Chapter 41 Avery #2
Her mascara is smudged beneath her eyes, her curls escaping from whatever twist she attempted this morning. She's still in her work clothes from Vendange, her brushed gold Manager lapel pin glinting under the overhead fluorescents.
She crosses the room in three strides and pulls me into a fierce, yet careful hug.
"I got here as fast as I could after Nick called.
" Her voice breaks. She pulls back, swipes at her eyes.
"I think I broke some kind of land speed record crossing town to get here.
Are you okay? Please tell me you're okay. "
A sound escapes me, something between a laugh and a sob. "I'm all right. We're all okay."
"You're all right. She's all right." Tasha is talking to herself as much as to me, her hands fluttering over my arms like she needs to confirm I'm solid. "Have you eaten? You need to eat. I should have brought something with me. I should have—"
"Tasha." I catch her hands in mine. "I'm okay. Really."
She takes a shaky breath. Nods. Her gaze shifts to Nick, and her expression changes, worry cutting through the relief. "And you, big guy? How are you holding up?"
He gives her a small nod. The gesture says everything, no need for him to try to put it into words. I'm not okay yet, but I will be.
Tasha seems to understand. She doesn't push.
"Tony's home with Zoe and AJ," she says, settling into the other empty chair. "He wanted to come, but someone had to wrangle the tiny humans. He sends his love."
Eve greets Tasha, and their voices weave together in a comfortable shorthand from months of wedding planning and fittings.
Tasha's hand finds mine again while she talks, her fingers laced through mine on the opposite side from Nick, holding on to me the way she has since we were working at the bar splitting double shifts at Vendange.
"I'm wrapping you in bubble wrap until Saturday," Tasha announces. "I mean it, Ave. Full-body protective coating."
Eve's lips curve. "I'm sure Gabe's got some duct tape in the car. You wrap, I'll hold her down."
A laugh escapes me—real, unexpected, rising from somewhere I thought had gone numb. The strangeness of it catches in my throat. Laughter, after today.
My gaze finds Nick's. The wedding is in three days. Is it still happening?
He's feeling it too, reading me the way he always does. His thumb caresses the top of my hand, waiting.
"You still want to marry me in front of three hundred people this weekend?" He asks it quietly, a conversation meant only for us.
The question settles into my body before I form words around it. Saturday. Three days from now. I think about the vows we already exchanged on the deck of the Icarus, salt wind in our hair, simple gold bands on fingers, our promises drifting out over the water in a Key Largo sunset.
That wedding was ours. Private. Perfect.
This one on Saturday is different. A celebration. A declaration. The prize at the end of a gauntlet we've run together.
"Of course I do." I squeeze his hand. "Nothing could stop us now."
"Absolutely nothing." He grins, and leans forward to kiss me.
The door opens again. Lita blows in with her usual chaotic energy—electric-blue hair, leather jacket, combat boots thudding against the linoleum. Matt is right behind her, quieter, carrying a crinkled paper bag.
Lita stops at the foot of my bed, hands on her hips, silver rings flashing. I wait for her to say something smartass and irreverent. The sight of tears welling in her eyes takes me aback.
"Thank fuck you're okay!" She rushes to the other side of the bed from where Nick remains permanently fixed next to me. Her hug is fierce and almost too tight, and beneath all the black leather and tattoos, her body trembles with barely held emotion.
Matt hangs back, setting the paper bag on the bedside table. "Figured you'd want actual food." He pauses. "Got those apple danishes you used to inhale during late studio nights. And the good chips."
My eyes sting. He remembered my favorites. "Thank you," I manage. "Both of you."
Lita claims the windowsill, one boot propped against the frame, Eve making introductions to Gabe and Beck. Matt leans back into a corner, arms crossed, his presence a steady anchor in the swirl of conversation.
In the midst of the happy chaos now filling my room, Rachel arrives. Even in crisis, she's composed in her pencil skirt, silk blouse, and heels that click with purpose over the hospital tile. But the tightness around her eyes gives her away. There's a crack in the professional armor today.
"The hospital staff signed NDAs," she says, a small note of strain in her voice. "But you know how these things travel. I want to get ahead of it if we need to."
