My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Reaction Time

I woke up in Eli's bed with a gray light in the window and his arm across my waist.

For one second I didn't know what day it was.

Then I remembered the dock, and the bracelet, and the whole week, and I lay very still and let it all land.

"You're thinking too loud," Eli said into my shoulder.

"I'm not thinking."

"Your whole back is thinking."

He kissed the top of my spine.

I rolled over. His hair stuck up on one side, and there was a pillow crease on his cheek. He looked about twenty-three.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

"Is this where you tell me it was a mistake?"

"I'd rather tell you I'm making eggs."

He made them in boxer shorts and a county EMS T-shirt, at a stove with three working burners. I sat on the counter in his sweatshirt with my bare feet swinging.

"There's a lab on Route 6," he said, cracking a shell one-handed. "They do cheek swabs, and the result comes in five days. We'll want it on paper."

"I don't need paper to know."

"I do," he said. "Not for me. For what we're about to do to your mother."

"All right."

He slid the eggs onto two plates.

I reached over and ran my hand up the back of his neck.

He stopped moving.

"Is that medical?" he asked.

"What?"

"You said it was a pulse check. When you put your hand on my face in the cottage." He turned to me, eyes bright. "I'd like to know if this one counts."

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