Page 201 of Make the Play

I drag in a breath of sandpaper. “You were nearly taken from me. I think I’m allowed a breakdown.”

“Yeah, but”—she shifts slightly on the gurney, lips quirking—“you cry ugly.”

A broken sound escapes my throat. It’s her defense mechanism. Humor sharp enough to deflect anything, even this. Masking pain with sass. And God, it makes me want to both laugh and fucking fall apart, because I know exactly what she’s trying to hold together.

“Seriously,” she says. “There’s a lot of jaw clenching and nostril flaring. Very dramatic.”

“I just beat a man half to death for you,” I rasp. “Let me have this.”

She presses her forehead to mine, voice hitching. “You’re such a lunatic.”

“I’d do it again,” I whisper. “I’ll do it a thousand times if it means keeping you.”

Zoe closes her eyes and for a moment, she’s silent.

“I thought I could handle it alone,” she says, voice cracking. “I thought if I just got the footage and fixed it—”

“You shouldn’t have had to fix anything, baby.”

“I know,” she whispers. “But if I’d seen you too soon, I might’ve just folded.”

I bring our joined hands to my lips. “Fold, then,” I say softly. “Fold with me.”

Her face twists, that brave little mask faltering just for a second.

“Don’t be sweet right now,” she says thickly. “You’re gonna make me cry, and then they’ll give me the victim pamphlet and I’ll have to throw it at someone.”

“I’ll take it for you,” I say, tracing a soft finger down her face. “You can throw it at me. I’ll let you.”

Zoe exhales a breath that trembles at the end. “God, I missed you.”

“I never stop missing you. Ever,” I whisper.

She looks back down at our linked hands.

“I feel like I’m supposed to say something brave right now,” she murmurs. “But I think I left all my fight in that alley.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I say softly.

She swallows hard and nods, her gaze dropping again. A nurse walks past the door, and Zoe tracks the movement, bracing for whatever comes next.

“How long till they discharge me?”

“Soon, I think.”

She nods again, then curls her fingers tighter around mine.

“I just wanna go home,” she says.

I don’t ask where that is, I just hold her hand a little tighter.

“Okay.”

Not a promise or a fix, just a vow to keep following her.

Chapter thirty-nine

You’re just someone worth aching for

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