She nodded.

“So just start driving, goddamn it.”

“Shit,” Rachel grunted, and then she pushed down on the gas pedal, causing her to fishtail through the grass. I kept my mouth shut like I’d promised and gripped the door handle instead. She turned the wheel and straightened out the car as she came toward the road.

Being with Rachel like this again made it all rush back. Not one great middle-school memory didn’t include her. Rachel had always been so damn cute with that dark hair and those sea-green eyes. And now this body of hers that had blossomed since her illness—she’d developed shapely legs, narrow hips, and tits that I couldn’t stop noticing in that thin tank top of hers. Fuck me.

When she started dating that douche bag Miles, she’d changed. She became meek and humble, lost her smartass retorts and sarcasm. She hadn’t been my Rachel anymore. She’d been his.

But now. Now she was her old self to the extreme. They say your personality can change after a head injury. But this was something altogether different. This was Rachel shutting down, closing herself off completely. And I got it. I so got it.

I had looked for someone like Rachel in Amsterdam. I’d actually dated girl after girl trying to get that feeling back that I had when I was around her. In her space. But it had never returned. Until now.

Rachel grumbled and huffed and smacked the wheel. I just shook my head and looked out the window, allowing her to work it through in her own head. I wanted to know what that motherfucker had said to her, but a promise was a promise.

Did Miles want her back? Would she actually consider it after all this time? He was like her kryptonite. I clenched my jaw until it ached. I wanted to push his teeth through his skull.

As we drove past Lucy’s bar, her foot let off the gas in a moment’s hesitation. Maybe if I hadn’t been with her, she would have pulled in and drunk herself stupid. Gone home with some random guy. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what my cousin Nate was getting at when he’d given me reports about Rachel.

She’d become someone different in college. It sounded like she was using guys who reminded her of Miles to get lost in for a night. Just like I’d used girls who weren’t Rachel in Amsterdam.

I figured at the very least I was saving her from making a dumb-ass decision tonight. Not that there was anything wrong with having an active sex life, but she seemed to be exercising it for the wrong reasons. I pushed away the thought of just how many guys she might have been with at college. The idea of any number of dudes pawing at her body made me want to slam my fist through the windshield.

But then a heavier thought flitted through my brain. At least she was at the university. At least she was living a life that had once threatened to be taken from her.

I noticed the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes and knew she was on the verge of losing it. So I turned up the radio and let her be alone with her thoughts. If I tried to speak she’d ream me a new one anyway.

Yep, she was definitely alive and letting everyone know it.

She pulled into the underground garage and thrust the car into park. I wanted to yell at her for bashing on my brakes, but I held my tongue. She slammed the car door and charged up the stairs to the bank of elevators in the lobby. I caught up to her just as the metal doors ground open. I allowed her to pass in first, and she jammed the button to our floor before sagging against the far wall.

I could hear her heavy breaths as she attempted to keep her emotions at bay. I tried to keep my gaze off the vein throbbing in her neck as her gaze skated over my body as if she was memorizing me or discovering me all over again. I didn’t know which. Maybe she just wanted to use me as a punching bag. I pushed away the thought of what angry sex with Rachel would feel like. Her on top, riding me with wild abandon in her eyes. Fuck.

I bolted out of the elevator as soon as the doors parted, and then turned the key in the lock. She pushed open the door and stormed past me, heading straight for the bar. She rummaged around before finally pulling out a shot glass and a bottle of Patrón.

She sat down hard on a barstool and poured herself a generous shot. Swirling the tequila in her cup she looked lost in deep thought. I made my way behind the bar and pulled out a glass of my own. I began prepping the lime slices and salt but she didn’t wait for me. She threw back her head and gulped the strong drink, wincing as it went down.

Then she started pouring herself another one.

Her eyes slid up to meet mine in quiet determination. She looked woozy yet still defiant.

“Well, damn,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had been building up between us.

A bark of amusement shot out of her mouth before she covered it with her hand. It was like being back in middle school all over again. My lips twitched as I tried to hold back my own grin. I downed my shot and heard her break into the same kind of hysterical fit that, when we were kids, would become contagious.

She stopped laughing long enough to knock back one more shot, and then choked and coughed after it went down. She rested her head on the edge of the bar, her shoulders shaking with laughter, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I laughed long and hard right along with her.

After a couple of minutes her chuckling slowed into sputtering gasps. She lifted her head and heaved out a gloomy sigh. Her eyes welled with tears that had nothing to do with the laughter from moments before as she tried keeping her trembling lips in a neat straight line. But she failed miserably after two seconds more as the floodgates opened and she began bawling.

Fat trails of tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried swiping at them unsuccessfully.

Her emotions were all over the map tonight.

“Hey,” I said, my own voice rough with compassion. “Come here.”

I pulled her into my arms, and she cried even harder against my shoulder. My cotton T-shirt was soon soaked from her tears, but I didn’t give two shits. This was the kind of weeping she’d done in the hospital over that same piece of garbage, and I fucking hated hearing it again.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, rubbing circles on her back. I wasn’t sure what to say at this point that wouldn’t hurt her worse.

Her arms, which had been hanging limply at her sides, came up to grasp my shoulders, as if I were her anchor. She was breathing heavily into my neck, and I felt her tears slide onto the skin at the base of my throat.

My fingers trailed down her back to grasp her waist, and I could feel how lean she was. Not as lean as she’d been in the hospital. This was shapely, sexy, all-woman lean. My fingers rested on the sliver of bare skin that had become exposed when she’d raised her arms to embrace me, and I relished the softness there.

Her head moved to the crook of my neck, and I felt her shudder, so I drew her even closer, my fingers sliding up her bare back in an attempt to comfort her. The next moment I felt a tentative brush of her lips against my skin. Right above the neckline of my shirt. I became perfectly still, wondering if I’d only imagined it.

But then she trailed her soft lips across my neck to my throat as I swallowed roughly. It felt so damn good that I couldn’t help the groan that escaped my lips shortly thereafter.

I grabbed hold of her shoulders and pushed back to look into her eyes. There was alarm there at what she’d done, certainly. Like her body had been on auto-pilot and she couldn’t stop herself. Yet there was something underneath as well. Need. Passion. Desperation.

At that realization my brain lost all logical function. I gathered her face in my hands and whispered, “What are you doing, Rach?”

She shook her head, maybe trying to clear the doubt, the shock. “I . . . I don’t know.”