“He’ll recover. Doc says it wasn’t serious.”
“Good.” I sighed against Renzo, my eyes heavy, my brain fogging, but I couldn’t let myself sleep yet. Not until I knew for sure that Lou survived.
“Anzy.” Tore rubbed his palms together. “If ever things don’t work out between…you…just let me know.”
I smiled sleepily. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
The surgeon arrived shortly after. Lou had made it. There were a couple of complications during the reconstruction, but she was in recovery now. She was alive. She was well. Everything was going to be fine. My whole body loosened after he left, and exhaustion finally took me.
“You’re Lou Sheffield-D’Amico. You don’t give up.” I held Lou’s face in my hands as she cried silent tears.
“I can still barely feel my toes.”
While the physical therapist was proud of the way her leg was strengthening after a week in the hospital, he’d told Tore and me that she had a long road ahead of her before she would walk without crutches again.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It all depends on you, sparrow.” I booped her nose. “Do you want to wallow or get better?”
“But all my friends—”
“Didn’t get into a car accident, didn’t get one heck of a rocking, memorable scar Tore is already designing a tattoo for, and don’t have the most amazing family that treats you to an all-you-can-eat sweets buffet.” For emphasis, I moved over an edible arrangement of her favorite fruits from a side table to her overbed table, as well as a bag of her favorite chocolate candies. It was best not to get on the topic of friends. Only two had visited in the last week, and it was dragging her down.
Someone knocked on the door, and it clicked open.
“Who’s ready to go home?” the day nurse asked, with Tore and Renzo following close behind her with a wheelchair.
Lou raised her hand tentatively.
“A little more excitement than that, girlie,” the nurse said. She cleaned Lou’s surgical scar and bandaged it up once more before declaring her ready for discharge. “Don’t be so sad to go. You’ll be back every day for your physical therapy sessions.”
Lou recoiled. “I’m definitely not sad.”
“Yeah, they rarely are,” the nurse said wistfully. “You’re all good to go.”
We wheeled Lou to the parking structure and over to Tore’s new van, which he purchased so Lou could comfortably lay her leg out.
“We’ll meet you guys back up at the house,” I said, once she was settled in her seat.
With a small smile of relief, she tilted her face up to meet the rays of sunlight through the open window. Hopefully, the change of scenery was exactly what she needed to recover.
Renzo and I waved them off. The moment the van turned down the next level, his arm snaked around me and tugged my back to his chest.
“I finally get you to myself,” he whispered, grinding his groin against my ass.
I gently slapped his arm. “Not here. Plus, we have things to discuss first.”
We had been running off our feet this past week. My schedule alternated between constant runs and stays at the hospital with Lou whenever Tore wasn’t there, checking in on Ricco, who was better but recovering, and then preparing for the start of the new school year in less than a month. Renzo had taken on part of Tore’s duties during Lou’s recovery while also dealing with the fallout from the double attack by Dimakos and Giambrone. Needless to say, neither of us had much time for a proper sit-down conversation.
Every night I wasn’t sleeping at the hospital, we fell into bed in a mess of limbs and bedsheets until we were thoroughlywrecked and sated with enough orgasms to fall into a dreamless sleep.
“Oh?” he asked innocently, as if he didn’t know.
“You ever going to tell me how we supposedly got married?”
“There’s nothing supposedly about it.”
“Would it hold up in court?”
“Probably not.” He shrugged—shrugged—like it was no big deal.