"Handle it however you think best," Nick says. "We trust you."
She nods briskly, then blows out a shaky sigh. "I'm so glad you're okay, Avery." Her voice catches, just barely, before she recovers. She glances at Nick. "Both of you."
She means it. Beneath the press strategy and the damage control, she's genuinely concerned about us.
The room settles into a new rhythm. Wedding logistics. Security recalibrations. Someone mentions the bachelorette party, and there's a beat of silence before Tasha fills it.
"We'll do something after the wedding When things settle."
Lita grins, sharp and bright. "Or we skip the bachelorette and throw her the most epic baby shower ever."
Nick glances at me, surprise flickering through the exhaustion. "You told them?"
I bite my lip. "They sussed it out of me about thirty seconds after I sat down with them at lunch the other day. Apparently I had 'a glow.'"
His mouth curves. Then he chuckles, low under his breath, the first real hint of him relaxing since the rooftop. "I couldn't keep it from Gabe or Beck either."
Beck smirks, nodding toward Nick. "You're not the only one glowing, Avery. This guy's practically nuclear with proud dad vibes."
Laughter fills the room. I sink into the sound of it, let it settle around me. Not as a shield, but a reminder. That today didn't end the way it could have. That we're still here. All of us.
My hospital room is full of people who love me.
Tasha smoothing my blankets even though they don't need smoothing.
Eve and Gabe perched close, his hand on her knee.
Beck by the window, phone pressed to his ear again, but present.
Lita on the sill, cracking a joke that makes Matt shake his head and grin.
Rachel in the corner, fielding texts on her phone between conversations.
And Nick. His hand warm and strong around mine. His body a gravitational constant beside me, the thing every other element in this room arranges itself around, the way light arranges itself around a source.
This is my family. Not blood, but choice. Not obligation, but showing up. Being here for me when it matters most.
But someone else important is missing from this picture.
I lean toward Nick, my voice low. "We need to call my mom."
"Already handled. I called her while the doctors were examining you. I'm flying her in tomorrow. She'll be here in the morning." He pauses, his eyes soft on mine. "I thought you'd want her here before Saturday."
He knew. Before I asked, before I even fully formed the thought, he knew what I needed.
My mother, who went to prison to protect me, who lost a decade of her life so I could have mine.
She’ll be here tomorrow. After what happened today, the thought of her arms around me undoes something I've been holding together all afternoon. My vision blurs.
"Thank you."
He leans toward me and gently lifts my chin on the edge of his hand.
The kiss is slow, deliberate, his mouth warm against mine, the scratch of stubble against my skin sending a low, tired shiver through me.
He tastes like stale hospital coffee, but I don’t care.
I lean into his kiss, wanting more, wanting to stay here in the warmth of his mouth and forget every other thing that happened today.
He pulls back too soon, his forehead resting against mine for a breath before he settles back into his chair.
After a while, the room begins to empty. Gabe and Eve leave first. He has work to coordinate, exhaustion carved into the lines of his face. Eve hugs me gently. "We'll see you Saturday."
Beck pauses long enough to grip Nick's shoulder, the bond of their friendship compressed into a single gesture. "I've got everything handled. Focus on her."
"Thanks, brother," Nick murmurs.
Rachel squeezes my hand on her way out, her composure intact again but her eyes still red. "Rest. I'll handle the press. That's what you pay me for."
Lita bends to hug me, her leather jacket creaking.
"For the record," she murmurs near my ear, "if that woman had hurt you, I'd have found her myself.
And I wouldn't have been as merciful." She straightens up, winks.
"But since we're being classy about it, heal up, babe.
I'll save the revenge fantasies for my next sculpture. "
Matt touches my shoulder. Brief, warm, the kind of quiet gesture that carries more than most people's speeches. "See you this weekend, Avery."
They leave together, Lita's combat boots fading down the corridor.
Tasha lingers longest. She hugs me one more time, her cheek damp against mine.
"Call me," she whispers. "I don't care what time. If you need anything—anything at all."
"I will. Promise."
Then she's gone too.
