Chapter 16

I t was strange to walk through this lobby without a bra. Extremely strange.

I wore a big sweater and I had my arms tightly crossed under my free-swinging girls, the position I'd locked into when I'd stepped out of Beckett's car around the corner from our building. We were going to be together, but we'd decided that it wasn't a good idea to throw it in our coworkers' faces. He didn't want people to think less of me and I didn't want them to disrespect him—and we were both concerned about trampling on the rules of our company, even if I wouldn't be there much longer. We'd woken up late on Sunday and then had spent almost the whole day lounging and planning, which was mostly us mapping out my work life. Beckett wanted me to be settled in a career that I liked and in something that would last, and he was very, very serious about it. He seemed to be worried about my future, and I didn't want to think that it was because he was afraid that he wouldn't be in it.

"You can do so many things," he said. "I don't want to hear again that you're not smart enough or any other fallacy of that ilk."

"I won't tell you any ilk," I promised, and he'd smiled and kissed me a lot, a whole lot.

So we came to work together, but he kissed me again and dropped me off near the coffee shop so that I could walk in by myself. Just me and the loose ladies on my chest, as I'd promised him. I was going to hold him to his own promise about what he would do to my breasts in the stairwell, and the thought made me smile a whole lot.

I'd stopped for a cup of coffee and the person who had served me was the same manager who, long ago, had kicked Gigi out of the store for stealing money from the tip jar. I looked at him closely as I paid, but he didn't recognize me as a conspirator from that day. I had been furious about it, and Gigi had done other stuff that I'd been angry about, too. She'd stolen towels and small weights from the gym, for example, and so many tampons from the ladies' room that the building had stopped replacing them. She'd tried to remove a picture from the wall of the bathroom in the Mexican restaurant but it had been screwed down and hadn't gone into her purse as she'd planned. She'd succeeded in stealing their margarita glasses, though. She had worked her way to a full set by taking one every week during our office happy hour. She'd also badmouthed our colleagues, she'd admitted to going through my desk, and now that I thought about it, I believed I knew where the emergency twenty I'd stashed in there had disappeared to.

"Thank you," I'd said to the manager as I took the paper cup of straight coffee, no extras. No matter what Gigi had done, though, she didn't deserve what had happened to her. What had happened? I left the shop only after I'd carefully checked the street. I had let my guard down about that, but I still needed to be wary.

Gigi was on my mind so much as I walked across our building's lobby that it almost seemed to make sense when one of the security guards spoke to me about her. "You knew that girl who got killed," he mentioned as I waited for the elevator. "You knew the one who was fired and then had the car accident."

"Gigi?" I asked, and we both nodded at each other. "She worked on my floor."

"They got him."

I didn't understand. "Who? Who got what?"

"They caught the guy who killed her," the security guard explained. "Her boyfriend did it and the police found him this morning. He tried to get away, and he's dead now, too." The guard looked at his phone. "Valeri Bak…how would you say that?" He showed me the screen.

"Baklany," I read automatically, but I stared at the images above the names. There was a picture of a much-younger Gigi, one I'd also seen on her mother's social media in the posts that had directed us to a fundraising site. Next to her smiling face was a mugshot of the guy who'd hired me to do the deliveries: Val, Gigi's boyfriend, the one I'd met only once but who'd approved me as a trustworthy driver. They were both dead.

They were both dead. I took the phone from the guard and brought it close to my eyes for confirmation.

"Miss?" he asked.

"I just need to see," I answered. I scrolled quickly through the article, sliding my thumb and reading as fast as I could. Valeri Baklany was a low-level player in the Russian mafia, and Gigi had been his on-again, off-again girlfriend. According to his associates, he had killed her because she had dipped into his drug supply. The author of the piece cited an unnamed police source who explained that the murder was personal, not mob-related. She had been an unfortunate victim of domestic violence, but the source also stressed that federal and local authorities were making serious inroads in their fight against organized criminal activity in the city.

And then it went on to discuss some of that criminal activity. It wasn't only drugs, but also murder, kidnapping, human trafficking…

"Oh," I said, and I felt dizzy. "Oh, holy…"

"Are you all right?" The security guard grabbed back his phone and then held my arm. "Are you going to faint? I'm sorry I sprang the news on you. It's a shock when someone you know dies, and especially like that. He shot her four times and let her crash into a tree before he ran off. He left her there to die."

