Page 57 of Back to Square One

“Inside the lost memory window, huh?” Evie’s smile was soft and a little sad.

“Maybe? I don’t really know. I’ll have to ask my mom.”

“How is your mom? Still smothering you?”

“Hey. I can say that about her. You can’t.” Rowan hadn’t meant to come off quite so snarky, but her words were hard.

Evie nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

There was a moment of quiet. They both stood there, shifting from foot to foot, the awkwardness in the air so thick, Rowan was sure if she reached out, she’d grab a handful of it. Finally, she sighed. “Why are you here, Evie? What do you want?”

Evie’s swallow was loud, and she wet her lips. She was so fucking pretty. Why? Why did she have to still be so attractive to Rowan? Why had she let Evie kiss her? Why had they had sex on the couch? All those things did was make everything worse. So, so much worse.

“I wanted to talk.” Evie’s voice was barely above a whisper, and she walked further into the room to take a seat on the chair across from the couch. “I thought we should talk.”

“You know when would’ve been a good time to talk? When you went to the doctor.” Rowan had given up trying to keep the snark out of her tone. Fuck it. Snark was called for here.

Evie nodded slowly. “I know. You’re absolutely right. I should’ve included you in all of that.”

Rowan pressed her lips together and shrugged.

“I don’t have a good excuse for why I didn’t,” Evie went on. “I just got…” She inhaled a big breath as she turned away, gazing off into the middle distance at nothing. “I got so scared.”

Rowan’s growl surprised her, rumbling up from her throat before she realized it. She smacked her hands against the couch cushions and stood. “See, that is the part I don’t get. When you’re scared, you tell your partner. So they can help take some of the fright off your plate. So they can help you through. So they can help.”

Evie’s cheeks reddened. “I know. You’re right, I know.”

The wind came out of Rowan’s sails just as quickly as it had filled them up, and she sat back down. This time, there was no snark, only sadness in her voice. “I just don’t understand, Evie. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to handle it? Was I selfish? Did you think I’d be a terrible caregiver?”

“No.” Evie said the word with a conviction that shocked Rowan, made her sit up straight. “No. That wasn’t it at all. But you were thirty-three years old. Thirty-three! That’s not even middle-aged yet. And I just could not imagine relegating you to what could be a life of feeding me and helping me walk and wiping my ass.” She choked on the last words, tears springing into her dark eyes.

“Could be.” Rowan stressed the two words. “What could be that life. Or it might not be.” At Evie’s startled blink, Rowan nodded. “Yeah, I’ve spent the last several hours reading and researching. I don’t know which kind of MS you have, but—”

“RRMS,” Evie said, her voice low. “Relapsing-remitting.”

“That’s the most common type, if I understood my reading.”

“It is.”

“And it means you’ll have relapses and remissions. That you’ll feel good some days, and other days will suck.”

“Correct.”

“But in your head, you went straight to doom and gloom, to being bedridden and unable to do certain things.”

Another nod from Evie. “It seemed safer to expect the worst.”

“Like I said. Doom and gloom.” Rowan shook her head, and Evie smiled.

The living room was quiet, the only sound showing up in Kevin’s soft purr as he sauntered into the room and rubbed his side against Evie’s leg. She reached down to stroke his fur. “Hi, buddy,” she whispered. Kevin had always adored Evie. Rowan watched their interaction and waited until Evie looked up at her before she spoke again.

“You told me you didn’t love me anymore.”

Evie blinked at her and looked stricken.

“The memory came back at the lake house.”

Evie nodded like she knew, and Rowan wondered if Stevie had told her that. “I did. I know.”