Chapter 44
Chapter Forty Four
Nico
Hours pass in slow, ugly increments.
Erica’s leaning into me now. Not asleep.
I can feel her fighting it.
The minute she’d come back from the bathroom with Bianca, I knew something happened.
Her eyes were red. Not the raw, freshly crying red—more like she’d already scrubbed at her face, tried to pull herself together, and failed.
Her mouth was tight, and she didn’t look anyone directly in the eye for a while.
And Bianca—Bianca looked… happier when she came back out. She just went back to passing food around.
Nobody asked questions.
Not because we didn’t want answers. Because Erica didn’t look like she could handle one more person asking her for anything.
Bianca’s gone now. But before she left, she leaned in and gave Erica a hug, then disappeared down the hallway with Giovanni.
Roberto left at some point to take a call.
Antonio and Vito keep rotating through like they’re doing laps, coming back with coffee and updates that aren’t really updates at all.
Luca is here again. Quiet. Watching. Not hovering over Erica the way I am, but just being present.
I keep my arm along the back of the chairs behind Erica, my hand resting where her shoulder meets her neck.
She shivers once.
I tilt my head closer.
“Hey.”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t move her head. But her fingers curl into my thigh as if she heard me.
Her body is warm against mine. Too warm, then too cold. Exhaustion does that. Shock does that. Fear does that.
She draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. Her lashes flutter once, heavy.
Then she blinks hard and straightens, the stubborn part of her snapping to attention like she’s been caught doing something wrong.
I tighten my hand on her shoulder.
“Stop.”
Her head turns a fraction toward me.
“What.”
I lean closer so she doesn’t have to move at all.
“You’re falling asleep sitting up.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
Her jaw tightens. That familiar set. The one she had earlier when she was spitting venom at the doctor.
“I’m not leaving,” she says, voice low. Final.
I don’t argue that part. It would be a waste of breath. If I tried to drag her out of here, she’d claw the floor before she let me.
So I change the target.
“I’m not asking you to leave.”
Her eyes narrow like she doesn’t believe me.
I keep my voice even.
“I’m telling you to rest.”
She scoffs like it’s ridiculous.
“How?”
“Like this,” I say, and I shift my arm, pulling her into me.
She resists for half a second out of reflex.
Then her body gives in, because it wants it, and she all but melts into me.
Her head rests against my chest. Her cheek presses into my shirt. I can feel her whole body tremble with the release, the weight of it all finally landing on her.
I wrap my arm around her, holding her steady.
“Sleep,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Her breathing changes almost immediately, slowing into a rhythm that’s deeper than it’s been all day.
Her fingers uncurl from my thigh and rest against my leg, slack.
I watch the doors for her.
Nothing.
No doctor. No nurse. No update.
I hate hospitals. I hate waiting rooms. I hate the way you can be surrounded by people and still feel like the only person in the world.
Erica’s fingers tighten once on my thigh.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, barely audible, like she’s apologizing for leaning.
My hand slides up, thumb brushing the side of her neck.
“No.”
A pause.
Then she whispers, “Bianca… she’s nice.”
I don’t answer right away, because the words aren’t really about Bianca.
They’re about what happened in that bathroom.
They’re about whatever Erica is holding inside her right now, wrapped up so tightly she can barely breathe around it.
I keep my eyes on the doors.
“She is,” I say.
Erica’s breath catches. A tiny hiccup she tries to swallow.
I don’t push.
I don’t ask.
I just stay where I am and let her use me as a wall.
Her eyelids droop again.
She fights it again.
I tighten my arm around her shoulders, the lightest pressure.
“Erica.”
Her head shifts, like she’s listening without lifting her face.
“You’re allowed to sleep,” I say quietly. “I’ll wake you if someone comes out.”
She makes a sound that could be agreement. Could be refusal. It’s too small to tell.
Her fingers loosen.
Her body sags into mine another fraction.
Good.
I listen to her breathing slow by degrees.