"It was a streetlight, not a tree."

"What? Miss? Oh, shit!" He jumped backwards as he swore.

I'd dropped the cup of coffee and it had splattered everywhere, because my limbs had gotten very loose and my hands had lost their capacity to grip. "I'm sorry," I told him, but he took my arm again and moved me over to a chair near the wall.

"I'm going to need medical assistance at the north entrance," he said into his walkie talkie, but I shook my head and stood up.

"I'm fine," I lied. "You're right, it was the shock. It's so awful." I backed away and I repeated it. "It's so awful." They were both dead and they had done terrible things, and I had helped them. I had delivered their envelopes of money or messages or whatever those packages had been and I'd facilitated all those horrible crimes. I had known that it was illegal and criminal, of course I'd known. I couldn't pretend that I had been totally in the dark, but it was different now that I'd read the report on that greasy phone screen. Trafficking. Narcotics. Homicide. I had helped, and Gigi was dead, and I knew the person who had killed her.

I got off at the twentieth floor, unsure of when I'd stepped into the elevator or if I'd slid my ID badge to get there. Camille was just getting out of another car, and she waved to me. "Hey, Juliet. Did you have a good weekend?"

"The weekend?" I blinked as I thought back to being with Beckett, which seemed to have been years ago and not just yesterday. "It was really good." I remembered that now it was my turn to ask, that we were humans having a conversation. "What about you?"

"Dax and I broke up," she burst out, and her eyes immediately filled with tears. "We broke up for real when I told him that he couldn't treat me…" She stopped and sniffled. "You know what? I have to go sit in my car for a while." She stepped right back into the elevator and pulled a pile of napkins out of her purse as the doors closed.

Great. Like me, she was also a mess today—no, I wasn't. I was ok, but I needed to talk to Beckett. Right now. I walked down the hall toward his office and he was sitting at his desk just like normal. Just like Gigi hadn't been killed by her boyfriend and I hadn't been involved with the Russian mob.

And his face lit up when I walked in. He didn't smile hugely or jump up to hug me, but I could see so much happiness in him when he saw me—and then it disappeared. "What's wrong? Why do you have coffee all over yourself?" he asked. "Juliet! Are you all right?"

"We need to talk in the stairwell," I told him, and he said that he'd meet me there. I stood on the landing as I had before, waiting for him to walk down from the twenty-first floor. When he arrived, he reached for me, but I shook my head.

"I think you should sit down," I said. Maybe it was my imagination or maybe it was the lighting, but he already looked pale, as if he expected something terrible. He took a place on the steps and I started talking.

I told him everything. I started with my credit card debt, how I had bought and bought, stupidly and purposelessly. "I never had a job where I made so much money," I said. "I had no idea how to manage my salary and I didn't even try. I just spent it, all of it and then some, like a child. A dumb child." I talked about my expensive apartment and the expensive car, both of which had looked impressive but had been a waste of money. So much money. "I thought I deserved nice things," I continued, trying to explain it to someone who never, ever would have acted that way himself. "I thought it made me important to have new boots and a great purse, a flashy car and an apartment in a building with a name. I couldn't afford my life but I didn't care. I didn't even look to see how much I was spending, and that's what I mean when I say that I'm stupid."

"Those were very poor decisions," he agreed. "And that's why you had the second job."

"I'm trying," I told him. "I'm almost done paying it all off, but there will be repercussions for years. But there's more, and it's worse." Next I described the poker game. It was hard to put into words the utter desperation I'd felt that night. It was completely humiliating to admit that I'd owed money to Ruslan, a man who had threatened me and wanted me to work for him. "I didn't, I couldn't. So I sold everything and I got loans," I said. "You know those guys with little shops who offer money to anyone?"

"Payday loans. Title loans."

I nodded. "I almost lost my car and the interest…Leni and Elissa moved into my apartment as part of the deal with Ruslan, their boss. But it wasn't enough."

"What about your family? Why didn't you ask for their help?"

"Nicola was working two jobs and killing herself. Sophie lived in a pit and I thought she was destitute. I knew that Addie didn't have anything to her name, and neither did Brenna. Grace can't hold a job for more than a week or two. My parents? Like, I would take their retirement savings? And I didn't want any of them to know. They were so proud when I started working here and I got the fancy car." I shook my head, no. "I sold everything I had, anything that was worth anything, and I tried my best to get out from under the debt. Then we saw Gigi at the restaurant on the night that she served me the loaded margaritas. She had a business idea."

