Page 22 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Nineteen

Simone

I should probably talk to Finnegan Gil. Try to appeal to whatever human part of him (if that even exists) and explain—calmly and logically—that this assignment isn’t working. Caring for Keir Timberbridge? Not ideal. Not manageable. Not sane.

It’s killing me slowly and I don’t even know how to stop whatever is gnawing at my insides.

The rest of this crazy operation is easy.

I could run this clinic with one hand tied behind my back and a blindfold on.

But dealing with . . . him? Dealing with my .

. . I snort under my breath. He’s not even my ex.

Not really. Not anything, technically. Keir Timberbridge was a friend who morphed into a habit, then a secret, then something I couldn’t quite name without my voice catching.

He was always clear. He didn’t blur lines—he held them up with neon signs. “This is casual.” “We’re just friends.” “Don’t fucking overthink it, Sims.”

But I did. I overthought everything. And then I didn’t think at all.

I just . . . felt. Like a stupid teenager with a half-formed heart and a whole lot of wishful thinking.

KT, as I used to call him became my first love.

I adored him because he was . . . everything.

The only person who understood me. He protected me and cared for me during those days when my grandparents had been cruel to me.

And here I am. Paying the price for confusing proximity with possibility.

Classic Simone. Maybe it’s the generational trauma.

Perhaps it’s just me, I’m a disaster who now holds a medical degree.

Either way, I’ve made peace with it: if you don’t want to pass it down, don’t have kids.

Or hand them off to someone who won’t screw them up as thoroughly.

Therapist number one thought my solution was .

. . she called me emotionally avoidant. Obviously I fired her after that.

Therapist number two said I was catastrophizing.

Therapist number three hasn’t heard my brilliant theory yet and, if I have my way, she never will.

No point bringing it up only to be told I’m wrong in a nicer voice and then ghost my mental health journey out of spite.

Drink some tea and stop spiraling, Simone .

The kettle hisses judgmentally as if it knows what I’m thinking.

I stop my mind from having a breakdown, and I reach for the tin labeled calming blend.

Chamomile. Mint. Lemon balm. There’s no lavender in this one.

Keir wouldn’t like it. Not like he enjoys tea.

He’s probably going to complain about it when I hand it to him.

But this tea is good. It’s the same blend I’ve been using since I discovered it during my time working at the clinic in Luna Harbor, a sleepy coastal town in Washington State.

There’s a place that specializes in lavender, and the owner, Nydia, knows how to calm people with her herbs.

I should message her and ask if there’s anything that I can take because I’m experiencing .

. . actually what the fuck is happening to me?

I sigh because I don’t even know. That’s a task for another day.

Later. I’ll text Nydia later.

Right now, I’ll give him the tea. Then, disappear into my room, into silence, into anything that doesn’t resemble old wounds and new confusion.

Spending time with him is like pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts. (It does. It hurts too fucking much.)

And because I’m excellent at ignoring my own advice, I pour two mugs instead of one.

I notice the living room lights are dim when I turn the corner.

Keir’s not in bed like he’s supposed to be, not following the doctor’s orders for elevation, rest, and cooperation.

Instead, he’s curled up on the couch with the brace still secured, his body folded inward as if he’s trying to disappear.

It’s like he’s hoping to take up as little space as possible like the very act of being seen is too much to bear.

Which is strange because Keir Timberbridge doesn’t disappear. He imposes. Even when he’s quiet—and brooding—you feel him. He’s like static in the air before a storm, like someone watching from the edge of a dream.

He lifts his head when I approach him, but doesn’t say a word. I hand him the mug.

“After all these years, you still think hot drinks cure everything,” he scoffs.

“Not everything. It helps the soul,” I clarify. “My great-grandma used to say that when I was young. It was probably the first time they—my grandparents—took me away from Nina. Is it silly to say that I still miss her?”

He shakes his head. “She was the only adult who was kind to you while growing up.”

“You mean she didn’t use me as a chess piece to fuck with my mother?”

He flinches.

My grandparents had a great deal of fun doing just that.

If Nina did something wrong, they would claim her unfit, force child protective services to take me away from her, and wouldn’t let me go back to Mom until she behaved.

They had too much power over the people because Grandpa was besties with God.

When I was thirteen, Mom said, “you can keep her; I don’t want her anymore. ” Then she disappeared.

“I’m sorry the adults around you never stop to think about your feelings,” he states as if he is talking to that girl and not me, adult Simone.

My mouth goes dry. I want to lie, tell him it never mattered, that they never hurt me. But every time I was moved from one house to another, my heart fractured a little.

Keir finally takes a sip from his tea and he grimaces. “Still tastes like dirt.”

“Still whines like a five-year-old,” I shoot back.

His laugh is quiet. A little broken around the edges.

It’s the first one I’ve heard since we arrived at this house six weeks ago.

We sit like that. Tea cooling between us. The lake outside the window is nothing more than a shimmer of ink and moonlight.

After a while, he speaks again. “I’m sorry.”

I wave a hand as if it doesn’t matter that my family was shitty.

Seriously, it’s in the past. I made peace with it.

It probably happened when I found Nina happy having the life she couldn’t because her parents dictated every part of her life and she wouldn’t put up with it.

She has a home now. A family she loves. And I get it—I understand her choice.

My grandparents . . . they retired, and even when I don’t like them, I help cover some of their monthly expenses. They’re family, and if there’s something I learned almost twenty years ago from the people who helped me start a new life, it’s that you don’t leave family stranded.

“It’s okay. My family had issues but I want to believe I learned and I’m a better person for that.”

“No, I meant I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for leaving the way I did and for?—”

“Stop,” I say. Because if he apologizes now—really apologizes—it’s going to crack something in me I’ve spent years stitching closed.

This would require a visit to my therapist, and that’s impossible. She’s not in this state and wouldn’t take a video conference because her license isn’t valid in Vermont.

“I need you to stop. My job is to care for you and shelter you until they decide it is safe. I’m not going to entertain your . . . whatever you’re trying to do, stop it.”

“But—”

“No, Keir. You can’t do this.”

His eyes find mine. They look older than they should—tired, bruised by memories.

“I hurt you.”

I can’t answer. I look away instead, jaw tight, hands wrapped too tightly around the mugs.

“You loved me,” he says, and it cuts deeper than it should—silent, surgical, slicing through the part of me I swore I’d buried, and now it bleeds like it never healed at all.

And what he really meant to say is, “You love me, but I didn’t . . . he never did.”

“Don’t do this,” I whisper, voice thinning. “Not tonight.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Because I can’t afford to remember any of it.” The words crack in my chest the second they’re out—too loud, too much, too late.

I set the mug on the end table with a dull thud and walk toward the door. My steps are careful and controlled, but inside, I’m unraveling thread by thread.

He doesn’t call after me. He doesn’t have to.

The memory already did.