I want to pick her up. I want to take her somewhere quiet and dark and make her lie down and close her eyes and let her body stop sprinting in place.
But I know her.
She’d come up swinging.
Not because she wants to fight me. Because she thinks if she stops, everything stops.
So I sit here. I let her lean. I keep my hand on her shoulder. I stay alert for both of us.
And I tell myself, over and over, that the next time those doors open, I’ll handle whatever comes through them.
Because she’s done enough for one lifetime already.
It’s not for hours yet that the doors open again for us. But, finally, they do.
The attending from earlier walks out again, tired eyes, calm posture. Same neutral-friendly voice. But something about the set of her mouth is different this time.
Relief, maybe.
Erica is still tucked into my side, not sleeping anymore, but resting.
The doctor stops in front of us.
“Ms. Crawford?” she says quietly.
Erica jolts like she’s been shocked. Her head lifts off my chest fast, eyes blinking hard, unfocused for a second. Then they lock on the doctor.
“Yes,” Erica says, voice rough from disuse. “Yes. What—”
I keep my hand on her shoulder, steadying her.
The doctor takes a breath, and I track it like a tell.
“Your dad is responding,” she says. “It’s early, but it’s a good sign. He’s improving.”
Erica’s whole body stills.
For half a second, she doesn’t even blink. Like her brain refuses to accept it because it would hurt too much to believe it and have it taken away.
“What does that mean?” she asks, and the words come out small. “Improving how?”
“The blood pressure support is coming down,” the doctor explains, keeping it simple. “He’s still very sick, but the medications we started are doing what we want them to do. The antibiotics are on board. And interventional radiology was able to place a drain.”
Erica’s throat works. I feel it in the way her shoulder shifts under my hand.
“A drain,” she repeats.
“To help remove the infected fluid,” the doctor says. “To take pressure off and help the antibiotics do their job. They also addressed the bleeding source they could see. He’s still in the ICU, still under close monitoring, but right now—this is movement in the right direction.”
Erica makes a sound that isn’t a word. Air leaving her lungs like she’s been holding it for years.
Her hands fly to her face for one second, then drop again like she’s afraid to touch herself, afraid she’ll fall apart if she starts.
“Can I see him?” she asks immediately. “Please.”
The doctor nods once.
“Yes,” she says. “Not for long, and there will be equipment and staff in the room. But you can see him.”
Erica’s eyes fill fast. She looks at me, and there’s a wild mix on her face—relief and terror and exhaustion and something like guilt.
I stand first because she’s still stuck to the chair, like her legs forgot how to work.
I offer my hand. She takes it.
“Okay,” the doctor says. “Come with me.”
Erica moves before her brain finishes catching up, dragging me with her. I stay at her side, as we disappear behind doors we’re usually not allowed through.
As we start walking, she swipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand, furious at her tears.
I lean in close, my voice low.
“Just breathe,” I tell her.
She does, shakily. Then she squeezes my hand again.
“Good news,” she whispers, like she has to say it out loud to make it real.
By the time I get her out of the hospital, it isn’t because I won an argument.
It’s because her body finally runs out of fuel.
She walks like she’s moving through wet sand, eyes too bright, face too pale.
When we step into my house, she doesn’t even pause to acknowledge it.
I get her to the shower because it’s the only thing I can do that feels remotely useful. I turn the water warm, and I step in with her, one hand on her elbow so she doesn’t sway when the tile gets slick.
She washes like it’s a task. No extra movement. No lingering. Soap. Rinse. Soap again. She drags shampoo through her hair with slow fingers and blinks under the spray like she’s trying to rinse the last two days off of her.
I wash her back and shoulders. She doesn’t speak.
I don’t either.
When I shut the water off, she stands there for a second with her forehead resting against my chest, breathing like she’s finally allowed to. I wrap a towel around her and guide her into the bedroom.
She makes it to my bed and folds into it without protest. Just a quiet, total surrender. One second, her eyes are open, glassy, and fixed on nothing.
