“Is he still alive?” I hoist the suitcase in the trunk.

“He’s fine. I mean, his ego might not be in the best shape, but if he’s been causing you problems, I don’t think he will anymore.”

“What did you say to him?”

“That he’s a stupid asshole and he doesn’t deserve you and he’s lucky he ever had you at all. I also told him I’d be helping you take care of whatever this party shit is, because you shouldn’t have to deal with him.” He closes the trunk. “Oh, and I told him he needs to stop texting you all the time. If you want to talk to him, you’ll be the one to reach out. I also said that was really un-fucking-likely, since I plan to monopolize all of your spare time.”

I tip my head back so I can look up at Bishop. God, he’s beautiful. Ruggedly stunning. And he showed up at my work today out of the blue. And told off my ex-boyfriend. I’m going to be super lucky if I don’t start bawling. “Thank you for doing that for me.”

“I did it as much for me as I did it for you. I’m hungry as fuck, are you? Confrontation always makes me want to eat.”

And just like that, the urge to cry disappears. I snort a very unbecoming laugh. “Something greasy and definitely not on your preseason diet?”

A grin tips up the corner of his mouth. “It’s like you can read my mind. But we’re not going for pizza, because I can’t deal with the olives-and-pineapple shit.”

He tosses his crutch into the back seat and heads for the driver’s side.

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

“I’m gonna drive.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. You’re emotional and you look like you’re halfway to yelling or crying, or maybe both. Besides, they cleared me to drive today.”

“I don’t believe you. Who is ‘they’? Why didn’t you tell me that back at the clinic? Why wait until now?”

He shrugs. “Because I like watching you get all riled up. It makes me happy that you get so pissed off when you think I’m doing something I shouldn’t.”

“I am shooting laser beams out of my eyes at you. I want proof that you’ve been cleared.”

“That’s what I told my team PT, so you should check your email. You can do it on the way to get food. I’m about to get hangry, and if you think I’m an asshole on a good day, wait until I haven’t been fed.”

While he drives, I pull my phone out of my purse and do as he says. I find the email he’s talking about—the one where he’s cleared to drive short distances—and grumble about him being forthcoming from now on.

We stop at a burger drive-through, where Bishop orders enough food to feed a family of four, and we eat burgers and slurp shakes in the parking lot.

“Can I ask you something?” Bishop pops one of my fries into his mouth, having already finished all four of his burgers and his own extra-large fries. I’m not even sure he tasted his food.

I shrug. “Sure.”

“How did you end up with that douche?”

I swirl a fry in ketchup and think back to when I met Joey. I’d just moved from New York to LA for my master’s program. I’d met him on the first day of class, and he asked if I wanted to get a drink. I’d said yes. “I was lonely, and he was there, I guess.”

After several long seconds in which the only sound is our chewing, I finally look over at Bishop.

“Wanna add anything else to that, like maybe an actual explanation?” He steals another fry and reaches for my shake, because apparently he’s already finished his, as well.

“You can have these.” I trade my shake for the fries.

“I’m sorry. I’m probably pushing it, aren’t I?”

“It’s okay. It’s all stuff I think about but don’t usually say out loud. Honestly, I don’t know why I ended up with him for an entire year. I think maybe it was partly because I didn’t want to be alone? That I wanted someone who was . . . mine? When I moved to LA, I had this idea that I’d be spending all this time with my brother Kyle and his wife, Joy, and my nephew Max.”

“And that’s not how it turned out?”

I chew on the end of my straw. “Nope, not even a little. I felt like an outsider, kind of . . . displaced, I guess. Like I didn’t have a real role anymore. Kyle had Joy and Max, and I didn’t have anyone.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

I nod. “I missed all the things that were familiar. Then my mom sold the farm and moved out to LA, too, which was nice because it meant I had her around again, but she spent a lot of time with my brother’s family, which was understandable since it was her first grandchild, but I still felt like something was missing, which was when I met Joey. So in a lot of ways I guess he ended up being a convenient distraction from all the other stuff going on. I think I knew early on that it wasn’t a great fit, but for a while it was better than the alternative.”

“Which was what?” He slurps my shake, which is now empty as well, based on the loud suction sound.

“Being alone, I guess? Having everyone worry about me? RJ had just reconnected with Lainey, he had a baby, and there I was, out in LA, trying to glom on to my family because I didn’t know how to be on my own, and everyone else was busy with their own things. I had school, but . . . I needed . . . something.”

Bishop twirls a lock of my hair around his finger. “Or someone?”

“I thought moving to LA would make everything easier.”

“Easier how?”

“Not being faced with the memory of my dad every single day and how he was just . . . gone. We were really close, like, super tight. I think my mom selling the house and the farm hit me a lot harder than I expected it to, you know? I couldn’t go back to New York during holidays because we didn’t have a place to stay anymore, and all the memories of my dad were no longer tangible. I couldn’t walk into the living room and see his recliner or remember him falling asleep in it. My mom sold the truck we used to go for drives in because it wouldn’t have survived the trip to LA. It was a lot of change in a short span of time, and I think I hadn’t really grieved the loss. Or it was a new level of grieving. I don’t know.”

“It would be like losing him all over again,” Bishop says quietly.

“It really was.”

“What happened to him?”

“His body just gave up. He took such good care of himself—ate healthy, stayed active, did all the right things to help manage the diabetes—but his body couldn’t keep up with him. He went into a coma and never came out.”

“I’m sorry, Stevie.” He stretches his arm across the back of my seat and slips his hand under my hair, palm curving around the back of my neck. It feels nice, comforting.

“I don’t think it was until I moved out to LA that the loss really and truly hit me. Being away from my mom, the farm. I didn’t account for the way that would affect me. Joey was nice, and he wanted to spend time with me. He didn’t know my brother was a hockey player at first, and I didn’t tell him until we’d been dating for a while, because I’ve learned the hard way that people will use you to suit their purposes. Anyway, I wanted someone to bring to family events so my brothers wouldn’t try to pull the whole dad thing on me. He was kind of like a shield, which is a horrible thing to say.”