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I can’t live with my parents, I can’t work for them, I can’t grovel to them.

My excitement about the aquarium job was never really about the fish, beautiful and interesting as they are.

No, it was about freedom and holding on to my dignity, knowing I’d never have to rely on my parents.

I need a job to get me through this summer; then I’ll have nine months to figure out how to build myself a life independent of them, their money, and their control.

I have to get free, no matter what it takes.

I glance back at the classified ad and dial the number.

“All went perfectly,” Dr. Halpert tells me a couple of hours later. “Couldn’t have been better. You can tell him I said so.”

He runs down a brief list of aftercare instructions, reassuring me the nurse will go over it all again in more detail, double-checks that I have his cell phone number, and then he’s off, his white coat flapping behind him.

I text Gina to let her know everything went well, and a nurse brings me back to a recovery area that smells of citrus and peroxide.

“He might be a little loopy as he wakes up,” the nurse warns me. “It’ll pass.”

Lorenzo is stirring, but it takes a few minutes before he opens his eyes. He blinks a couple of times but doesn’t seem to notice me sitting next to the bed.

“Hey, L,” I say softly, placing my hand on his arm.

He turns to me. “Hey.” His voice is gravelly. “You came.”

He’s cute when he’s confused. “Yeah, I’ve been here all morning, remember?”

He hesitates. “No.”

I smile. “That’s okay. Dr. Halpert says everything went perfectly. You’re going to be feeling great pretty soon.”

“I feel pretty fucking great right now,” he says, a languid grin taking over his face. He closes his eyes, the smile fixed in place.

I like Lorenzo when he’s high , I think guiltily.

He’s grown so uptight in the last few years, not that I blame him.

But this reminds me of how he used to be back when we were teens.

Before the accident, Lorenzo made everything fun.

Too fun, I can imagine him saying with regret in his eyes. He doesn’t let himself do that anymore.

I shift in my chair to grab my phone from my purse, and Lorenzo’s eyes open.

He reaches over, his hand finding my knee. “Don’t leave.”

My heart tugs. “I’m not. I’m right here.”

With some effort, he turns his head to look at me straight on.

His eyes are round and not quite clear, and I wonder whether he’s even seeing me at all.

He’s looking at me like he wants to say something, so I offer an encouraging smile.

But he gives a little shake of his head and turns back, closing his eyes again.

I settle in my chair, wondering how long it’ll be until he’s lucid enough to be released.

I have a slow-cooker chicken stock simmering away in Lorenzo’s kitchen, and I’m eager to turn it into a nice soup in time for dinner.

A fresh baguette from the French bakery would pair perfectly, but Lorenzo’s raspy voice reminds me he’s been intubated and crusty bread probably isn’t on the menu yet.

Lorenzo’s fingers twitch, his hand still on my bare knee. And even though I sort of like it, I move his fingers gently so they rest against mine. He’d never leave his hand on my leg like that in a normal state.

“Ruby?” Lorenzo’s eyes are still closed.

“Yes?”

“Do you ever think about us?”

My breath hitches. “What?” Surely I misheard him.

“Do you ever think about us ?”

Nope, I didn’t mishear. He actually said “us.” Us. What an incredibly loaded word. Us the friends? Or us the other thing we’ve never let ourselves be? He can’t mean it like that.

“Yeah, like that,” he says like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “That’s what I mean.”

My heart pounds. Honest answer to his question? I try really hard not to. But I find myself giving him no answer at all.

“Because I do.” He opens his eyes and blinks down at his lap.

I’m still as a statue. “Okay,” I say idiotically.

“I mean, look at us. Look at you .” He turns toward me, a smile playing at his lips. “You’re my best friend. You’ve had my back since I was eight years old. And you’re a knockout.”

I hope he’s too bleary-eyed to see color, because even in my mouth-agape, shocked state, I know I’m blushing madly.

“I don’t know, Lorenzo,” I say meaninglessly.

My pulse beats in a panicked rhythm. I was prepared to play nurse today.

I was even, in some small way, prepared to never see my best friend again.

But I was not prepared for him to tell me this.

“So think about it,” he says like he’s asking where I want to eat for lunch. “We should just give it a shot.”

If I didn’t think about everything else—our friendship, our families, our diverging futures—and said what was in my heart, “yes” would have already left my lips.

But I have to think about those things, because I don’t trust myself around Lorenzo if I don’t have careful control over my deepest feelings for him.

I nod, but now he’s smiling openly, and I don’t know what to make of that. Does he mean any of this? Does he even know what he’s saying? He can’t. After thirteen years of friendship, you don’t say something like that with a stupid grin on your face.

The curtain tugs open and the nurse from earlier appears. “How we doing, hon?”

“Great!” Lorenzo offers, giving her the A-OK sign and looking slightly deranged at it.

The nurse winks at me. “I’ll be back. Shouldn’t be too much longer before he’s feeling like himself again and we get you out of here.”

As I turn back to Lorenzo, my stomach feels like it’s grinding against itself with nerves.

I expect to see him watching me, waiting for an answer, but he’s blinking drowsily at the wall.

I wait, praying he won’t say anything else about “us,” only to find a strange sense of disappointment when he doesn’t.

His mind seems to have moved on from that sentimental place.

When he closes his eyes, I do what I trained myself long ago not to do. Just for a minute, I take in how gorgeous he is.

Lorenzo was born for the label “tall, dark, and handsome.” Even in the midst of Shafer’s long Midwestern winters, his olive skin makes him look like he just came back from a week on the Mediterranean coast, and his dark eyes give his glossy black hair a run for its tousled money.

My gaze settles on his mouth. Long ago I learned how to tamp down my jealousy over the girls Lorenzo dated, but I never figured out how to stop the flare of envy that arose when I saw him kiss them.

His lips were the one part of him those girls had that I never did.

Well, maybe not the only part.

My eyes drift down to his body. Even under the thick, shapeless cotton of his hospital gown, it’s obvious he’s ripped.

I look at his hand and quickly look away when I’m hit by the pulsing memory of that hand wrapped around his cock in the shower.

Heat creeps over me from guilt and something else I don’t want to name.

I force my eyes back to the safety of his face.

In sleep, Lorenzo has a baby-faced quality that disappears when he opens his eyes.

It’s so hard not to stare. I let myself for a few seconds, lingering on the scar that slashes his right brow in half.

The scar he got running to me. I turn my gaze toward the window.

Enough. I can’t indulge this any longer.

I also can’t get his question out of my head.

When the nurse returns some thirty minutes later, Lorenzo is perked up and talking about food like our earlier conversation never happened.

“Here’s your eviction notice,” she says, handing me a packet of papers with Lorenzo’s aftercare instructions. She runs through them with me and then turns to Lorenzo. “Time to get dressed, handsome, you’re on your way home.”

I stand. “I’ll pull the car up.”

“He’s going to need a hand, honey.” The nurse holds up the plastic bag containing Lorenzo’s street clothes. “I’m sure he’d rather you than me.”

“Oh. No, see, I’m not his?—”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Lorenzo offers. He says this like he’s done it a thousand times, which he has.

The nurse looks between us, a sassy glint in her eyes. “That’s not your girlfriend?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then you’re a fool.” She chuckles.

If Lorenzo remembered what he’d said about us thirty minutes ago, it would be the perfect moment for him to toss me one of those secret knowing looks he’s so good at.

I watch him as I reach for my bag, giving him an extra few seconds because I know his brain is processing at half speed.

But he never looks at me. I pull the curtain aside and head for the parking lot, leaving the nurse to dress my patient.