I didn’t have to think about that answer. “Yes and no. I understand why you were scared for me, but I will never understand why you did what you did—and what you’ve been doing before tonight.”
Graham raised an eyebrow. “Again, you couldn’t see it from our side. All we knew was that she never once tried to find you or even contact you for years, and all of a sudden in the last two and a half weeks, she had you caught up in all this bullshit, and threatening to walk away from your best friends. There are red flags when a girl does that; there are major red flags when she’s married and using you.” He was quick to continue: “We get it; she wasn’t. We know now that she wasn’t lying, and that all this shit is real. That doesn’t mean it was easy to believe then.” His head dropped so he could look at the floor, and he shook it once. “Speaking of, what are you going to do about the husband? You really think he’ll come after Harlow?”
“I know he will, but I don’t know what we’re going to do about him yet. I don’t know how many officers he has on the take, but I know from what Harlow told me this afternoon that it stretches farther than Benton County, or even the state of Washington.”
“Shit,” they said at the same time.
Even though the only light in the room was coming in from the hallway, I could tell Graham’s eyes were fixated behind me. After a moment he said, “You can tell that it’s not just today, or even just this week, or this month. It’s like you said: she looks sick. Even if she didn’t show up covered in blood tonight, it would’ve been obvious.”
“She looks haunted,” Deacon finished for him. “Knox, man, we know what she means to you. During all this time, that has never been something we’ve questioned. But, if you ever get past all this with her husband, what are you going to do? With what she’s been through, she might not be the girl you fell in love with.”
I twisted to look at her, and something in my chest tightened painfully. My eyes never left her face as I admitted, “She’s not. The Harlow I knew was full of life, and never stopped laughing or smiling. But she had to build hundreds of walls to protect herself from him because he’s been trying to break her for years.” Cracked, my earlier assessment floated through my mind, and my lips twitched. “She’s there, though. Somewhere. I’ll find her, no matter how long it takes.”
“Well, we’ve decided that from now on, we won’t try to stand between you two,” Graham said. Deacon snorted.
“Yeah, because there’s already enough doing that for us.” When Graham shot him another look, Deacon rolled his eyes. “Best-friend code, dude. We’ll stop. Promise. We know it won’t make up for everything before, but we can be supportive now. And whatever you need with Psycho, just let us know.”
A genuine smile crossed my face, and I nodded once in thanks.
“On that note,” Deacon mumbled, then walked out of the room.
Graham just stood there with a withdrawn smile when I gave him a questioning look.
When Deacon came back, he was carrying two takeout boxes and a plastic bag. “We got you both dinner, and we made Grey take us shopping to get Harlow a new outfit. But no one knew what sizes to get her, because your girl is fucking skin and bones. So if it doesn’t fit . . . we’ll just blame Grey. And should you be letting her sleep? She bled out in our entryway earlier.”
My grateful expression fell, and I glared at Deacon. “She didn’t bleed out in the entryway, and are you really questioning me about whether she should sleep? I’m the firefighter.” When they continued to look at me expectantly, I sighed. “Her pupils were fine, she didn’t throw up, and she was walking fine at the end. Besides, I was planning on waking her up every few hours.”
Neither spoke; they just continued to stare.
“This is where you leave,” I hinted.
“Well, have you done it yet?” Deacon asked.
I’d planned on waking her up once I got off the phone with her dad, but I figured telling them that would make them want to stay, so I avoided answering the question directly. “I’m thankful you’ve both had a change of heart, or whatever, but it was weirding her out in the bathroom earlier, so I know if she wakes up and finds you here, you’re going to scare the shit out of her.”
They looked like they were about to argue to stay, but after a hard glare in their direction, they looked dejectedly at the floor.
“Well, we brought food,” Deacon said lamely. “I guess we’ll just go.”
“Thank you,” I murmured when they turned. From the nods they gave in return, they knew I wasn’t thanking them for leaving.
Once the door was shut and I was sure they weren’t going to walk back in, I rolled onto the bed and rested my hand lightly on Harlow’s cheek. Even in sleep, her full lips moved into a pout before falling open again, and her face tried to move closer to my palm.
I gently brushed my thumb over her cheekbone and leaned close to whisper against her forehead, “Wake up, Low. I need you to wake up.”
Though I wasn’t looking at her, I knew the second she woke. Her entire body stilled and her soft breaths halted for long seconds before they started up again as her rigid frame slowly relaxed.
Moving down so I was directly in front of her face, her eyes widened minimally, and she stopped breathing again.
“Low?” I asked uneasily, and my stomach dropped when her eyes filled with tears. “Harlow, what’s wrong?” I said louder, as something close to panic gripped at my chest.
“Is this a dream?” she asked softly, and the panicked feeling immediately subsided.
“Dream? No, why?”
One of her hands moved from where mine was still resting on her cheek. She slid it up my arm and then clung to my shoulder. “Knox?” she mouthed.
“Yeah,” I responded, clueless as to what was happening.
Her breathing hitched and her eyes shut, but I didn’t have to wait to know what was happening. She started rambling soft words before I could ask. “You’re here, you’re not a dream. I’m with you. I left. I left Collin—oh God. It was all real. You’re here. I always dream of you, I thought I still was—but you’re here. Oh, Hadley.”
I gently wrapped her body in my arms, and held her as she tried to come to terms with the fact that everything from that day had happened. When her words stopped, I said, “Your family is on their way to Seattle; they’re catching a flight tonight. They’ll keep us updated. They haven’t seen or heard from Collin, and your dad said he’d been watching for cars following them, he thought they were fine.”