The door clicks shut, and the room contracts around us. Just Nick and me and the rhythmic sounds of the monitors and the low hum of the hospital settling into its evening quiet.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
I look at him in the dimmed light. Really look. The hollows beneath his cheekbones where shadow pools, the sharp line of his jaw, the way the low light carves his features into stark, but beautiful angles. He looks thoroughly exhausted.
He's been holding himself together for hours—for me, for our friends, for the doctors, for everyone who needed him to be strong.
The cost of it is visible now that there's no one left to see him.
The tension is still locked in his shoulders.
The way his hand grips mine like he's afraid I'll vanish if he lets go.
I tug his hand gently. "Come here."
He looks at me. Shadows flicker in his expression. Resistance, maybe. Or the fear of what happens when he stops holding on.
"Nick. Come here."
He moves from the chair to the edge of my bed.
Then closer, when I shift to make room for him.
His body is warm and solid against my side, the broad heat of him, the familiar weight I've slept against every night.
Even now, even here, some deep-rooted part of me responds to the press of his body alongside mine, a low hum of recognition beneath the exhaustion.
His head drops to my shoulder. Then lower, to my chest. And I feel the shudder run through him. Not tears yet, but the moment before tears. The dam finally cracking after hours of holding.
My hand comes up to his hair. Strokes gently. Slow, soothing passes through the dark strands.
His voice is rough, muffled against me. "When you were talking to her. On the rooftop." He swallows. "About wanting to watch me hold our baby for the first time. About seeing me become the father I never had."
He pauses. The shudder inside him deepens, and I feel the warmth of tears soaking through the thin hospital gown against my chest.
"I heard every word, Avery. She had that gun on you and you were saying these things about me, about us, about the life you wanted for our child, and all I could think was—" His voice breaks.
"All I could think was how powerless I felt.
Standing there, unable to fix it. Watching the person I love most in this world get hurt, and I couldn't stop it. "
The words slice through me, not because they're true. Because I know he did everything he possibly could today. It hurts to hear how deeply he believes he did nothing.
"I'm supposed to protect you." The words are ragged. "That's my job. And today I couldn't—"
"You did protect me." I keep stroking his hair, my voice steady even as my heart aches for him. "You came for me. You fought for me. You didn't stop until I was safe."
He lifts his head, and his blue eyes are wet, red-rimmed, more vulnerable than I've ever seen them. "You saved yourself. You saved both of us." A shaky breath. "And I don't mean just today. It's always been you holding everything together. I just… I love you so fucking much."
The words crack something open in my chest. I cup his face in my hands, feeling the roughness of stubble, the dampness on his cheeks.
"I love you too,” I whisper, gathering him to me. "There’s nothing you need to fix now. You don’t need to be strong for me. You don't have to be anything right now except here."
He makes a sound against my chest—half breath, half strangled curse—and his arm tightens around my waist, pulling himself closer, burying himself against me.
His big body shakes. Not the controlled tremor from before.
This is raw. Grief and relief and terror arriving all at once, hours after the danger passed, the way the body always waits until it's safe before it falls apart.
I hold him through it. My fingers in his hair. My lips against his temple. The quiet beep of the monitor beside us confirming, over and over, the heartbeat of the child we almost lost today.
After a long time, the shaking eases. His breathing finds a slower rhythm, his body growing heavy against mine with an exhaustion that's past fighting.
I keep my hand in his hair. Outside the window, the city has shifted from dusk to dark while I wasn't paying attention, Manhattan's skyline reduced to a sea of lit windows and the distant pulse of traffic.
His breathing deepens. His weight settles fully against me, heavy and warm, and I realize he's asleep.
This man who hasn't slept in probably thirty hours, who white-knuckled his way through a rooftop crisis and a hospital vigil and an evening of being strong for everyone who walked through that door… he's finally allowed himself to let go.
I close my eyes. His heartbeat thumps slow and steady against my ribs, a counterpoint to the rapid tempo of our baby's pulse on the monitor. My entire world exists in the sound of those two heartbeats.
Tomorrow I’ll go home. On Saturday I’ll marry Nick for the second time. But for right now, I have everything I could possibly ever need.
I match my breathing to his, and let sleep take me.