"Gigi had a business?" he asked skeptically.

"Her boyfriend Val did. He killed her." But there was a lot in between those two points, and I told Beckett all about the envelopes I'd delivered and the guy who had shot at me, and how that had made me quit. And then I had to return to Gigi's murder. "The last time I saw her, she told me that they were fighting over some drugs that she'd taken from him. She was scared but I thought it was about the people her boyfriend worked for, not him in particular. And I also thought she'd died in a car accident. I could have gone to the police but I didn't know that I had anything to tell them."

"You could have incriminated yourself. I can't believe this." He shook his head.

"I didn't want you to ever know. I can't believe I did that either, any of it. I just keep making bad choices, terrible judgement calls. I think I'm safe now…"

"You don't know that. Sweet Jesus." He put his forehead in his palm and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I'm sorry I did it, and I'm sorry I hid everything from you, too. I knew you'd react like this."

"Like what?" He looked up at me and leaned against the wall, as if my story had sapped the strength from him. "What do you believe that my reaction should be? Should I be horrified that you put yourself in that situation? Angry that you believed it was a good idea? I trusted you." He sounded disgusted, with me and probably with himself for being fooled.

I hadn't thought that I could feel much worse, but I did. "I'm not trustworthy," I said. "I'm not worth your time. I'm not worth you, and I'm sorry. I'll get my stuff out of your house and be gone by the time you're done today so you won't have to see me." I waited a moment, but Beckett had closed his eyes again. He couldn't even stand to look at me, and I didn't blame him.

"I just want to tell you, though, that you're great. You're a wonderful person, and I feel very lucky to have known you, even though I also know that it was very unlucky for you to have met me. You're exactly what anyone would want—you're exactly what I want, and I'm sorry. Goodbye," I said, and I walked up the stairs, all the way to the thirtieth floor and to the corner where the Whitaker Enterprises CEO had his office.

As soon as his assistant saw me, she stood up and ran through his door, and then Stephen Whitaker came out quickly. "What's wrong with him?" he asked.

"Nothing!" I said. "Beckett's ok. For now."

"What in the hell does that mean?" he demanded, and then I watched him visibly calm himself. "Come have a seat," he told me, and I followed him into his big office.

"I came up here to resign," I said. "I'm quitting, and I know this is something I should tell Beckett, but I'm telling you because I'm worried about what will happen when I'm not there, especially now that Camille is going off the deep end about Dax."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

I explained everything—almost everything. Of course I didn't tell him what had happened this weekend, the sex part, but I did end up going through my entire debt story again, even talking about Gigi and the deliveries.

"This is our legal department," he muttered when I was through. "First there was Annis—"

"No, it's not like that anymore," I told him firmly. "Everyone there is amazing, and I'm the last weak link."

"It doesn't sound like you are, if you're afraid that everything is going to fall apart when you're gone."

"I'm worried about him," I said. "I'm so worried and I'm so sorry."

Stephen Whitaker looked at me. "This is a mess," he told me, and I nodded.

"Will you watch him?" I asked. "Will you make sure that he's ok? I know that the employee handbook says that you're not supposed to fall in love with your boss, but I have, and I know that he needs help. He probably won't ask for it so somebody has to watch him."

Mr. Whitaker covered his face with his hands and I was pretty sure that I heard him groan, and I figured that was my cue to leave. He was staring out the window as I did, still shaking his head.

Since my car was at Beckett's house on the lake, I had to get a rideshare to pick me up, and I put in my destination without even thinking about it. In not too long, I had arrived and was knocking on the front door.

My sister answered it. "JuJu, what are you doing here?" she asked. "Why aren't you at work? What's the matter?"

"Nicola, I've been really dumb," I told her, and she pulled me inside and hugged me.

"Whatever it is, we can deal with it," she said, rubbing my back. "Are you wearing a bra?"

"I think I may go to jail, Nic."

