Page 83 of One Spicy Summer

The gun.

The shot.

Simon, gone.

Keifer, aiming at me.

“Why aren’t I dead?” I whisper.

Rygaard stands, placing his hand gently over my heart.

“Your heart,” he says, “isn’t where it’s supposed to be. You were born with a defect. Your heart is here,” he says, moving his hand slightly to the left.

Confusion swirls in my mind.

“How, ”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. But thank God. Otherwise you’d be gone. And that’s not something I could survive.”

Then he leans in and kisses me.

Soft. Fierce. Desperate.

Everything melts away, the fear, the pain, the past.

There is only us.

When he finally pulls away, he chuckles, brushing his forehead against mine. “I’ve waited a lifetime to do that.”

“Don’t make me wait another,” I whisper, smiling through the tears. “Nothing's the same, Rygaard.”

“Everything’s the same. It only changes if we let it.”

“I don't know what that means. We can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are things about me you don't know. Things you’ll never understand.”

“Try me.”

“Just stop,” I say. “Maybe I don’twantto go back.”

Rygaard sits down heavily beside me, gathering my hand once more. “No. You listen. I fucked up. I let your world collapse. If it takes forever to fix it, I’ll do it.”

I swallow hard.

“Keifer is the reason I lost the baby,” I blurt.

He freezes.

“What?”

“It's a long story,” I say. “Here’s the short version.”

And then, for the first time, I tell him everything.

Chapter Thirty-Five

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