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“Does he like Joe?”

“Everyone likes Joe.” The dog bumped Ash’s hand with his nose. Danni smiled as Ash scratched its ears. “Did you have a dog when you lived in Philadelphia?”

Ash shook his head. “No, but I remember when the racetrack closed and they dumped the dogs by the docks.”

Sadness clouded Danni’s eyes, but Ash was amused. “They were probably better off there. Dogs don’t go hungry on the streets. Why do you think so many vagrants have them?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Too busy getting high, I guess.”

I observed the frank exchange with wide eyes. Danni didn’t know the horrors that had driven Ash to run away from the foster care system in Texas, but she’d figured out he’d lived rough long before we ever met her. It wasn’t that difficult. What else could become of a runaway kid with no support network? Ash had dropped off the map at the age of fifteen. The only other conclusion she could have drawn was that he was dead.

A shudder passed through me. Ash felt it and shifted, but I averted my gaze and tried to focus. The night was young, and there was a lot to talk about. The past was the past. At some point, it would have to stay there.

The rest of the evening was difficult. The obvious conversations went unsaid, but even small talk proved dangerous. Ash fluctuated between bizarre displays of candor and long periods of silence, and when he lost his tongue, Danni didn’t quite know what to say. After two days on shift, plugging the gap was far from easy. Most of what came out my mouth was rambling nonsense.

Danni didn’t seem to mind. Much like when I’d first met her, I found her fascinating. If the occasion hadn’t been so loaded, I would’ve enjoyed her company. As it was, I wound up feeling sorry for her. It was clear she carried a lot of guilt that she and Ash had lived such different lives. She even worried that she’d walked right past him when he lived rough in Philadelphia.

Art seemed to be the vital common ground they shared. Danni was a musician and photographer, and she was intensely curious about Ash’s work. He always had some kind of pad or book with him, and eventually, she managed to persuade him to show her. I sat back and took a break while she pored over the pocket-size sketchbook. Ash leaned forward. I put an encouraging hand on his thigh and set about finishing the abandoned bowl of food in front of me. The chili was good. Joe was right: the girl could cook.

I was about done when Danni came to a sketch of a gothic fairy. The design was old, and it was one of Ash’s most popular pieces. It had his signature mystical backdrop, and he’d recreated it countless times for various clients. I asked him once if he ever got bored with it, but he didn’t. The design was born of something he’d drawn for Ellie, and much like her, it never failed to make him smile.

Danni was quite taken with the latest reinvention. “I like this,” she said. “The tiny birds remind me of something I saw in the studio when I got my first tattoo.”

Ash visibly brightened. No matter his mood, he was a sucker for ink. “You have tattoos?”

“A few. I have one on my ass you probably don’t want to see, but I can show you the others if you want.”

I shifted awkwardly. Ash cringed, and I realized we’d both reacted in the same way—like a brother, and not like a man. Danni was a beautiful woman—the kind fantasies were made of—but I wasn’t attracted to her in the slightest. Unless I’d finally drawn a line between men and women, it was clear that my instincts saw her as family. I liked that feeling, especially when I saw it mirrored in Ash. It felt right.

Danni began to roll up her sleeve, revealing her pale skin. “Where did you do your apprenticeship?”

Ash tore his gaze away from the inked skin appearing on the inside of her upper arm. “Rising Phoenix.”

“I knew it,” she said. “Sal did my very first one. I was sixteen and she didn’t want to do it at first, but my dad charmed her.”

Ash smiled. It was faint, and hesitant, but it was there. “Your dad must be persuasive. Sal was my mentor, and she thought you should be at least thirty before you got ink.”

“Yeah, well, my dad’s kind of bohemian. Once she figured he wasn’t going to sue her, she was okay with it. She did this one for me a few years later.”

Ash tilted his head to one side, scrutinizing the intricate design of a real beating heart. It was the sort of piece he loved. The idea of having an actual organ drawn on your body was gruesome to me, but he could take something like that and make it beautiful. Looking at the work by his former mentor, it was obvious where he’d learned that skill.

“What do the dates mean?”

