44

I stood and crossed to the sink to get a washcloth to wipe her mouth, but also to busy myself because I didn’t know how to respond to her comment. Such a good nurse. I knew what it really alluded to – that I was good at being attentive. Good at pleasing.

I was good at it, and I loved that it was what she’d thought of when she’d thought of me. But there was so much baggage attached to the role I’d played with her, and dwelling on it would only make it more difficult to separate the person I’d been then from the person I was now. The line had already blurred so much since Reeve had rekindled my old desires. One poker in the fire was all I could handle.

Her eyes stayed fixed on me. “I missed lots of things about you,” she said, misreading my retreat. “Not just that.”

I forced my gaze to hers. “I missed a lot of things about you, too.”

She smiled, and I noticed she could do that now without grimacing in pain. “Anyway,” she said, “I only got hooked on the oxy because Micha fed them to me l