“Now you’re talking,” her mom said and held out the glass of water.

“But just half of one, please. I don’t want to be all dopey.”

Her mom nodded and broke the pill in half, dropping one part back in the bottle and handing the remainder to Elle, who swallowed the pill. She only had ten in the prescription, and she’d probably just take this one. She didn’t need to spend a sleepless night tossing and turning from the lingering pain.

“Hey. Speaking of missing games, what happened to Colin? I thought he was going to come today, and we were going to hang out,” Alex said, as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Her chest tightened, and she met his eyes. This was hardly the letdown of a lifetime, or even a big letdown in the scheme of things.

Still, she hated that Colin had cancelled the first get-together with her son.

“He couldn’t make it. Something came up,” she said, both lying and telling the truth.

“Well, that sucks,” Alex said, annoyance in his voice. “I was kind of looking forward to all of us hanging out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Mom. It’s his. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, you should show up.”

“I know, sweetie. But something came up for him, and he had to deal with it.”

Alex scoffed. “If you say so.”

Elle had to wonder if she sounded the way she had when she’d defended Sam and his unreliable ways, back in the early days.

“She does say so,” Elle’s mom chimed in, intervening as she shooed Alex back to his bedroom.

All alone on the couch, Elle reached for her phone, and reread the messages.

Each one made her cringe. Because they were all true.

Colin: I’m so sorry. I have to cancel today. Something came up.

Colin: Wait. That’s not what I meant. Let me try again. Because I want to be completely honest, like we discussed.

Colin: Here goes.

Colin: I have to cancel today. Why, you ask? I just met my new brother!

Colin: Crazy, huh? Who would have thought I had another bro?

Colin: Oh, wait. Silly me. YOU would have thought that because you knew.

Colin: I have to cancel today. WTF, Elle?

Colin: I have to cancel today, because you’ve known for weeks. AND YOU DIDN’T SAY A WORD.

Colin: I have to cancel today because I know I should understand that you had no choice, but I don’t know how to do that.

Colin: Mostly, I have to cancel because… I don’t know how I feel about any of this.

Colin: Or you.

She took a deep breath, sucking it in, letting her chest rise and fall on that last one. It was a jagged little knife, chopping at pieces of her heart.

Those two lines weren’t cruel. They weren’t mean. They weren’t underhanded digs. That was what made her heart ache even more. He’d spoken the bare truth, and she’d known this could happen—that his feelings for her might alter when he learned she’d kept Marcus’s secret.

Still, it hurt so much that this choice meant the end of the sweetest thing she’d had in ages. She’d been falling so hard for him.

Maybe she should take the other half of the pill, to lessen the pain. She reached for the bottle, but it was so far away on the table. She barely had the energy to fumble for it now.

Soon, her eyes started to flutter closed, and the aching in her thumb subsided. The pain padded away, slinking out of the room on quiet cat paws, leaving her with only this whitewashing, this smooth, easy feeling in her body.

But before she slipped into slumber, she tapped out a short response with her left hand.

E: I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.

She hit send then decided she wanted to fall asleep on a happier note so she skipped over to the Facebook page for the Fishnet Brigade to see if her roller derby friends had posted any photos from the game. She smiled at an image one of the blockers had shared of the team before the match, then of Elle sending Janine around the curve during the game. She posted a smiley face in the comments then ran her finger over the picture as she yawned, the pills working their magic on her brain as well as her hands.

She clicked back to the page to search for more when a notification appeared. Someone had replied to her comment, but it was from a weird name she didn’t recognize, and the words made an eerie warning.

Be careful who you get involved with.

“What?” she mumbled, but she was already floating on a cloud of comfortably numb, and the mystery slipped away with her cares.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The phone rang, and rang, and rang.

But then, if he were her, he probably wouldn’t answer either. Tossing the phone onto the counter, he grabbed his cup of coffee and downed a hearty gulp.

Honestly, he shouldn’t even have called her so early. He should let her sleep. She’d probably been up celebrating last night, anyway. He’d looked up the results online and pumped a fist in victory over her team’s win. He was proud of her and sad that he’d missed it.

Sadder still over the notes he’d sent.

He leaned back against the steel fridge and closed his eyes. What had he been thinking? But that was the problem—he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling and letting all those stirred-up, messed-up, mixed-up emotions from meeting his long-lost brother rule over him.

He’d simply reacted. Matchstick fast, like he did in sports. When he went bungee jumping, he didn’t let himself think. You don’t give yourself any space to contemplate the decision. You just jump and free-fall. Same as snowboarding the black diamond back trails—just push off and attack the moguls with ruthless speed.

That kind of split-second fearlessness came in handy in his pursuit of adventure sports. But it could be the death knell for a budding relationship.

“Shit,” he said, cursing at himself as he drank more of the caffeinated brew, then set the nearly drained mug on the counter. He’d already logged some time on the lake this morning, on top of last night’s epic two-hour row club workout. The bookends to his midnight and dawn had worked—they’d kept him on the straight and narrow. He’d been tempted last night—the pull of the one sure way to wash away his woes had been potent. But he’d stayed strong, so at least he had that victory.

Now all he wanted was to see Elle and make sense of what had gone down. But it was too early, so he grabbed his keys and sunglasses, left his house, and headed to visit the two people he knew would be up at this hour on a weekend—his dad’s two best friends, Sanders and Donald. That was the cool thing about older dudes. They could be counted on to be wide-awake at dawn.

He drove over to the Golden Nugget and found them where they always were on a Saturday morning. Sanders usually joined Donald at his table for a few final rounds with his favorite dealer before Donald’s overnight shift ended. They’d cap that off with eggs and bacon, then meet their wives for coffee.

Donald dealt cards at the Golden Nugget and had for years, and Sanders was a mechanic at the limo company where Colin’s dad had worked. Colin had known them growing up, before and after his dad’s death. Sanders was a salt-and-pepper haired fellow with a bad back from working on cars his whole life, while Donald was a balding, skinny guy with an ever-present glint in his eyes that seemed to draw crowds to his tables whenever he worked.

At this hour on a Saturday, Sanders was the only one at Donald’s table, so Colin caught them up on the latest news from the detective about the drug dealing, as well as yesterday’s shocker.

“Is that not the craziest thing you’ve heard?” Colin said, as he finished the story and perused his cards.