More vomit splashed into the can, and he grimaced. Gasping, Mama caught her weight on the edge of the bed. Andra set down the trash can and grabbed a clean washcloth from the side table, offering it to her. Mama clutched it in one shaking hand and wiped her mouth. “Excuse me. This flu is terrible. Can’t seem to shake it, and in the middle of summer, too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Andra murmured. “I didn’t mean to barge in. I just heard . . . I can go.”

Something inside him changed shape, watching the two women in his life in the same room, Andra awkward but so compassionate at the same time. Without even an introduction, she’d rushed in to help, like his family was hers.

His mother looked up, her brown eyes shiny with tears as they pored over every inch of Andra’s face. She pulled Andra into a tight hug. “Aren’t you the sweetest thing? Of course you are. Of course you would be.” And then she started to cry. “Oh, thank God.”

“Mama?” His voice cracked.

Andra stroked his mother’s thin back, and he remembered her own mother had died when she was a child. She hadn’t had a properly maternal hug in over a decade. LJ’s hands hung at his sides, his heart thumping hugely. This was a gift he would never have asked for, one so big and expensive that all he could do was turn it over and over, waiting for someone to laugh and take it away from him.

“You go on now, LJ,” Mama said, and sniffed. “She’s finally here. Give us girls a chance to talk.”

Twenty-five

“There you are.” Andra closed the front door behind her, stepping out into the muggy night. “You want me to turn a light on?”

“Nah. You can see the stars better this way.” LJ smiled up at her from his seat on the concrete steps, patting the space next to him. She took a spot two steps down from him, tipping her head against his knees as she looked up at the sky.

There were more stars in Montana, but the ones in the South seemed more content. Her eyes traced over every pinprick of light, something in the air on the porch seeming to suspend the clock so she could sit there forever with no time passing. She exhaled.

There were so many things unsaid between them, but if time didn’t exist, neither did panic attacks. Or the two thousand miles stretching between her home and his. Or everything his friends had said about her this morning.

LJ brushed her hair back, tickling her earlobe. “These still working okay after the afternoon you had? Want me to drive you in to see the doc?”