The next, they’re closed.
Her breathing turns deep almost immediately.
I stand there and watch her for a beat. The way she curls onto her side. The way her hand tucks under her cheek. The way her face softens when she’s not fighting for the next minute.
Yes. This is where she belongs.
I’m going to get in with her, but I want to get the hospital off our clothes as well.
I start gathering what she dropped on the way to the bathroom—her jeans, her shirt, her socks. I scoop them up quietly and head toward the laundry room.
On the way back, I pick up her purse where it landed by the entry table. It’s one of those with a clasp, not a zipper. When I lift it, the clasp shifts, and something slides forward inside.
A flash of pink.
Not lipstick. Not a pen.
My chest tightens so hard it’s immediate, recognizing it before my brain catches up.
I stop walking.
The pink edge sits right at the opening, like it’s been waiting there. I don’t move for a second, because I know what this is going to be before I see it fully, and because I know I shouldn’t.
I don’t go through women’s purses. It’s basic. It’s private. It’s hers.
But my hand is already there, fingers easing the clasp open the rest of the way. I reach in and pull it free.
A pregnancy test.
White plastic with a pink cap.
Two lines in the little window.
My throat goes dry.
For a second, the whole house feels like a million miles away. goes quiet in my head. I can still hear the faint hum of the fridge. I can still hear the droplets of rain on the window. But it’s all far away, like it’s happening in a different building.
Two lines.
Positive.
I stare at it until the lines blur, then I blink hard and stare again, like maybe my eyes are wrong.
They aren’t.
My grip tightens around the purse strap until the leather bites into my palm.
And suddenly the pieces snap together so clean it makes me feel sick. Makes me feel stupid for not putting it together sooner.
The bathroom. Bianca following her. Erica coming back with her face scrubbed raw, eyes red, trying too hard to hold herself together. The way Bianca looked different after—brighter. Like she was carrying a happy secret.
Erica’s been carrying it too.
And she didn’t tell me.
Not because she’s cruel.
Because she’s terrified.
Because her father was in septic shock.
Because she didn’t know if she’d be bringing me good news or dropping a grenade in my hands when her life was already a mess.
I stand there with her purse in one hand and the test in the other, my heartbeat slow and heavy.
Pregnant.
With my baby.
A sharp, primitive rush hits me low in my gut—so fast it’s almost dizzying. Heat. Possession. Awe. Something close to fear, except it isn’t fear. It’s the realization that the world just shifted under my feet, and I don’t want to step back onto the old ground.
I look down the hall toward my bedroom.
She’s in my bed. Asleep. Finally resting.
I should put it back.
I should close the clasp and hang her purse where I was going to hang it and pretend I never saw it until she’s ready to tell me herself.
My fingers don’t move.
My mind keeps replaying the last couple of weeks—every night she showed up, every time she tried to be strong, every time her body trembled, and she acted like it didn’t matter. The way she flinched when her own thoughts got too loud. The way she ran to the bathroom tonight and Bianca followed.
I swallow once, slow.
I’m not angry.
I’m not even surprised, if I’m honest. We haven’t exactly been careful. And I’ve been greedy with her in every way I know how.
But I am—
I take a breath.
In the dark hall, I smile, unable to help myself.
I am definitely done pretending this is temporary.
I turn and walk quietly back to the bedroom. I put the pregnancy test back in her purse and hang it on the hook by the dresser.
She’s curled up on my side now, like her body chose it unconsciously.
“Mine,” I whisper, the word barely air.
Not as a threat.
As a fact.
I strip down, move around the bed, and slide in behind her carefully. I slide one arm around her waist and pull her back against me, my mouth near her hair.
She shifts in her sleep, a tiny sound in her throat, and relaxes into me like she knows I’m here. Like she knows she’s safe here.
I stare into the dark for a long moment, wide awake.
Because tomorrow she’s going to tell me.
Or I’m going to tell her I know.
Either way, it’s happening.
And I’m not letting her carry it alone for one more second.