“I don’t think I have enough,” she says. Disbelief and something else duel in her eyes until the something else wins out. “I love you.” She smiles, ending me—I said my ending was her. “I love you, Foster.”

Better the second time, and I have no doubt it will hit even harder the next.

“I love you too. Fuck, I’ve loved you, Remi.” I swallow and lick my lips before deciding fuck it. “Come to the last show. I told you I’d play your song for you at MSG, and I want you there when I do.”

She smiles even more. “You wrote me a song, Foster West?”

“I wrote you all of them,” I tell her.

She huffs a laugh and nods, and I nod along with her.

“Meet us before the show. Be with me after. I know that key has been driving you mad. It’s to my place in LA because the house in Utah currently has a fucking padlock. But I’ll be anywhere as long as you’re there with me.”

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll be there before and after.”

I smile, the rest of my life smiling back at me. “I’ll see you in two days then.”

“I’ll be seeing you in two.”

The call ends. I close my eyes.

Remi doesn’t come to the show.

46

REMI

I still can’t believe I’m here.

The last place I ever wanted to be again.

The last place I ever thought I would be again.

Other than the nurse at my side, the hospital hallway remains quiet. Blue carpet underfoot, wooden rails running along the two-tone walls, a random visitor or staff member we meet.

“It’s such a tragedy.” Her shoes squeak with every step, keys jingling too. “Some people will try to tell you he owed money, but no one believes it. Small-town gossip, you know? So, don’t let the rumors get to you, sweetie. He’s one of the good ones, but you know that as much as anyone. It’s so lovely the way you and Chief Kane were able to reconcile after everything.”

“So lovely,” I repeat dryly.

The sarcasm earns me a curious side-eye as we turn a corner, but she won’t say anything.

She won’t for the same reason no one questioned the hospital’s contact information being wrong. Why the department’s HR couldn’t provide the right phone number either, even though I was listed on their forms as well. Not a damn soul wondered why a labor and delivery nurse overheard the issue and easily tracked me down.

Because the misdirection’s still in place, and it turns out I’ve been part of it all along.