Page 12 of Just One Kiss

This was why she’d handled their arrangements regarding Jaden via phone or text, doing everything she could to avoid this exact moment.

The moment her body responded to being in close proximity to the person who’d simultaneously given her the best gift she could’ve ever gotten and destroyed so much of her life.

Because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, a part of her was still horribly attracted to Josh. She told herself it was the stupid part and begged her heart to get with the program, but as her pulse quickened and her palms turned clammy she realized she was still powerless where he was concerned.

And powerless wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed. It ranked right up there with “out of control.” Josh had always cast a sort of spell over her—she thought sixteen years would’ve been enough to break that spell, but as she stood there, unmoving, she wasn’t so sure.

Quickly, she steeled her resolve against him. Josh had no right to her heart, her emotions, or her physical attraction.

“You okay?” He closed the door and walked into the room, standing only a few feet away.

She nodded, but it was a lie. She wasn’t okay. But she’d been pretending she was okay for years, so why should today be any different?

“What are they saying?”

Carly still felt like she was living someone else’s life. She never would’ve thought that her strong, healthy son would need tests to see if something was wrong with his heart. How did this happen?

“They’re running some tests,” she said lamely.

“Everyone keeps saying that.” Josh raked a hand through his hair and sighed, eyes flashing confusion. “Can you explain it to me? I don’t even know what happened.”

Carly relayed what she knew. He’d been on the float in the Memorial Day parade. He’d fainted, which led to him falling off the float and onto the ground.

“The fall didn’t hurt him,” she explained. “But they want to know what caused him to pass out in the first place.”

Josh frowned. “The heat? Dehydration?”

Carly shook her head. “They checked his protein levels and made sure he was properly hydrated. Then they took him away for an EKG and I think a stress test. I don’t know, they haven’t told me everything.”

Josh sat in one of the chairs near the end of the bed. “What are they looking for?”

She was a nurse. She was supposed to have answers to these kinds of questions, but the truth was, she didn’t want to think about the possibilities. A heart condition could be serious—really serious—and this wasn’t some stranger who’d just become a patient. This was her son.

Her mind spun with medical jargon and statistics and numbers and platitudes, but nothing comforted her. Not when there was even the slightest possibility that something might be truly wrong with Jaden.

She folded her arms around herself and avoided Josh’s eyes.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Josh said. “I’m sure he’s going to be fine. I mean, he’s a perfectly healthy, active kid.”

Why did his certainty irritate her? Because he couldn’t possibly know that to be true or because she couldn’t muster the same assurances on her own?

“Carly?”

“He told the doctor he’d been having some dizziness,” she said. “That he sometimes gets winded when he’s training.”

“That’s weird.” His shoulders slumped. “You didn’t know about this?”

Why did it sound like an accusation?

But truth be told, it was the same question she was asking herself. How was it that she didn’t know about Jaden’s symptoms? She was a nurse. Was she simply not paying attention? But this question also irritated her—what right did he have to question her about anything?

“He’s sixteen, Josh. I can’t be with him all the time,” she said. And not kindly.

He held up his hands as if that would calm her down. “I’m sure he wasn’t in a hurry to share any of that with you.”

She looked away, still annoyed. “No, he wasn’t. And he certainly didn’t want to share the fact that he’d fainted one other time, a few weeks ago.”

“You just found that out too?”

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