Page 55 of Love Me Again

“That used to give me nightmares,” Boone whispered.

“It might give me one tonight,” she replied, far too gratified when his laugh rumbled behind her.

“Don’t worry. He’s harmless,” Boone replied, but then she felt the brush of fingers against her hair. “Unless you feel something creeping against you in the middle of the night.” His fingers walked a little trail up her neck.

Meant to frighten. God, she wished she felt anything close to fear with this faint, teasing touch.

“You’re the one sharing a roof with it,” Josie managed to say despite the sensation warring with sense.

He said nothing else, but his hand kind of rested on her shoulder. Casual, but somehow intimate and a reminder of all they’d once shared. She closed her eyes against a wave of too many emotions, but she couldn’t fight off the physical response to his hand on her.

His hand slid off her shoulder, and he moved, stepping around where she sat to a more central part of the room. Something in his expression was terrifyingly determined.

“I have an announcement,” he said, loud enough everyone stopped talking and looked at him.

Clearly this was beyond out of the ordinary, because everyone looked mouth-opened shocked at the prospect of any kind of announcement.

Molly and Deb and Cora snuck a glance at her, like she might be the source of the announcement.

Which made Josie wish she’d never come. She didn’t want anyone having false hope about what her appearance meant. Because she wasn’t letting Boone back into her life.

Couldn’t.

No matter how much she wanted his hands on her. That was a physical weakness. She wouldn’t let herself have a mental one too.

“The last time I was at the doctor…” He kind of shook his head, almost like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “I need another surgery. The surgeon thinks this should be the last one. Clear out some scar tissue, some things that didn’t heal correctly. They’re pretty sure nothing can solve the pain entirely, especially if I overdo, but if they clean this up, they think they can mitigate my day-to-day pain.”

Josie looked around at his family. No one said a word. She wasn’t sure they breathed. Clearly Boone sharing medical information was out of the norm.

“I have it scheduled for next week. Mostly because I thought everyone would be too busy to fuss over me. That I wouldn’t have to tell you guys, and I could just…deal with it on my own.” His gaze settled on her then. “But I don’t want to be the guy hiding himself away anymore.”

Like she’d said outside. Like he was taking what she said and trying to change because of it.

Like she mattered.

She wanted to. God, how she wanted to. But no matter how much yearning built up inside of her, she just kept thinking of that day at the hospital when she realized he’d left her.

It was a chasm she couldn’t allow herself to cross.

No matter how much she wanted to.

Boone couldn’t read Josie’s expression. His family was full of shock and confusion and worry and back to shock. But Josie was…blank.

Part of him wanted to stop talking. Leave it at that. Run and fucking hide. That was the kind of impulse he usually followed.

He couldn’t with Josie’s stoic dark gaze on him.

“I’ll need help. I’ll need someone to take care of me.” He looked at Josie, not because he expected her to be the one to take care, but because he needed her to know he did understand. He had changed. “And I hate that. I hate it because…I feel like a burden.”

“Family isn’t a burden, Boone,” Mom said very seriously.

Boone inhaled through his nose, nodded at his mother. “I’m trying to really accept that. This is a first step, I guess. Telling you all. Asking for help”

It put a decided pall over what had been a cheerful evening, and Boone didn’t know how to bring it back. He should have waited. Told them one by one. Or at dinner earlier.

But there was no going back now.

Luckily there were still a few ornaments to hang, so Mom got to tease Gavin about his horrible kindergarten trapped-in-a-snow globe ornament and the mood lifted.