Chapter 48

Hank slid in next to him and pulled the sheet up over both of them. Ollie swallowed but found little spit in his mouth as he felt the long, naked length of Hank beside him once more.

Ollie moved away, confused. “I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“Shhh.” Hank planted a quick kiss on Ollie’s cheek, then relaxed against the pillow. “You asked where I went tonight.” He paused, as though he was considering it. “I went to see my mom, I guess you could say.”

“I thought she was—”

“Dead?”

“Well, yeah.”

“She is. But in a lot of ways, she’s still with me. She’ll always be with me. A weird thing happened between us the night she died.” And Hank told Ollie all about how he had seen snippets of his mother’s life just before she passed away, images that revealed precious moments of hope and joy. “For a long time, I thought she must have told me those things—you know, out loud—and somehow my brain screwed it all up.”