A few more cars drove by, and another bus blocked my sight momentarily. Somehow, while I seemed blocked from moving, Constantine navigated around the traffic to get to me.

“Are you okay?” He reached for my arm, and I lowered my gaze to where he held me.

I wasn’t sure why time felt suspended, but it was simply hanging there.

Everything went still and quiet. The sounds of traffic vanished, and only my name from his lips managed to cut through.

I supposed watching your life flash before your eyes could do that. I’d waited forever for my son to meet his father. Getting struck by a bus the same morning I planned for them to meet officially would have been flat-out evil.

“Mom?” My son’s voice startled me back to planet Earth and out of whatever strange time loop I’d been stuck in.

I blinked my way over to the set of legs alongside Constantine’s. Worked my way up and up.

They were together.

The two of them were both looking at me and together. That word slid around in my mind a few more times because it wasn’t quite sticking.

“You okay? You almost died!” Colin hooked his arm with my right one, and Constantine let go of my other and knelt to collect my phone and bag. “Earth to Mom.” He waved his free hand in front of my face.

I had to be in the Twilight Zone. “What are you . . . together?” I may have lost a word somewhere in there.

“He was at a rave.” Constantine returned my phone to my purse as my son gave him some major side-eye, as if that was need-to-know information. And for some reason, he felt I didn’t need to know.

Well, consider me fully present and alert now. Nearly being run over was yesterday’s news. “What are you talking about? You’re supposed to be in your room, grounded. What rave?” I turned toward Constantine. “How’d you know? Why are you together?”

Colin focused on Constantine. “Yeah, good question. How’d you know?”

Constantine’s mouth became a tight line of contempt, a feeling I knew well when dealing with my teenage son testing my patience. But the deeper question still remained—how did he know Colin had snuck out and went to a rave?

Instead of answering either of us, Constantine nudged my purse at me like it was supposed to be some kind of peace offering.

“So easy for you to throw me under the bus, but you don’t like it when the tables are turned.” Colin winced. “Shit, sorry, Mom. Poor choice of words since you were almost taken out by a bus.”

“Car. Now.” Constantine grunted the order to Colin, gesturing to the lit-up crosswalk sign.

The fact he obeyed his demand nearly sent me backward.