My heart zipped in my chest at the thought, but I waved him off. “We can talk about that later. Right now, let’s focus on getting your mom the help she needs.”

Clay sighed, pulling on my hands until I was collapsing into his arms as he laid back against the headboard again. “You’re too good to me.”

“No, you’re just not used to being in a relationship where the love and care is reciprocated.”

“It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Good thing we have all the time in the world.”

He smiled, kissing my hair.

“Is… is Maliyah okay?”

Clay shook his head. “Only you would ask if my ex-girlfriend is okay.”

“I mean, you told her everything, right?” I frowned. “That wouldn’t be easy for anyone to hear.”

“It wasn’t,” he agreed, his gaze lost between us. “She cried, a lot, and I held her and tried to soothe her as best I could. In the end, though, she said she understood. She said she’d hurt me just as badly — which isn’t wrong. I think she was most upset by her dad,” he admitted. “And I know he isn’t happy that I told her what happened.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. She deserved the truth.”

“She did. And, weirdly… I feel like we could maybe be friends now. Not close friends,” he amended quickly. “But… friendly. Cordial. I don’t know that I could say the same for Cory, though. I think his days of acting as my stand-in dad are over.”

I smoothed a hand over his bicep. “What about your real dad?”

He blew out a breath. “That I haven’t even begun to tackle yet. But… I owe him an apology. I see now better than I did when I went off on him that he was just trying to help me.”

“To be fair, he could show up a little more.”

“He could,” Clay agreed. “Maybe now… he will.”

I smiled, nodding as I watched where my fingertips drew lines on his skin.

“I am a little pissed off at you, though,” I admitted after a moment.

“As you should be.”

“Not for this whole mess,” I said, waving a hand as if it was on the foot of my bed. “But you’ve known for almost two weeks that you messed up, that you wanted me back, and you waited to tell me?”

“Hey,” he said, popping up long enough to lean over and grab his book off my nightstand. “It takes time to write and print a book, okay? Even one this shitty.”

I snatched it out of his hands, smiling as I flipped through. “It really is horrendous.”

“I know.”

“But you didn’t need the book to tell me how you felt,” I pointed out, peeking up at him.