24. Elio
Elio
I didn’t realize how damn long it took to pick out a dress. Even I took less time than this with the rings and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. With Valentina there, shit should be a piece of cake. So when a couple hours go by and Deirdre isn’t back yet, I start getting restless.
I don’t know if it’s because the Tylenol hasn’t done diddly squat for me and my side and head feel worse than ever, but my mood is fraying as I pick up my phone and use voice command to tell it to call Curse.
He picks up immediately.
I realize I don’t really have anything specific to ask him or to say. The girls are at a dress shop. What am I going to do, ask for a play-by-play?
I settled on a grunted, “How’s it going?”
“Fine. No security issues. No sign of Darragh’s men. He’s honouring the agreement.”
I nod with satisfaction even though no one can see me.
That’s good. There would be hell to fucking pay if I was this busted up in bed and Darragh decided to renege on everything.
But it really does seem like I’ve finally managed to make Deirdre safe in this city.
Just gotta seal it all up with a kiss. At our wedding.
The phone is on speaker setting, and I stare down at it, unwilling to hang up. I know Curse won’t hang up before I dismiss him, and the silence stretches.
Until it’s broken by the sound of female voices and laughter. I tense, hearing Deirdre’s voice among them but not able to make out what she’s saying.
“What’s happening now?” I ask sharply.
“They’re drinking champagne.”
I rub the scarred part of my jaw, remembering that my Songbird didn’t eat dinner before she left the house.
“Has she eaten anything?” I ask Curse.
“There’s some tray of little snacks. Antipasti .”
“OK. Good. Make sure she eats some of it.”
I hear rustling, then footsteps as Curse presumably walks across the room. Curse speaks, just barely audibly, to Deirdre instead of me this time.
“He wants to make sure you eat.”
“Is that Elio on the phone?” That question comes from Deirdre, clear enough for me to hear it now.
Then another slightly slurred voice. I think it might be Giulia. Or maybe Lucia. Can’t tell them apart for shit.
“Eliooooo,” she calls loudly, “just wait until you see the dress we picked out for your beautiful bride!”
Laughter breaks out again, which is then dulled when Curse sounds like he walks away and presses the phone to the side of his head once more.
“She’s chosen a dress?” I hiss, suddenly sweating, my heart giving an unexpectedly painful throb. “What does it look like?”
“I don’t know,” Curse says. “It’s white. It has… sleeves.”
“Real helpful,” I mutter. Not that I can really blame him. He doesn’t have an unnatural, bordering on psychotic Songbird obsession like I do. He doesn’t drink down every detail of her appearance like it’s water necessary to stay alive.
“Want me to go find it and send a picture?” he asks.
Goddamn, I’ve got a good brother. Because I know he’ll fucking do it. Somehow, the fact he’s willing to do shit like this for me feels like even more a mark of his loyalty then all the men he’s killed at my behest.
“No,” I say, though I think I may regret saying that later. “I’ll just wait and be surprised. Did…” I pause, wondering just when I turned into such a fucking sap, “Did Deirdre like it?”
“She cried.”
Well, shit.
“What kind of crying?” I press.
“There’s more than one kind?”
“Course there is, you dope.”
Deirdre in particular has a million shades and versions. Infinite nuances in every single shimmering drop. Fury. Longing. Shame. Grief. Pain. Arousal. Sometimes all at once.
But I didn’t call Curse in order to have a philosophical conversation on all the complex types of tears exhibited by my fascinating future wife.
“Make sure she eats,” I remind him. “Then bring my fiancée home.”
* * *
Curse seems to follow the second part of the instructions better than the first. Because less than one hour after hanging up, he does indeed bring her home.
I’m just a little less sure on whether or not he successfully got her to eat enough.
Or maybe she just started drinking too early.
Because my Songbird, when she returns, is undeniably tipsy.
She can walk alright, I’ll give her that, as she comes back into the room, followed by my brother. But her freckled face is extremely flushed, her eyes glassy. And when she sees me, I shit you not, she fucking grins .
“Elio!”
Is this all I had to do to make her happy to see me? Get her drunk first?
Noted.
“Hey, Songbird,” I say as she flops down onto her ass beside me on the bed. “Heard you found a dress.”
Her cheeks are so red. I want to fucking bite them.
She waves away my words and doesn’t answer me, instead fixing me with a distinctly uncentred stare. “Did you stay in bed? And take your Tyle… tylemol?”