His eyes were unguarded and clear. He raised his arm and stretched out his hand, and for an aching moment I thought he was actually going to touch her.

Then she revealed the significance of the numbers etched on her skin and he dropped his arm like a stone.

I don’t know what was worse, seeing the birth and death of his mother in stark black ink, or knowing he didn’t recognize it. It was all so heartbreakingly tragic.

Ash was three when his mother died. His child services file said he’d been found curled up asleep beside her body, and despite the drug-ravaged state of his mother, he’d been reasonably clean and well fed. It was also documented that aside from the needle lodged in her arm, not a single trace of drugs were found in the dilapidated shack they called home. It was ironic that despite his young mother’s best efforts, he’d followed her path anyway.

Ash dropped back in his seat, his expression flat and sullen. The shift was sudden and brutal. Danni got up and began clearing the dirty dishes from the table. Ash stood and took them from her hands.

“I’ll do it.”

Without another word, he took the dishes to the sink and turned the water on. I knew him, the fucker had manners, but for a long time, running and hiding was all he knew. He needed a minute, and I knew the effort it took not to turn tail and bolt.

Danni started to protest, but I stopped her with a silent shake of my head. She took my outstretched hand and let me lead her out of the kitchen, then perched beside me as I flopped down on her way too comfortable couch. “Too much, huh?”

I closed my eyes and stretched. “This is huge for him, and he’s not that great with change. Don’t take it personally.”

Danni sighed. “I know. I keep forgetting that I’ve had years to get used to this. I’m surprised he came at all.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “But it’s a good sign that he did.”

Danni twisted her body to look at me. “You two really love each other, don’t you?”

I yawned in response, wincing as my jaw popped. “Most of the time. We have our moments.”

“I’m glad he has you.”

My answer was swallowed by another yawn. This time Danni laughed and threw a cushion in my face. I was about to retaliate when I sensed Ash’s presence in the doorway. The glare he bestowed on me was fleeting, before he turned his eyes on Danni.

“Where do you work?”

Danni sat up and smoothed her hair. “I just got a job as a culture photographer for an independent publication here in Chicago. I haven’t done much yet, but I’ve got some stuff here on my computer. Would you like to see?”

It was clear he didn’t want to be alone with her, but the thought of us all crowding into her tiny office space was ridiculous, even to him. He waved me back down when I started to haul my ass up from the couch. Watching them disappear down the corridor was the last thing I remembered until he shook me awake sometime later.

I sat up, eyeing familiar surroundings that were somehow all wrong. I heard a giggle. My focus returned and Danni smiled at me. I was mesmerized. It was like those rare moments of sunshine I got from Ash, like the whole world was smiling too. I glanced at him, waiting for him to see it too, but he was stamping into his boots, his face impassive. Her smile faltered, and the moment passed.

We walked home in companionable silence. It seemed to me that the evening had gone as well as could be expected, so I wasn’t ready for the fury Ash threw at me the moment I shut our front door.

“How do you do that? How do you walk into someone’s life and act like you’ve known them forever?”

“What?”

“Don’t give me that.” He kicked his boots into the wall with a loud thud, leaving an angry black mark on the newly painted wall. “You know what I mean. How do you like her so much already? You don’t even know her.”

I bristled under his uncharacteristic aggression. He never raised his voice. I could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually yelled at me. “There’s nothing wrong with liking her. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s amazing.”

“Amazing? Yeah, well, she seemed taken with you too.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. Beneath the anger, his distress was obvious. He liked Danni, I knew he did, but emotions didn’t come easy for him, especially ones he didn’t understand.

His confusion was heartbreaking. I moved to comfort him, but he flinched and took a step back. Frustrated, I threw my hands up in the air. “This isn’t about her, Ash. This is about you still believing you’re not worth loving. How many times do people have to prove you wrong, huh? Ellie pulled you off the streets; Joe held your hand while you puked blood on his feet. Why do you think people do things like that?”

Ash stared, and the longer he was silent, the more defeated I felt. I was too tired to reason with him anymore. “I know this is hard, but she’s your sister and she wants to love you. Sooner or later, you need to accept that and goddamn let her.”

