Chapter 16 #2
“Good job,” she says, with a smile and a fucking hair flip. Why does she have to be so cute about it? It feels wrong—relying on her like this, letting her fuss over me when I know the reality of what's between us—knowing what's waiting for me on the other side of this hospital room.
I shouldn't be this glad to have her here. I shouldn't be living for a sliver of her approval, like it's the only light in the room. It's dangerous. All of it.
“Your mother’s sweet,” she says with a smile. “I wouldn’t get her involved with harnessing your arse.”
“My mother? When were you talking to my mother?”
“When you were passed out. I never did get my ice cream, so she bought me some.”
I stare at her. “Really?”
“Really.” She's grinning now—bright and warm and entirely too pleased with herself.
“Ice cream?”
“Aye,” she confirms. “I'll get you some if you behave yourself and stay in bed.”
“Fine.” I wag a finger at her from my very dignified position against the pillows. “But I won't forget you bossin’ me around.”
“You'll forget this,” she says, because she knows me well enough to know I absolutely will not. “Besides, you're not mine to remember things, are you? Friends. Just friends.”
Pushing herself to her feet, she brushes her hands against her legs as if straightening the fabric. “I’ll… go get you something to eat?”
I nod. “Please.” When was the last time I ate?
Just friends. Why have I never hated those words more in my life?
Just friends. Right. Grand.
I don't have long to sit with it. The nurse appears in the doorway a few minutes later, adjusting something at the end of my chart, then looks up with a practiced smile.
“Mr. McCarthy, your fiancée is here.”
I thought by now they knew—
Then Valentina stands in the hallway, reserved and immaculate, holding carnations wrapped in paper so stiff they crinkle when she breathes.
She surveys the room the way she surveys most things, with a polite, baffled distance, as though she has wandered into the wrong building and is still deciding whether to mention it.
“I came to check on you.” She steps into the room and sets the carnations on the windowsill.
“Seamus said you were getting along just fine, but it was a nasty accident, wasn't it.” Not a question.
She says it the way she says most things—like a memo she's been asked to deliver, which has indeed been delivered.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” I tell her. “Thank you for the flowers.” Why does every interaction feel like the inside of a greeting card?
Carnations. She didn't ask. She wouldn't. Silence falls between us.
“I spoke to your mother about the wedding invitations,” she says quietly. “We decided to go with the cappuccino lettering on ivory paper. Is that alright with you?”
She asks in a way that makes it clear it doesn't actually matter whether it's alright with me.
“I told you the details were up to you,” I say with a shrug that costs me something at the stitches. “If you like them, that's good enough for me.”
“Do you not have an opinion about anything?” She says it without heat, genuinely perplexed, her brow knitting briefly before it smooths again.
Is she fucking kidding me? “I have lots of opinions about lots of things. But the stationery details of a wedding that is, in your own words, nothing short of a business arrangement—that's not one of them.”
I have to be careful how I speak to her. Pissing off Valentina would be a catastrophic miscalculation on my part, and I know it. The engagement holds something much larger than either of us in place. If it falls, my family goes with it.
And then—footsteps in the hallway. Light, quick, familiar. I know them before she speaks. I can't stop her from coming in.
Bridget comes through the door talking, because of course she does. This is Bridget, and she has never once in her life held a thought hostage when she could just release it.
“Got the soup that isn’t quite D’Agostino’s, but the girl at the counter said it was excellent. And ice cream because you were very well-behaved for now, and I—”
She comes to a full stop, eyes wide. The girl has no poker face.
Valentina goes very still. Her eyes move from Bridget to me, then back to Bridget, unhurried and precise, cataloging something she will not share.
“Who is this?” she asks.
I fucking hate the way she asks it.
“You met Bridget at the party,” I say. “Erin's sister. Remember?”
She does remember. She's just making a point.
“Right,” Valentina says, producing a careful smile. “Bridget. You came to visit and get… ice cream?”
There's a flush climbing Bridget's neck. She opens her mouth, and I can see it happening—the sharpness gathering at the back of her eyes, the precise wording of something that would be extremely funny in retrospect and a complete disaster right now.
“Aye, and looking out for Declan,” she says. Her voice is level, and I could kiss her for it. “He was seriously hurt, and I was very worried. We've been friends for a very long time.” I can hear the judgment in her tone, the implied You should have been worried too.
“Best friends,” I add, because apparently I'm helping.
“Yes. Looks like you’ve been here a while,” Valentina says. A mild observation.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Bridget begins, awkwardly, and Valentina cuts her off with the clean efficiency of someone who has been waiting for this precise opening.
“Oh, I know I don't.” Her smile doesn't shift.
The silence that follows yawns like the opening of a cave. Jesus.
“When are you being discharged, Declan?” Valentina asks, turning back to me. “I need to know the timeline.”
“Discharged?” Bridget asks, her eyes wide. “He was shot. He had surgery. He—”
“Not sure, but I'll be fine. A few days at most.” Bridget blinks at me before her eyes narrow.
“Already? Seriously, Declan. Are you sure about that? You have stitches.”
“Aye, of course.”