“Every week. I used to travel a lot, and after he suffered a few falls, I decided to take a break and come back home for a while.”

“How’s that working out for ya?”

“It was hard at first, readjusting to life under my family’s watchful eyes, but it’s fine now. My grandfather pretty much saved my sanity.”

He knew a little something about the healing power of grandparents. “What time do you get off?”

“In a little more than an hour. The session starts in half an hour, and it’s forty-five minutes long.”

“I’ve got something to do nearby. I’ll give you a ride home afterward.” He told himself he was just doing the right thing, making sure she got home safely. It was true. It just wasn’t the whole truth. But he’d buy it in order to get a little more time with her.

Her gaze softened. “You don’t have to do that. I can—”

“Take an Uber. I know. We already covered why you’re not doing that. I’ll be here waiting when you get out.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She headed for the doors but turned back with a tentative expression. “I guess that means you really do think I sang too fast.”

Shit. He hated being the cause of the disappointment in her eyes. “I…” He couldn’t bring himself to lie. “Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t lie to yourself. See you when I’m done.”

He cursed himself as she went inside. Could he have fucked that up any worse? He paced, giving her time to get wherever she needed to be, before moving his motorcycle to a parking place and heading inside. He took the elevator to the second floor and went down the hall to his grandfather’s apartment. Pushing thoughts of Madigan aside, he took a moment to rake a hand through his hair and brush the dirt from the front of his shirt and jeans. Not that his grandfather would care how he looked. His grandfather returned his affection in droves, but the disease was slowly stealing more of him, and there was a good chance the old man wouldn’t even recognize him. But Tobias would never forget the gruff but kind and loving man behind those sometimes vacant, sometimes frightened or angry eyes, and he feared the day he’d lose him altogether.

But as he did at the start of every visit, he held on to the hope that he’d catch his grandfather in a moment of lucidity. With his heart beating at the excited pace of the young boy who used to follow his Nonno around, he knocked on the door.

“Coming,” Elsa Cohen, his grandfather’s live-in nurse and their family friend, said cheerily. The door opened, and she gasped. “Ah! My boy! What a lovely surprise.”