Her body stiffened and she held me at arms' length. "What?" she barked. "Juliet, you better—"

"I'll tell you everything," I agreed, but I ended up telling Sophie and Addie, too, because she got them to come over. Sophie was still in her PJs and had Esme with her, and Addie's fiancé drove her and then stuck around, so he heard the story, too. They all did, from the beginning of me buying the dumb car and straight through to when I'd just quit my job. I left out the sex with Beckett, but it was implied.

They stared at me. "I'm sorry," I told them, like I'd said a million times already today. "I'm so sorry."

"What are we going to do?" Addie asked the group. Granger, her fiancé, got on his phone. Addie made us something to eat as Nicola started to feed her baby. She also called her husband and told him to borrow his friend's truck, because I had accumulated a lot of stuff at Beckett's house that we would need to move that afternoon.

Sophie told me her own story as she watched Esme playing on a blanket on the floor. She said that she had been very dumb too, something she'd mentioned to me on our shopping trip. She'd also gotten into a closer relationship than she'd desired with some criminals.

"It's all right now, and you're also going to be ok," she said. If Sophie said so, then I had to trust in that, at least a little.

"On top of everything, I think I broke his heart," I answered, and she knew who I meant.

"That was a lot to spring on him," she agreed. "I understand his feelings, because I'm having a moment, too. Why would you have worked for that Gigi? I had already given you money and I could have given you more."

"Because…" I hesitated. "Because I'm an idiot" was not a valid excuse. "I made a bad decision because I wanted to do things on my own," I told my sister. "I wanted you to respect me and not think of me as a dumb over-shopper. I wanted everyone to feel that way, and I wanted to feel that way about myself, too. I thought that if I could get out on my own, if I could lift myself free of the hole I'd dug, then I would start over and be ok. I would trust myself again."

"No, you should have come to me, or Addie, or Nic, or anyone. You're not just you, alone, a woman existing in a vacuum. You're not just Juliet, you're part of us," she said. "And I think you're a part of Beckett, too, which was why this was so awful for him."

"He's definitely a part of me," I told her.

"JuJu, don't cry." She tucked my hair behind my ears. "It's going to be ok."

I wasn't crying, and I wasn't sure that I totally believed her, but it was Sophie and she was very smart. It turned out that she was right about some of it; Granger, our future brother-in-law, had a lot of contacts and knew people that we did not. He was able to determine that the case of Gigi's murder was closed. Yes, the investigation into the crime family was serious and ongoing, but a low-level person like me, someone who didn't have any real connections, wasn't going to be a target of that.

"Even if you are off the hook, it was a terrible choice," he told me in his hoarse voice. "It was absolutely—"

"She already knows that," Nicola interrupted him, and Sophie said it wasn't like I was going to do it again, so he didn't need to beat me over the head with it. I loved my sisters a lot.

Eventually, I thought that we should leave Nic alone, though, and Addie, Sophie, and Granger all had other things to do. I didn't want to go to my apartment and I didn't want to go to Beckett's until it was time to clear out my possessions, so while Addie left with Soph and Esme, Granger took me to another destination.

He, oddly, still seemed to be ok with hiring me to manage his new business. Although I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd wanted to back out, I was pretty sure that my sisters wouldn't have felt the same way and maybe he was more interested in keeping Addie happy. We discussed it very seriously as we drove, though, and he also told me that he would be watching to make sure that I wasn't in danger and that I wasn't the focus of any attention from the authorities.

"Thank you," I said, and he nodded and told me he'd wait until I got inside.

Addie and Esme had gone to Sophie's house with her, where my formerly unfashionable sister was apparently doing some decorating…things were very weird today. It meant that only my mom was here at my parents' place. "Juliet!" she said happily as she opened the door, but then she seemed to remember that it was Monday, and I really should have been at work.

"It's ok," I lied. "I took the day off."

"Oh, great! I was just about to do my yoga." She surveyed my coffee-splattered outfit. "You can borrow something to wear and join me."

I'd already borrowed one of Nicola's bras, an old one she used for jogging and which kind of fit—that had been at my sister's insistence. "Sure," I said, and we went up to change.

"I wondered why all of you girls were at Nicola's house this morning," Mom mentioned on the stairs.

"Are you tracking us, too?" I asked.

