“Yeah, but I could tell she, like, felt really bad about it, and she needs the money even worse than I do, so I told her it was okay, and we’re going to hang out tomorrow and work on our project about child sex trafficking. The good thing is that I don’t have to carry around those stupid Nerf guns anymore.”

The doctors overrode Coop’s protests and insisted on keeping him overnight. Coop had already kicked Heath out, but he seemed to expect Piper to hang around, not that she would have left.

The orderly assigned to transport Coop from the ER to his private room looked like a nice kid, but Piper stayed by the wheelchair as they traveled up an elevator and down several long corridors. Coop fumed the whole time, not from pain, but because the medical staff wouldn’t let him walk.

There were too many people hanging around outside his room, and Piper wasn’t having it. “If you’re not his doctor or nurse, you shouldn’t be here. Move on.”

Mr.Nice Guy raised his hand from the wheelchair and gave his cocky grin. “Appreciate your concern.”

The adrenaline she’d been riding on had faded, leaving her exhausted and heartsick. All she wanted to do was get away, but she couldn’t leave him in a hospital full of people looking for excuses to come into his room. He needed someone stationed outside his door until he was discharged, and while a nurse took his vitals, she got Jonah on the phone and told him what had happened.

Coop had been given the hospital’s version of the penthouse—a large room with a city view. He had the head of the bed in an upright position as she came back into the room from talking to Jonah. “You should be lying down,” she said.

He looked at her oddly, as if she were a stranger he was trying to identify, but then he reverted back to his normal self. “Get serious. I had worse injuries in high school. I can’t believe they’re not letting me out until tomorrow.”

“It’s for your own good.” She turned her back on him and went to the window.

“Thanks, by the way,” he said. “I appreciate you watching out for me.”

He didn’t sound begrudging, and she pondered what it must have cost him to say those words. How could she have done this to herself? How could she have fallen in love with someone so different? “I’m the one who’s grateful,” she said. “If you hadn’t come back to the apartment...” She turned to him from the window. “Why did you?”

He dropped his head back onto the pillow. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“It couldn’t wait until morning?” She wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself.

“It was important,” he said.

She regarded him quizzically.