We both knew Dad wouldn’t grant me permission to discuss his health while he was still in a position to make his own decision. He was stubbornly proud. Reluctantly, I handed Dad my phone. His fingers curled around the device shakily. He began to sift through the medicine bag in his lap as he hmm-hmmed to the phone. Ranitidine, slow-release morphine, diclofenac, methylprednisolone. Hospice medicine, designed to make him comfortable, not better.

Katie galloped to the en suite bathroom, and I heard her retch as she threw up. It was too much for her. The realness of losing him.

Dad popped a few pills, drank more water, and answered various questions Grant had asked him. I didn’t think it was standard procedure for a doctor off duty to sit around and listen to his patient’s slow breaths for twenty minutes, but he did. Dad put Grant on speaker, and Katie got back to the room.

“Hey, Mr. Black, remember when Chase and I watched The Shining while we had a sleepover and I pissed my pants and you helped me clean it up? Bet you never thought things would turn out this way, huh?” Grant laughed. Dad did too.

I silently thanked the universe for gifting me a doctor best friend and not a douchey Wall Street broker of the variety I’d gone to school with.

“How could I forget?” He chuckled. “You’ve come a long way.”

“Well, it has been a few years.” I heard Grant grin.

Dad hung up and handed me the phone back, his stern father voice giving me whiplash. “Grant’s going to drop by at my house in a little to make sure my head is okay. He’s a good friend. Make sure you don’t lose him or Madison. They please me.”

“Really?” I cocked an eyebrow. “You just passed out, and that’s what you want to talk about? My friend and girlfriend?”

“Fiancée,” Julian corrected with a bleached smile.

Right. I needed to ink this onto my wrist in order not to forget. Julian was a skilled chess player. But he was also a predictable player, and his favorite method was to capture the pawns before going in for the kill.

In this case, Madison was the pawn, but I’d be damned if I’d see her knocked over by Julian as an afterthought.

“And yes, surrounding yourself with good people is the key to happiness. I found out about it the hard way. Now, I don’t know what Clemmy was talking about out there”—Dad pointed at the door—“but you cannot lose this woman. She is too good to let go.”

“What makes you say that?” I ran a hand over my jaw. I wasn’t disagreeing with him. But I found it hard to believe we appreciated the same things in Mad. Frankly speaking, her great ass, fuckable mouth, smart-ass observations, and eccentric tendencies.

“She is smart, sassy, loving, and easy on the eyes.”

Okay, maybe we did see the exact same things. They just sounded a lot less filthy coming from him.

“She respects your family. She works hard for what she wants. She always has a smile on her face, even though I’m sure she didn’t always have it easy,” he elaborated.

“Dad.” Julian sat on the edge of the bed, taking Dad’s pale hand in his. Sometimes I forgot Julian wasn’t my brother. He felt like my brother. Until Dad had announced I was his successor, anyway. From that point onward, Julian had been quick to point out he was only a “mere” cousin. In fact, he called him Uncle Ronan 90 percent of the time these days, even though he knew it ripped my father to shreds. Julian patted Dad’s hand awkwardly, like it was made out of slime. He couldn’t fake his way to a genuine feeling if he had a How to Be Human for Dummies manual right in front of him.

“I think maybe it’s time for you to take care of yourself. Spend more time at home with Lori.” Of course, Mom was Lori now. All the sleepless nights she’d spent hugging him tight when he’d had nightmares after his parents had passed away. All the birthday parties she’d thrown for him. All the tears she’d cried when he was hurting. “Maybe it’s time to . . . retire,” Julian finished, his forehead crumpling in fake concern.

“Retire?” My father tasted the word on his tongue for the first time. He hadn’t missed a day of work in fifty-five years. I doubted it ever crossed his mind. Working made him happy. He didn’t know himself outside the context of work. “You want me to retire?”

“Nobody wants you to retire,” I hissed, pinning Julian with a death glare. “You must’ve misheard. That’s what happens when people talk with a mouth full of shit.”

“Chase!” Mom gasped.

“He is struggling.” Julian straightened his back, jutting his chin out. “What if there’s a power outage in the building and he is in the elevator? What if he falls? What if he needs his meds and there’s no one to give them to him? So many things can go wrong.”