She’s happy for me because she knows I love you. If that…

““She’s happy for me because she knows I love you. If that love’s changed, well, she knows me. She knows it’s still love.” “But what does ‘I know’ mean?” Joe sighed. “Are you really going to make me state the obvious?” His brown eyes were mild, and accepting, and sad. Casey felt his mouth wobble, which went with the chin quiver, which went with the fact that all of his muscles seemed to be wrapped around his throat. “Say it,” he whispered. “I want to hear you say it so it’s not between us ever again.” Of course it wasn’t that easy. But for the moment, he’d pretend. “Fine,” Joe said, resting his face on his knees. His hair fell behind him, and not for the first time since Casey had seen this big, burly biker on a foothill back road, Casey saw past the mustache and the soul patch, saw beyond the hair, and saw a relatively young man, probably as vulnerable in his gentleness as Casey had been in his youth. “It means that you don’t have a functioning uterus, so we’re probably not going to have children.” Yeah. This was not going away, whether they talked it to death right now or not. Casey suddenly felt that loss almost as keenly as Joe. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes burning with real, sudden, unanticipated pain. “That you fell in love with me? That you made it stick until I loved you back the same way? Don’t be.””

— Amy Lane