I sucked in a rattled breath. I never thought about them or that night when the entire world burned in bright oranges and red. Not to be cold or uncaring, but it was too hard to think about them, because I could barely remember what they looked like, but I remembered their coffins, especially Tommy’s. So I refused to even think their names, but their names were cycling over and over again.

“Or is it everything?” he prodded gently.

God, Clyde knew me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I nodded. “Everything.”

“Baby girl,” he’d murmured against the top of my head after he pulled me to him, enveloping me in one of his big bear hugs. “Everything might seem like it’s too big, but it ain’t. You’ve seen and been through worse, baby girl.”

“I know,” I agreed. My breath hiccupped as I struggled to rein my emotions back in. “It’s just that . . . this is so familiar. We did this for years, and I never thought we’d do it again. Or that I’d be standing here and working at Mona’s. I was going to be a nurse. I had it all figured out.” And none of it included a guy like Jax or making tacos with Uncle Clyde, but I didn’t share that. “I don’t have it all figured out anymore.”

Clyde patted my back like a baby that needed to be burped, but I loved it. “Calla-girl, you’re a lot of things, a lot of beautiful things rolled up into one. You’re strong. You got a good head on your shoulders. You’re still gonna be a nurse. This ain’t going to be your life. You still got it figured out.”

I nodded, but he’d gotten it wrong. The hysteria wasn’t because I was disappointed at the way my life had veered waaay off course or because of that nightmarish night. Not that I wouldn’t prefer some aspects, namely the heroin and Mom being in trouble, to be different, but I wasn’t crying because of that.

That wasn’t the reason for the tears. I was crying because all of this was familiar and the familiarity had made me happy.

Eleven

It had been a week since the night Greasy Guy had shown up at my mom’s house and left with a fortune’s worth of heroin. There hadn’t been any more visits like that and that could be because there was always some random dude at my house. Okay. The guys weren’t random. It was either Clyde or Jax.

On my days off, it was Clyde duty and when I went back to work on Wednesday, it was Jax who followed me home, which had surprised me a little. During my time off, I hadn’t heard from him. Not once. I knew he had access to my cell number, because I had to list mine in the office, next to everyone’s phone numbers in case of emergencies.

Granted, I hadn’t tried to get in touch with him, either, because I told myself that would’ve been pointless and dumb. And I was trying to avoid all things dumb, but I’d actually looked forward to returning to Mona’s on Wednesday, and that was kind of dumb.