. My family. Luna. My friends. Oh, also, my fucking existence.
So, I hadn’t sipped a drop of alcohol in six days—this was my seventh. Pills were out of the question, too. Only reason I hadn’t had a seizure and died from the abrupt cut off was, I suspected, that I wasn’t asshole enough to steal Mom’s thunder.
After I was discharged from the hospital, Luna and Vaughn had walked into my house, emptied the alcohol shelves and medicine cabinets, and then proceeded to empty all the mouthwash bottles and throw them in the trash. They’d concluded by double-locking the wine cellar downstairs. Vaughn had installed the second lock and did a jacked-up job, too. My dad was going to kill him for chipping both the door and the frame when he was finally in a mood to pay attention to anything that wasn’t Mom.
Which, let’s be honest, wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
On the third try, I managed to snag the dress from the hanger. Instead of bringing it straight to Dad, who was to help her into it, I just clutched it between my fingers, staring.
I needed a few more moments in this room, knowing what was about to happen next was going to put everything in motion and change my life forever.
My mother was downstairs, getting ready for her bath. She was back home. She was awake. After a week of back and forth, Dad had made the decision to take her out of her chemically induced coma so she could say goodbye. He’d made it clear—after fighting with the entire hospital staff and having Vicious, Trent, and Jaime walking the corridor with a harem of lawyers—that my mother was going to go peacefully, as she wished.
At home.
In her favorite white gown.
Surrounded by her loved ones.
And only after saying goodbye to each of us, personally.
I knew why Dad had given me the task of bringing the gown. He could have asked anyone. Like Emilia, who was so good at being practical and moving things around. Or Luna, who’d stepped up and was resilient, quiet, and determined to help. He could have asked Edie, or Melody, or any of his friends. But he’d asked me.
He wanted me to be a part of this.
The second man of the house.
I brought the gown to my nose, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply. It smelled like Mom—freshly baked goods, vanilla, citrus shampoo, and her sweet, natural scent.
Shuddering, I stepped back, opened the door, and stepped out of the walk-in closet, fingering the wood of the doorframe. I paused when I felt the uneven surface under my fingertips and looked sideways, frowning.
Carved on the dark wood, sloppily, like it was done with car keys, were the words that had kept me from drinking myself to death for the past six days. The words I couldn’t bear not hea
ring Luna say again.
Ride or die.
I’d once asked my sister, Emilia, what it felt like.
To be normal. To be healthy. To be genetically privileged.
She’d said, “Days tick by, as you expect them to. Like fanning pages in a calendar. You make plans. Sometimes you forget them. Sometimes you keep them. Sometimes cancel them. But you never doubt you can make them. You let things—mundane things, like bad traffic or getting caught in the pouring rain or rude, inconsiderate people—ruin your day, not realizing how precious said day is. How unique. How this day will never come again. No day will look quite like it. And that’s how you look back, years after, wondering where all the time went.”
When she saw what was on my face, though, she’d added quickly, “But I learned a long time ago that maybe a reminder of the fact that we aren’t here forever is exactly what we need to make the most out of life. And I learned that because of you.”
This was why I’d decided to adopt my beautiful son.
To bring my younger son into the world.
To get married. To start a family. To love hard. Fiercely. With abandon.
This is why I never denied myself anything I wanted. Not only was life too short, but I wanted my beautiful family to remember that, too.
Plenty of times I’d wondered if I was selfish to have a family.
But was breaking Dean’s heart and walking away from him the selfless thing to do? I didn’t think so. I knew in my heart that Dean would be miserable as long as I was alive and away from him. Just like he had been until we got together.
Was not adopting Knight going to help him? What if he’d ended up handed over from family to family in the foster care system? What if he’d been given to a family that didn’t give him all he deserved? I knew I would be the best mother for him. And what if Dixie had been forced to keep him somehow, when she wasn’t equipped, nor in the right emotional place to care for her child?
As for Levy, he was a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t been expecting him, didn’t think I could ever get pregnant. But once I’d found out I was, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. He was the most precious gift, and loved beyond words and actions.