Worry hovered in Angela’s eyes. “Roni, I knew you were falling hard for Quincy, but this is kind of a game changer, isn’t it? I mean drugs…? Are you thinking of seeing him again?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped, but the truth was, she did know. He’d texted her yesterday to say he’d ordered Kennedy’s and Lincoln’s jackets. Two seconds later another text had rolled in, saying that the previous text was just an excuse because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, but he didn’t want to put pressure on her. She’d physically ached when she’d read it. She was struggling, caught in the worst kind of web, trying to reconcile years of drug abuse with the incredibly stable and strong man she’d come to know.

“Yes,” Roni finally admitted. “I think I am. I like him, Ang. I more than like him, and I know we haven’t been going out long, but all those months of texting makes it feel like we have. I don’t want to walk away, but I’m afraid. What if he goes back to using drugs?”

“Okay, well, that’s a start.” Angela got up and paced. “Roni, you worked your butt off to get away from all of that. Do you really want to invite the possibility of drugs into your bedroom?”

Roni looked up and said, “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

“I am on your side, more than you are, I think.” Angela crouched beside her, and in a calmer voice, she said, “You just told me that Quincy killed a man and that he said he can’t make any promises about never doing drugs again. How do you know he’s not unstable?”

“He was thirteen when it happened. His mother was being raped, and he tried to get the guy off her. He saved her, Ang. Do I think he should have called the police instead? Maybe. But the way he described it, she would have been dead by the time they arrived. It’s not like he’s a serial killer or he killed for the thrill of it. He was traumatized by what he’d done. The courts didn’t even put him in jail.”

“Okay. Fine. That was kind of heroic, but do you really want to live your life wondering if he’ll fall off the wagon?”

“Of course not,” she said softly.

“Then your decision should be easy.”

“In what world? Do you remember when you and Joey first started going out? Remember what you said to me after your first date? You said you never knew you could feel so connected to another person, and you hadn’t spent months texting with him like Quincy and I have. You and Joey hadn’t even really talked until a week before you started going out.”

“Of course I remember. I still feel that way a year later, but he didn’t pull the rug out from under me and tell me he killed someone and was a druggie for years, living in crack houses with two babies.”