“I don’t know what the fuck a tylemol is, but I did take a Tylenol.” I look at Curse who’s standing in the doorway. “How much did she drink?”
“Less than Giulia and Valentina,” he responds, “but she didn’t start eating until after the first two glasses.”
My gaze returns to Deirdre.
“Bit of a lightweight, are you?” I ask her, smirking.
“Pfft!” she folds her arms across her chest. “I won’t be for long. I’m gonna need to drink a lot to deal with being married to you.”
I’m rendered momentarily speechless, not because I’m offended by what she’s said. Far from it. But because this is the first time she’s admitted that she’s marrying me.
Before I can wrap my slow brain around a response to that, she bops up onto her cute little feet and shuffles away into the other bedroom. Soon, I hear water running from the other room’s adjoining bathroom.
“Did you fucking hear that?” I croak at Curse. “About marrying me?”
I’m suddenly paranoid that I imagined it. That it was some fucking hallucination.
But Curse confirms it with a casual, “Yup.” He cracks his knuckles. “Bit of a different tune from what she was singing in the car though.”
“Why? What was she saying?”
“Just that she didn’t plan on marrying you.”
“Yeah, well, what else is new,” I grunt back at him. “Been hearing that since I told her we’re engaged.”
“Not now, though. You know what they say. In vino veritas .”
“Booze makes you honest. Yeah. Yeah…”
I break off slowly, pondering what he’s said, when he suddenly turns my fucking world upside down with a single fucking sentence.
“She also said she’s falling for you.”
My gaze turns blade-like, slicing to him.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“In the car,” Curse goes on. “Valentina said something like, ‘I think you’re falling for him.’ And she said, ‘I know.’”
I can’t believe I’m sitting here gossiping about what the girls said about me in the car, like I’m twelve years old or something. And I don’t even care. I’ll take any fucking scrap of her I can get, even if it’s regurgitated conversation from when I wasn’t there.
A sound makes both Curse and I turn our heads at the same moment. Deirdre is back, wearing a set of pink silk pyjamas. She’s carrying her violin and bow.
Curse slips silently from the room. The only reason I know he goes is because I hear the door to the hallway click shut behind him.
“What’s all this?” I ask, waving my splinted hand in the direction of her instrument.
“I feel like playing tonight,” she says. “And I figure that I should, since I promised I would last night, anyway. But you fell asleep.”
Maybe she’s had a little water, and her buzz is wearing off a tiny bit.
Because, though she’s still flushed and a little looser in her movements than usual, she’s pretty composed as she rests her chin on the violin and raises the bow.
As the fingers of her left hand settle in place against the strings, the diamond of her ring catches the light.
She’s still wearing it.
I kind of figured she would have taken it off in the bathroom.
But she didn’t.
She takes a little breath, shakes a bit of hair out of her face, and then begins to play.
The first notes slug me hard, send me sagging back against the pillows. My breathing quickens in time with the rhythm of the song. I don’t recognize it, but it’s beautiful, quick and lilting. Deirdre’s eyes are closed. Her brows twitch with focus. But her mouth is relaxed. Nearly smiling.
This is it. This is what I’ve fucking wanted the whole fucking time. Her. Coming home to me. And playing for me without being asked or told or punished. Because she already knows that she belongs to me.
My eyes swing back and forth from her face to the glint of the ring on her fingers. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem to be bothering her while she plays, and that fills me with satisfaction.
It’s been so long since I’ve heard her play. Even longer since I’ve seen her play like this. Unafraid and unselfconscious, spilling her soul out onto the strings. It’s like she’s forgotten that I’m even here.
But I know she hasn’t. Because she said she’s playing for me.
And I want to do so many things at once.
I want to lie here and let those notes keep slicing at me until I fucking bleed.
I want to get out of bed, put my fingers round her throat, and crash my mouth to hers.
I want to fall asleep to her song. I want to never close my eyes again so that I don’t miss a single second of her.
The notes stretch out and slow, and Deirdre seamlessly transitions into a new song. This one is haunting. I don’t recognize this tune either, but it sounds like it could be a lullaby.
I try to keep my eyes open. She’s so fucking pretty when she plays.
But I can’t. Now that she’s back I can finally relax, and the enormity of my weakness crashes down on me.
It feels like my weight suddenly doubles, like something’s sucking me down against the mattress and pillows.
My eyelids slide, and no amount of effort in the world can hold them open.
But I can still hear her. Hear the sad-sweet melody she’s pouring through the air.
Sleep comes for me. And even in that darkness, music follows.