"Thirty-two stitches," I say.
"It's not that bad."
"Three cracked ribs."
"I've had worse."
"Stop."
He stops. Looks at me with that closed expression that used to terrify me. The one I've learned to read from the inside out. Not cold. Not empty. Full. So full of things he won't say that the only way to hold them is to shut everything down.
"You discharged yourself with three cracked ribs and thirty-two stitches," I say. "The nurse told me that much. And I can see the rest." I hold his gaze. "So when I say we rest, I mean both of us."
His jaw works. His thumb stops moving on my hand.
"Okay," he says.
I don't believe him. But it's a start.
The room goes quiet. Just the beeping and the hum of the building and the sound of his breathing. He's still holding my hand, but his eyes have drifted. They're on our fingers, laced together on the blanket, but they've gone unfocused. Something in his face shifts. I don't know what it is. I don't know him well enough to name it.
"Are you okay?" I ask. "You seem almost sad."
He exhales. Slow. Controlled.
"I promise I'm not sad. I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
He looks at me. Right at me. No shift of his gaze to the wall or the window or the space above my head.
"You."
My pulse picks up. I feel it in my throat, in the tips of my fingers where they're pressed against his.
He doesn't say anything for a moment. His thumb starts moving again, tracing the ridge of my knuckle. When he speaks, his voice is lower. Rougher.
"I don't get scared much. I mean, being part of the mafia, not being afraid comes with the territory." He pauses. "But when I saw you lying on the grass..."
He doesn't finish. His jaw tightens, and he looks down at our hands, and the sentence just stops.
My chest aches. A deep, spreading warmth that starts behind my ribs and moves outward until I can feel it in my face, in my eyes, in the backs of my hands. I know what I feel for this man. I've known it for weeks, maybe longer, the way you know something you're not ready to look at directly. And watching him sit here, trying to say something he clearly doesn't have the words for, it undoes something inside me.
I need to breathe. I need to not cry. So I do what I always do when the feeling gets too big.
"It almost sounds like you might love me, William Murphy."
He snorts. A real laugh, short and rough, and for a second, the tension breaks.
Then he looks at me, and his face is serious again.
"I don't love you, Aoife."
The words hit my chest like something solid. The air leaves my lungs. I wasn't expecting it. Even though I was joking, even though I said it to deflect, hearing him say it back knocks something loose inside me that I didn't know was holding weight.
He must see something change in my face because he keeps talking.
"Love is flowers," he says. "And nice words. Love is romance." He pauses. His fingers tighten around mine. "Honestly, I've never loved. But..." He shrugs. One shoulder. "What I feel for you goes beyond that."