"I started with just your brother, but I'm a little worried about all of you," she said. "Here, these pants should be long enough for you." They weren't, but that was ok. She said that I should go barefoot and that no, she wasn't going to stop tracking her children on our phones. "I think about Nicola and how it's hard to be a new mother. Sophie and Addie are starting a business, and then you…well, I know that something is going on." She looked at me, waiting, but then sighed when I didn't get into it. "Your sisters won't tell me what it is, either."

"I'm going to be ok," I said, although I wasn't sure about that. "Come on, let's do some yoga."I needed the distraction.

"We'll go outside," she decided. "It's a little chilly, but we won't have too many more of these sunny days where we can spread out our mats on the lawn."

I imitated her poses, stretching my fingers as she directed and tilting my chin at the correct angles. "Your foot goes here," she said, pushing on my arch. "Do you feel the difference?"

"Um…"

She had moved to a different topic. "What did you say to your brother?"

"Um…" I said again, and I tried to think back to Saturday night when he'd shown up. I'd made the apology speech from him to the world, but I had only covered the same old ground. "It was nothing."

"Well, I think it worked," she told me. "He wants to find a place to live and move out of here. He talked to me about making a plan."

"Nicola could help him with that. She's very good at planning."

"As am I," my mother reminded me.

That wasn't true at all, but I let it go. "I know how you worry about him."

"I worry about all of you," she said. "Bend more…now breathe out."

Ugh, that was quite a stretch. "Am I as good at this as Sophie is?"

"You're both wonderful in your own way," she answered. "Why do you think I'm tracking you?"

"What are we talking about?"

"I track you because I love you all," Mom explained. "Are your hamstrings really that tight? Here, stand up. We should have started with our sun salutation. Hands together for Tadasana." We moved through the poses until I reached my hands above my head. "Urdhva Hastasana," she identified. She started again, but I stayed where I was.

"I think I lost Beckett for good," I said quietly to the sky. "If anyone is up there listening, can you please watch over him? Help him and I'll be forever grateful. I'll live the rest of my life and not make any more mistakes—well, I'll try as hard as I can not to. He just needs to be ok." Even if I couldn't be with him, I didn't think that I could live without him in this world.

"Yoga is sometimes very emotional," I heard my mom say. "Juliet, did you bring your phone out here? You know I don't allow them during my practice!"

"What?" I picked it up from the grass next to the mat and saw an unfamiliar number calling me. "No, it's nothing." Except, they called right back, and then again, even as I was blocking them. "Maybe it's…"

"Just answer!" my mom said and I was worried, so I did.

"Hell—"

"Juliet, this is Stephen Whitaker and I'm at Presbyterian Hospital," the voice on the other end told me.

"What happened?" I started running as I listened to him say that Beckett was being admitted. He'd passed out at work and he'd hit his head on his desk. Camille had called for an ambulance and due to his history, he was in the process of being transferred up to the medical floor.

I yanked on the car door but it wasn't working. "I'm on my way. Tell him that I'm coming!"

"He doesn't know that I'm calling you," Stephen Whitaker said. "I don't want you to think…hell, I don't know why I'm calling you at all. He was furious when I tried to talk to him after you left. But I got the feeling that it was because he cares a lot, and you said that you feel the same way."

"He hates me because I'm not trustworthy and I'm a terrible, stupid person, but I love him and I'm going to make him be all right!" I said. "Why won't this car work?"

Stephen Whitaker obviously wanted to get off the phone with me, and he said he'd text more information before the call ended. "Holy—Mom, get a hammer! My door is broken and I have to break in!" I hollered.

"Juliet, what are you doing?" she scolded. "This is my car and it's locked, but I have the keys. You're barefoot and I'm driving."

"No, you're a snail on the road and I have to get to Beckett fast! He's in the hospital!"

My mother pushed me over to the passenger side and also pushed flip-flops into my hand. "Presbyterian or Detroit Saint Raphael?" she asked after she slammed the door behind herself, and we peeled out of the driveway.

"Presbyterian.Mom…"

"JuJu, it's not going to help if you fall apart. Keep it together. Do you remember when we had the tornados and I had to go out into the storm? Act like that."

I nodded but then shook my head. "I can't…"

"Yes, you can. Hold my hand." She reached over and grabbed mine, and we raced through the streets. "How are you going to do in the hospital? I remember how you went to throw up in the bathroom when I gave birth to Grace and you saw the IV in my arm."

My weakness went back decades. "I'll be fine. He has to be, too."

