“Maybe I should go back with Dina,” she muses aloud while I’m sitting next to her, making sure she’s eating.
The hospital food isn’t bad, but I’ve been ordering from all her favorite restaurants. She doesn’t mind the food from Dina’s, but let’s face it, it’s not as good as hers.
Today, I ordered soups from the International Market—chicken noodle, sour-salty-spicy mushroom poh thaak, and khao tom. These are her three favorites from there.
She decides on the mushroom one after I give her a taste of each, so I’ll have the chicken noodle for lunch after she’s done eating.
We’re waiting to hear from Dr. Reyes when she can go home. With me.
“No, sweetheart, you’re coming home. You need the familiarity.” That is the truth, directly from Dr. Reyes.
Lucy is legally my wife, and she’s coming home with me. End of fucking story.
“But—” She pauses, licks her lips.
I bend down and brush them with mine. “Luce, you’re coming home with me even if it means I have to kidnap your pert ass.”
I have been kissing her again since yesterday.
The first time it happened was because I couldn’t help myself. She didn’t protest, but she did move her lips away, so I had to keep it short. Fine by me. If that’s the intimacy she’ll allow, I’ll take it. I’ll take anything and everything she gives me until she gives me her heart, again, the one I carelessly threw away.
She narrows her eyes, shooting me a displeased look. “Is this how our marriage works? You tell me what to do, and I do it?”
It’s been five days since she woke up, and she’s been getting better and better with each day. She has a concussion, of course, no surprise there—and she’s still on painkillers, but they’re less heavy-duty than the ones she was on when she first woke up.
She still sleeps a lot as her body has a lot of healing to do, but she’s definitely less passive in the sense that she’s voicing opinions as she’s asking questions about our marriage—you know, like a fucking bystander watching a movie and giving it ratings and reviews.
“Our marriage works, sweetheart, because we live together,” I reply with a broad smile.
She levels me with a thoughtful stare.
“You’re in pain. You’re healing. Dina has to work at the diner. I am at home.” I don’t want to be a complete asshole about it, so I offer some platitudes that are extremely reasonable and practical.
But Lucy is right about one thing—our marriage did work the way she said it did. I understand the censure in her voice. We did do what I wanted to do—not that I asserted my will much. But when I did, there was no going around it.
Well, I’m going to have to learn to be flexible—even if it kills me.
“Please, sweetheart, Dina’s place is too small to accommodate the three of us.”
Now, she rolls her eyes and then winces. Yeah, moving her head isn’t something she can do without it hurting.
“Eat.” I hold up a spoon of soup, and she slurps it in.
“What do you do?” she asks when I wipe her mouth with a napkin.
“I own an event management company with Percy. It’s called B&H Events. Bennett and Hale.”
“Ah,” she murmurs.
I hold up another spoonful of soup. “I also manage the family estate.”
She eats the soup and licks her lips.
Despite the bandages, the bruise that’s still a shade that isn’t skin, she’s adorable. Beautiful. And she looks so damn cuteeating her soup and looking at me with her soulful gray eyes, scanning me and my words, as if she’s trying to look inside my head and find out what I’m up to.
We decided not to tell her family about her memory loss. It was her decision. She didn’t want to worry them. So, it’s a small secret. Just Dina, Percy, me, and theentirehospital staff. But if anyone steps out of line on HIPAA and shares her medical details, I will rain hell down on them.
“What does that mean?” She leans back completely onto her pillows and shakes her head when I hold up another spoon.