W
E
GOT
over the spat, but the disquiet lingered. The next day, I got up to find Ash had painted over the mark on the wall, and it felt like the worst kind of metaphor. We’d kissed and made up, but nothing was resolved. Ash apologized for losing his temper, and I accepted it unconditionally, but where did we go from there? Was he wrong for feeling the way he did? Who the hell knew?

It wasn’t the first time we’d both been out of our depth, but it never got any easier.

I couldn’t say what passed between Ash and Danni while I’d slept on her couch. On the way home that night, I’d noticed Ash had his hand jammed in his pocket, but he didn’t show me the photograph she’d given him until a few days later. I turned it over warily, convinced it was a snapshot of their long-dead mother or something equally disturbing. It wasn’t. It was me, stretched out on her sofa like I owned it.

I cringed. “I look like I’m drooling.”

“I know, you’re right.”

“About drooling on the couch?”

“No, about the photo. It really
is
you.”

I was mystified, but that was nothing new. The bizarre exchange was the latest in a long line of conversations I didn’t understand. Was he calling me lazy? I doubted it, but either way, I didn’t have time to figure it out. I had to get to work.

A little while later, Tim met me by the ambulance, handed me a cup of coffee, and pointed up at the sky. “Gonna rain tonight.”

I followed his gaze to the murky clouds. He was right, but I didn’t mind. The jaded gray sky suited my mood. I’d taken a detour on my way home the previous evening and knocked on Mick’s door. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d left me hanging in the ambulance bay. I didn’t bear him any bad feelings, but after talking in circles long into the night, I’d come away knowing for sure he wasn’t coming back. He wanted to see his kids grow up, and he wasn’t prepared to miss out on that anymore.

His resolution put things in perspective for me, but in my heart, I knew it would be a while before I could make any real plans of my own. I had a meeting scheduled with my supervisor at the end of the month, but I had no idea what I was going to say to him, because even after all this time, I still had no idea what I wanted. I just knew I was tired, so tired my bones ached, and every moment I spent on the street was a moment of my life I’d never get back.

I was six hours into a double shift when Ash called me. We were parked up at one of the city hospitals, restocking and clearing up from a run. It had been a quiet afternoon, but I stuck my cell phone under my chin and carried on working. There was nothing worse than being unprepared for a job.

“What’s up?”

There was a pause before Ash answered. “Guess where I am?”

“Home, work, or buying candy,” I said dryly. “Unless you had wild plans I didn’t know about.”

“Very funny,” Ash retorted. “I’m actually sitting on the wall outside Danni’s place.”

“Um, okay. Have you taken up stalking, or were you invited?”

Ash snorted. “I called her after you left, and she invited me over.”

“You called her?”

My surprise was justified. Ash rarely called anyone, let alone someone he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to. I was taken aback he’d called
me
.

“Yeah, I figured I was rude the last time I saw her, and she did give me a cool gift.”

“Gift?” I echoed, bemused. “You mean that god-awful picture of me?”

“I like it.”

“You like pineapple on pizza. You have no taste. Anyway, why are you lurking outside her building?”

“I wanted to ask you something. Do you remember when I asked you if you missed Heidi?”

I thought back to the one and only conversation we’d ever had about my estranged sister. “Yeah, but I don’t remember what I said. It was a long time ago.”

“You said, ‘Hell no,’” Ash supplied in an irritatingly accurate impersonation of me. “I was wondering why not. You lived together for most of your life.”

“Not really,” I said. “She didn’t come and live with us until I was five.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“She’s my dad’s daughter from a previous marriage, Ash. Maggie’s not her mom.”

“You never told me that.”

“Didn’t I?” I honestly thought I had. We’d talked about my dad before. Ash knew he died when I was fourteen, and that my sister left not long after. “Well, I guess it never seemed important to me. She was my sister in every sense until the day she decided she didn’t want to be.”

Ash didn’t say anything. The only reason I knew he was still there was because of the soft sound of his breathing. I could see him clear as day in my head, slouched down with his hood up. “Ash….”