She squeezed my hand. "I knew that when it happened to you, you'd fall hard. You have a good heart, Juliet."

She dropped me at the main door and I ran until I realized that I didn't know where I was going, and then I slowed down and checked my phone to read the information that Stephen Whitaker had texted. I smoothed my hair and rode up to Beckett's floor and it was then, due to the questioning look of a woman riding in the elevator with me, that I realized that I was still wearing my yoga outfit: an exercise bra, short pants, and the flip-flops. I crossed my arms over my chest again, but when the doors opened, I forgot about my attire and took off.

Stephen Whitaker stood up when I burst into the room but Beckett—I put my hand over my mouth when I saw him lying on the bed, his head bandaged, tubes in his arm, machines flickering and beeping around him. I didn't feel sick to my stomach but I felt so worried that I had to hold onto the door.

"He's all right," Mr. Whitaker told me, and Beckett opened his eyes.

"Juliet?"

"I know that you don't want me here, so I'll wait in the hall or a lobby or something, I'll be around until you're discharged and then I'll be on your street if you need me," I said. I had come up with a short speech as my mom drove, but it hadn't been that, not even close. I took a breath but the weight that had been lying on my chest was back and so heavy that it sounded as if I'd sobbed.

"Please come here." His voice was softer than usual, a little lower, but he was talking and that had to have been a good sign. I moved closer to the hospital bed and Stephen Whitaker stood up and left, probably to call security about a semi-naked woman who had lost her mind.

"Here," Beckett said, and patted a small space next to him. I took it. "I'm all right."

"You don't look all right."

"I didn't ask you here to insult my appearance," he announced, and I said that he hadn't asked me at all.

"Your cousin didn't tell you that I was coming," I added.

"He did tell me after he talked to you. And I was glad." He put his hand on top of mine and I held it. "I'm all right. I'll be discharged soon enough."

"Beckett, I'm so sorry…"

"I was already aware of some of what you told me," he said. "Your credit score came up when we exchanged your car but I assumed it was only due to the overspending you had previously disclosed. You made some very poor decisions."

"I know."

"You won't make them again," he stated, and I shook my head.

"I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving—"

"No, you don't have to prove yourself to me. Could you come here?" He patted his chest.

"You want me to lie down with you?" Before he changed his mind, I moved fast but also very carefully so that I wouldn't jostle him or anything attached to him. Gently, I rested my cheek on his hospital gown. "I will make it up to you. I'll raise myself to your level."

"I'm not perfect," he said. "I'm not anything that even approaches perfect. I've been cold and rude, to you and to others. In my career, I've stepped on people who impeded my path to success. I cut out my family. I let my father lie alone and sick and I told him I had more important things to do than visit him on his deathbed."

"Well, I bet he deserved it. You said that he left you with your aunt when you were thirteen, and you also said that was the age when you were first diagnosed with cancer."

"He was a very, very poor parent, but I regret how I acted." He sighed. "I regret so many things."

"Do you regret me?"

"No, I don't think that being together was a mistake, no matter what either of us has done in the past," he said. "We could still be together, if you're willing."

"I'm very willing," I said. "Very."

"I reread the section on relationships in the employee handbook," he mentioned. "As legal counsel to Whitaker Enterprises, I suggested some edits to Steve. If two employees love each other and plan to marry and spend whatever time they have on this Earth together, then that should be allowed."

I was crying. I was definitely crying.

"I love you very much, Juliet. Will you have me like this? Sick in a hospital bed? Sick in general?"

"I'll have you any way I can. Anytime, anywhere," I said. "I love you very much, too."

"I don't know what kind of life I'll give you. We could spend years with me like this, or I could die and leave you."

"I want all the time we can get, and I'll be glad for however long that is," I told him.

"Will you kiss me?"

I did. "Now it's settled," I stated.

"No, it's just beginning," he corrected. "For as long as I live."

I thought of Addie's wedding vows. "In sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live," I corrected, and he pulled me down for another kiss.

"I like your outfit," he commented when I'd settled myself against his chest again. "I see you've returned to bras, however."

"If you want, I'll go naked."

"When we get home," he decided, and held me tighter. "I'm looking forward to being with you. As soon as I opened my eyes and saw you, I felt so much better."

"I'll be here as long as you want me."

"That would be forever," Beckett said. "Forever."