“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’ve never met him,” Karoline said. “Or…wait. Maybe I have. Isn’t that the guy in the wheelchair who was at the Blue Suede Shoe last night?”

“Atticus?” What reason would he have to come to Karoline’s house? Karoline and Atticus didn’t even know each other.

A hum sounded as the wheelchair lift on his vehicle went into motion and Harper got out to see what was going on.

She and Karoline both watched Atticus load himself into his chair. Then he used his hands to turn the wheels so that he could approach them.

“Hello,” he said.

Harper tried to keep her confusion from showing on her face. “Hello.”

“Looks like you’re heading out.”

“I was…about to leave.”

“Then I’m glad I caught you. Any chance you and I could have a minute alone before you go?”

“Of course.” She glanced at Karoline, who gave her a quick nod, got the girls out of the car and took them into the house.

When they were gone, Harper said, “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Actually, I’m here to let you know that you’re making a big mistake.”

She felt her eyebrows slide up. “By not pursuing a relationship with Tobias?” she guessed.

“Yes.”

“You’ve heard about everything he’s done, how he… How he shot an eleven-year-old boy and…and nearly killed someone when he was in prison?”

“Yes, I know all about it. The man he nearly killed in prison was a bad dude, a bully who made a lot of people miserable, and he attacked Tobias first. If Tobias hadn’t fought back, he wouldn’t be here. It’s a miracle he was able to survive, really. The dude attacked him from behind. Stabbed him in the back, literally.”

Harper thought of the raised flesh that formed that terrible scar on Tobias’s lower back and remembered him saying, when she asked about it, that he’d gotten it in a fight. “How do you know this?”

“We have a history, Tobias and I,” he replied.

“You’re friends.”

“We are now, but… You see, I was the eleven-year-old boy who he shot.”

Harper felt her mouth drop open. “No…”

He gestured at his legs. “Yes.”

Visions of Tobias laughing with Atticus, drinking with him, playing darts with him flashed through Harper’s mind. “But…how is it that you don’t hate him?”