Page 170 of Just This Once

“No,” I gasped.

Alec shook my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “I know you. Once you actually let a person in, they’re safe with you. You’d do anything for them. I’m glad you let her in. Okay? I trust you with her heart.”

Ah fuck. Face heating, I wept bitterly, turning into a sobbing mess.

“I didn’t mean to,” I finally managed to say. “I didn’t mean to fall.”

Alec only smiled through his own tears as if he understood. “Yeah,” he agreed softly. “I didn’t want to like her either. But…” He shrugged helplessly. “It’s Hope. She has a way of pestering you into caring about her.”

I gave a shaky laugh and nodded in agreement. “That ain’t no shit.” But the laugh only turned into a hoarse moan a moment later. “Christ, Younger.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t lose her. I can’t?—”

He leaned closer, and I pressed the side of his face into the side of mine. Around us, the rest of our friends stood in respectful silence, letting us mourn together until the doors opened, and a winded Thane raced into the waiting area.

He skidded to a halt when he reached us, and his gaze stopped solid on me and Alec.

“Oh, God,” he rasped, shaking his head and setting a hand on his brow. “Hope?”

I didn’t even ask how he knew, I just nodded.

Shoulders slumping, he came over and plopped down next to me, and that seemed to let the others know they could swarm in as well. Keene sat on the floor beside Alec, and the rest crowded closer.

“How bad?” Thane asked.

“It’s her liver,” Alec told him. “She needs a re-transplant or she’ll die, probably in the next couple of weeks. Or days.”

Hearing him saydaysmade me suck in a sharp breath and shudder. I closed my eyes and knocked my head back roughly so the pain in the back of my noggin would distract me from the pain in my chest.

Thane smoothed a hand down my arm in support and calmly answered, “But you can donate another sliver, right?” he asked,speaking to Alec. “The last part grew back inside you within a few months after the first time, didn’t it? So you should?—”

“They already told me no,” Alec cut in, his voice dull and lifeless. “I can’t donate twice.”

“Shit,” Thane breathed. “Then what about that big list thing? She’s on a list, right?”

“She’s not far enough up to get one in time.”

“So we’ll find someone else.” Thane’s voice grew determined. “We’ll all get tested. We’ll—we’ll find someone. Right, guys?”

When I opened my eyes, I discovered all our friends nodding their acceptance. “Hell, yeah,” Keene murmured. “I’ll get tested right now.”

Oaklynn clutched Damien’s arm as she spoke for everyone else. “Of course, we will.”

“What does it even take to donate?” Thane asked Younger.

“Uh.” Alec sat up straighter and wiped his face before nodding. “Okay. So you need to be between the ages of eighteen and sixty, have a BMI of less than thirty-two, pass a mental and physical exam,notbe pregnant.” He nodded along with himself as he tried to remember everything. “No chronic infections or cancer or any other malignancies. But the kicker will be compatible blood type. Hope and I have O negative, and the only compatible type for that is another O negative, which covers only like seven percent of the?—”

“O negative?” I uttered, sitting up in surprise. “Are you fucking kidding me?Ihave O negative.”

Alec didn’t seem very encouraged. Wincing at me, he added, “And… You have to be free from substance abuse.”

My eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”

“You’re kind of an alcoholic, Ohrley. Giving her your pickled liver would be like giving her poison.”

“So what?” I argued, growing pissed. “We should just let her die? Fuck that. If I can save her?—”

“But would it really be saving her?” Alec countered. “Or just giving her yet one more liver that’ll crap out in another five years?”

“Then we’ll find her another one in another five years,” I cried, unable to believe this. I couldsaveHope. Why was he arguing with me? “Jesus. I can save hernow.”

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