Scarlett had brought me a gray t-shirt and my shoes from the night before, sans socks. I stared down at them for an undetermined amount of time. She was on the other side of the door, but I needed to be closer to her, to protect her from life and the realities of it.
With the slow realization of a man who had been underwater, who had just broken the surface, I heard Travis and Everett’s doctor—Walters?—talking.
Their voices traveled to me in the quiet proficiency of a hospital, through the sounds of medical clogs on the floor, one nurse talking to another, and endless monitors sending out endless information.
The conversation mostly surrounded each of their chosen fields and the hospitals they worked at. Comparing notes. Then it seemed to take a personal turn.
Walters squeezed Travis’s shoulder. “How long has it been, man?”
Travis took a moment to think about this. “Too long.”
“Before your wedding?”
Travis nodded.
“Yeah, I heard from Goldstein that you’d taken the plunge. Your wife—she’s the one with reddish hair?”
I waited for Travis to correct him—my wife had reddish hair, his had blonde, fire and ice—but he never did.
Walters whistled, taking Travis’s lack of response as confirmation. “You lucky son of a bitch.” He mocked-punched him in the gut. Both men laughed. “Damn. She’s gorgeous. Does she have any sisters? I’m in the market.”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking out of my stupor, pushing away from the wall. “She does have a sister, though she’s not single. His wife. The blonde. Charlotte.”
Travis’s eyes grew wide, surprised that I had even been paying attention, before he narrowed them on me.
Walters seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden. He cleared his throat, laughing it off. “I must’ve gotten them mixed up. The red-haired woman is—?”
“Mine,” I said, ignoring him, staring at Travis. “She’s my wife. Scarlett Fausti.”
Walters nodded. “The name—that’s why she looked so familiar. She’s that famous ballerina. I’ve seen her commercials.”
An awkward silence grew, for them—I ate it up—and Walters rocked on his heels before he chucked his chin toward the nurses’ station, saying that he thought he heard his name being called. He rushed off, as fast as his feet would take him, a quick glance at me from behind a chart when he found refuge.
I stood next to Travis, two family members waiting, and cleared my throat. “Whatever that was, it won’t happen again.”
“It was a mistake,” he said, his voice casual. “I was about to correct him.”
I turned to look him in the eye. “Now’s not the time nor the place, but when a man lies, he’s hiding from something. What he’s hiding from is the truth. We’re supposed to be family, but family doesn’t mean much to me when it comes to my wife. Tell me if we’re clear.”
He laughed, almost bitterly. “You’re still pissed off that I took her out on a date. That’s bothered you for years. You still find me a threat.”
The “date” he was referring to happened years ago, before Scarlett left for Paris. At the time, she was pissed at me for hurting her. She started acting out, behaving in ways that she knew would drive me to insanity. She almost succeeded.
“If you were a threat, you’d already be eliminated,” I said. He knew my words were true. There was never a reason for me to lie. I feared nothing, least of all the truth. I gave it, whether it was cold and hard or not. “You’re smart enough to know that we’re not discussing a threat. We’re discussing disrespect.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I don’t make threats. I find them a waste of my time.”
“Let me ask you a question,” he said, staring off into the distance. “If Scarlett would’ve fallen for me, or anyone else who wasn’t Brando Fausti, what would you have done?”
“She didn’t and she won’t.”
“You are one arrogant bastard, you know that?”
“There’s a difference between arrogance and knowing the truth. A man knows the difference.”
Travis opened his mouth to respond, but the door to the room opened and Scarlett stepped out, her sister and mother right behind her. She spared a quick glance between us, probably feeling that something was off, but dismissed it with a shake of her head.
