“So? If Iwantto fool around with my own damn husband—”
“You can, of course, do so,” I sigh. “No one’s doubting your virility, baby.Leastof all that own damn husband of yours. Tell you what: we can start out in the king together, but if you can’t sleep, I’ll move out to the single. Okay?”
“Okay,” he says, sounding like the human embodiment of Grumpy Cat. I bite my lip, but he eyes me suspiciously. “What’s soamusing?”
“Nothing.” I come over to sit by him on the king bed where he deposited himself after struggling out of the wheelchair. “Nothing at all, my love.” I slide my hand into his and lean against his shoulder carefully. “I want you to concentrate on getting better,” I tell him softly. “And you can’t do that if you’re busy pretending there’s nothing wrong with you in the first place.”
He doesn’t reply.
“You need to let me help you,” I press. I sit up, let go of his hand, and turn his face towards mine. “I mean it, Luca.”
“Are you going to leave me?”
It comes out of nowhere, a sharp stab into my gut. His eyes are narrow and glittering, his teeth clenched after he spits the words out.
He’s actually serious.
“Why the fuck would you even ask me something like that?No, of course not!” His eyes bore into mine, two twin lasers frying my brain as he tries to figure out if I’m lying. “I’m not lying,” I tell him, to make it easier for him to read my mind. “Jesus, Luca.”
His gaze drops to his hands and his shoulders round over. “Alright,” he says dully.
I think I’m actuallyoffended. “Hey,” I say, and I have to pull his chin around to make him look at me. “What the hell kind of person do you think I am, if you expect me to run out on you just after you get out of the hospital?”
His chin comes up, and those lasers are back, full strength. “Is that the only reason you’re staying? Because I’m—unwell?”
I don’t bother to hide my rolling eyes this time. “No, you absolute asshole, it is not.” I take a breath, make an effort to stomp down my exasperation, and take his hand again. “Where is all this coming from?”
I mean, I kind of know. I know it must be difficult for a man like Luca D’Amato, who has always been able to count on his body as a tool to carry out his mind’s visions, to suddenly have that tool taken away from him. He doesn’t live in his limbs so much as his brain, but the very fact that his health has been an afterthought for so long must be giving him a new and unwelcome perspective.
On top of that, he was gettingrealparanoid before the attack. Had been for months. Nick Fontana sneaking around behind his back only compounded it, and then all that paranoia must have seemed confirmed after the attack.
But I don’t want my Lucifer, my daring devil, to be paranoid and watchful and fearful. He’s not built to be that way, and it’s fucking things up between us. I need him to see that.
He looks at me, and I think this could be it, the moment we get all that shit out in the open and start finding a way forward—but then he looks away.
“I’m tired, is all,” he says. “And I need the bathroom.”
Just like that, he’s done with the conversation. I know from past experience that there’s no point arguing or trying to draw him out. He only shuts down more.
“Okay,” I say carefully. “I’ll help you into the bathroom—”
“No,” he snaps, yanking his hand from mine and struggling to his feet. “I don’t need your help.”
I watch him go across the room, clutching at his side as though his incision is in danger of opening up, but he reaches the bathroom alright. He slams the door after himself and locks it.
We never lock doors these days. And fuck him for doing it now, right when he very well might pass out or something, and drown that stupid, beautiful face in the toilet bowl.
I look down at my wedding ring and remind myself again of the vows I made to him that day we married.
For richer, for poorer. We did poorer, right at the start. Now, thank God, we’re living richer.
In sickness and in health.I can do that, too. I’mhappyto do it.
I just wish he wouldn’t make it so damnhard.
I wander to the locked door and lean up against it, listening. He’s reduced me to this, some creepy voyeur trying to spy on my husband’s bathroom habits. But I hear nothing. Not even the outrage I expected from him at that seat waiting in the shower.
And somehow that only makes memoreworried rather than less.
