Page 51 of Save Your Breath

I swallowed, the hug over too soon.

“You know I’ve always got you.”

• • •

An hour and a half later, Mia was moaning for the third time, her chin dripping with cheese in the most unattractive way possible as she took another too-large bite of the dish I’d prepared.

And yet, it was hard not to be turned on.

“Guh, ish sho fucking good,” she said, shoveling in another forkful.

“You keep moaning like that, and Hunter is going to have a hard time believing anything innocent is happening in this kitchen.”

“This is anything but innocent,” she said, pointing her fork to the cheesy pasta and potatoes topped with caramelized onions and bacon that was left on her plate. There was a side of apple puree to her left, too. “This is a downright sin. What’s it called again? I can never remember.”

“Älplermagronen,” I said, taking a bite of my own. “And it’s not nearly as impressive as you’re making it seem right now. It’s quite literally macaroni and cheese.”

“Was this one of Annaliese’s specialties?”

I stiffened a bit at the mention of my foster mom, of the closest person I’d ever had to a parent in this world. I wanted to smile, but something in my heart blackened the day she died, and I couldn’t seem to release the grief even ten years later.

She’d done everything for me.

She’d sacrificed her time, her money, her energy to make my life a good one.

And as soon as she could, she got me a ticket to the States, to a better life.

She never once told me she was sick.

And I was too young and selfish to notice.

I nodded, my throat tight, and Mia’s chewing slowed a bit as she took in my expression.

“When you go back to Switzerland,” she said. “Do you think you’ll go see her?”

Go see her. As if I could just show up on my old doorstep in Berne, push through that old door that had rusty hinges, and see her sitting there in her rocker with her latest crochet project in her lap. As if I could just hug her and laugh as she told me I was too skinny and that she needed to feed me immediately.

I would give anything for that. Anything. I’d give up hockey, even, for just one more day with her.

But what Mia meant waswould I go see her grave?

I had always planned to. Mia and her parents offered to go with me. But I was scared, and sad, and frankly didn’t want to face the fact that she was actually gone.

So, no. I hadn’t been back yet.

I hoped one day I’d be strong enough to change that.

“Maybe,” I answered.

I knew Mia wanted to ask more, but she didn’t push. She reminded me of Annaliese in that way — neither one of them ever asked me to be anyone I wasn’t. Instead, Mia just swallowed, stacked up another bite, and waved it at me before popping it in her mouth.

“Well, all I know is this is orgasmic.”

My brow ticced up at that. “I don’t remember you calling it that when we were teenagers.”

“That’s because I was a perfect little angel then,” she said with a shimmy of her shoulders. “And because I didn’t have my first orgasm until I was twenty-three.”

I nearly choked on my next bite, and Mia smirked at me as I chased it down with a sip of the white wine I’d poured for both of us. “You’re joking.”