Page 5 of My Unfinished Heart

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He lifts a hand to cover his mouth.

“Don’t be. Thanks for the moral support.”

“You’re welcome. They wouldn’t let me in to see Connor, so I was just out here, and I saw you⁠—”

“They wouldn’t let you see him?”

“No. They said family only, and…” He gulps and shakes his head.

“I’ll get them to let you in. You’re probably more like his family than I am.”

“No,” he says. “He’d want you to be there. You should be there. I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.”

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“Are you…um…doing all right?” he asks.

I nod, turning my attention back to the napkin on the table. My hand, still holding the pen, quickly sketches a still-life of Haskell’s coffee cup.

“Where’ve you been?” Tristan’s voice is soft, but the question is fully loaded.

“Seattle.”

“All this time?”

“All this time,” I say, the last six years feeling both like an eternity and a heartbeat.

“How did that person know where to find you?”

“Helen? I have no idea.”

“Well…welcome home.”

I give him a grim smile before I sketch the keys, too. The boldly scrawled address reads like a threat. “So…a divorce, huh?”

“It’s a long story. Connor should probably be the one to tell it.”

“Who left?” I ask.

“Your dad left.”

Nodding my head like I understand any of this, I hand Tristan the pen. “Can you write down your number for me?”

Startled, he breathes in sharply, his eyes blinking rapidly.

I attempt to clarify lest he think I have some creepy ulterior motive. “So I can text you when Connor wakes up.”

“Oh. Yeah.” His shoulders relax. “You want me to write it on that?” He points at my drawing.

I move it across the table toward him.

Pushing his hair away from his face only to have it fall back into it again, he leans down to write. He hands me the napkin when he’s done.

I glance down at it. Tristan Chase.

When I look up, I catch him staring at me again, and something leaps in my stomach. My lungs tighten up. The forest is wildly visible now. Attractive is probably too mild a word for Tristan Chase. He’s extremely beautiful, and the last time I found a man half this beautiful, I confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about myself.

He’s also my brother’s friend, which means he’s probably just this side of legal and entirely off limits. I need to stop noticing what he looks like, but it’s hard when someone looks like that.