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She takes my good hand.

"I’m so sorry."

"You didn’t do it."

"I should’ve told him. I should’ve—"

"Baylor."

She stops.

Rain catches on her eyelashes. She wipes at her face with her free hand, then looks down at my shoulder.

I told her I loved her less than an hour ago.

I was going to ask her parents to dinner.

Now her brother’s been thrown out of a game, I’m on a stretcher, and she’s standing between an ambulance and the family waiting inside.

"I was wrong," I tell her.

Her eyes come back to mine.

"About what?"

"Thinking I could fix it over dinner."

"Wolf, don’t."

"They’re not going to forgive me."

"You don’t know that."

I look at the doors behind her. She does too. Even if neither of us want to admit it.

Six years ago, she waited outside an arena to tell me what I’d done to her family.

I remember her face. How frightened she was beneath all that anger. I’d hurt the person she loved, and nothing I said was going to make it better.

Tonight, she’s looking at me again in a rainy parking lot, drenched again, but she’s tearing up for a different reason. Both times, I’m the one making her cry.

I never wanted her caught in the middle of this.

"I won’t make you choose," I say.

"You’re not. They’ll come around, you said so yourself."

"Then listen to me."

Her hand tightens around mine.

I want to.

I want to tell her to come with me. Get on the plane. Leave everybody else to sort out what they think while I keep the only good thing I’ve managed not to fuck up until tonight.

But she has the gala on Friday. The shop. A family she’s been trying to hold on to while I kept finding reasons for her to stay upstairs.

"I love you," I tell her.