With a steadying breath, he stepped forward and pushed open the door to the waiting room with his hip. Kincaid looked up at the sound, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. When she saw it was him, she frowned. “Oh. Hey.”

He lifted the two paper cups in his hands. “I thought you might want a coffee. I also have a candy bar in my back pocket.”

“Thanks. I’m not hungry.” But she did accept the coffee from him.

“Even if you aren’t, the sugar might help. All that adrenaline and…everything can leave you feeling shaky.” He set an Almond Joy on the seat next to her. “I’m not sure if that’s still your favorite but—”

She nodded, face expressionless. “Still is.”

He released a tired breath and sank into the chair across from her. “Did the nurse come in with any other news?”

“They’re prepping him for surgery but seem optimistic.” She sipped the coffee and blanched a little. “I just can’t shake that feeling that I almost walked out. If you hadn’t cut your foot, if I hadn’t gotten held up for a few extra minutes… If I’d known ahead of time that the apartment was taken. The tiniest change and he wouldn’t have…”

Ash felt queasy at the thought. “But you were, and he’s going to be okay. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s a shitty game that will make you insane. The what-if game is only good for writing books. In real life, it will drive you to drinking.”

Something heavy hovered in her eyes. “You speaking from experience?”

He looked down at his coffee. “Not about the drinking. But the driving myself crazy thing? For sure.”

“Right,” she said, almost absently. He thought she wasn’t going to say anything else to him, but then she asked, “How’d you make that stop?”

His attention flicked up. “What? Stop from driving myself crazy?”

“Yeah.”

He ran a hand over the back of his neck, wary. “I did whatever I had to do.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I kept moving forward. I closed the door on the past.” He stared down at his coffee. “I took on the pen name and started introducing myself with it. I stopped telling people where I was from so I didn’t have to tell the story anymore or see those looks on their faces. I worked and traveled so much that I didn’t have time to think about anything except writing and working odd jobs to make sure I had money to pay rent until I could get published.”

“You became someone else.” She said it like an accusation, not an observation. “How nice for you.”

He bristled. “Being who I was hadn’t worked out so well for me up until that point. It wasn’t much of a loss to leave that guy behind.”

A chilly expression filled her face, lips pressed together, eyes steely. “Right. Who cares who else you left behind with him?”

Ash’s shoulders tightened, his defenses fully activated now. “Don’t. Let’s not pretend I didn’t have your two hands on my back, pushing me out the door. What happened with us—that was a two-person job.”