46. Ofelia
Ofelia
“I wish I could tell you more, Mr. Al Sudairi,” Dr. Moretti begins.
“Benny.” He glares at her. “Just use Benny.”
“Si.” Dr. Moretti’s eyes cut to Jack Bellini, who nods reassuringly. “We must take this as a positive sign, Benny,” she begins again. “Lars is breathing without assistance. This is an excellent beginning.”
“It’s been three days.” He stares accusingly at her through bloodshot eyes. “Three days. You said it was normal that he would be unconscious for hours, not days.”
“Actually, what I said was—” At a subtle shake of Jack’s head, Dr. Moretti stops.
“The brain is unpredictable,” she says quietly.
“And bodies heal in their own time. Trying to rush that process will only risk Lars’s recovery.
There is a reason your visits to his bedside are restricted to very brief windows.
He needs peace, quiet, and time to emerge at his own pace. ”
“But we can’t just sit in the waiting room. There must be something we can do—”
“There is, Mr. Al Sudairi—Benny,” Dr. Moretti corrects herself, shaking off Jack’s restraining hand on her arm. “You can leave,” she says firmly. “You both can.” She turns her glare on me. “Go outside. Touch the grass, as the Americans say.”
“Touch grass,” Jack corrects her, grinning.
“This is what I said.” She gives him an impatient look.
“It’s touch grass,” he explains. “Not touch the grass—and obviously that doesn’t matter at all,” he says hastily, backing away from Benny’s murderous expression with his hands up.
“But the doc has a point,” he goes on, glancing at me.
“You and Benny have barely slept for days, and it wasn’t like you were sleeping a lot before that.
I don’t know anything about medicine,” he adds, “but if it’s true that thoughts are energy, the tension rolling off you two would be enough to keep me unconscious, too.
What?” he says in answer to Dr. Moretti’s skeptical look.
“Just because you didn’t read it in a book—okay. I’m going to stop now.”
“Smart,” Benny snarls, but his brow is creased like he’s actually mulling over what Jack said.
“Come on.” I touch his shoulder. “Let’s just go for a walk outside, at least. You know they’ll call us if anything happens.”
Benny’s eyes get a slightly panicked look. “But what if he wakes up, and I’m not here—”
“Then he will have been awake, and we will know more,” Dr. Moretti says firmly. “Andate,” she orders, ushering us out.
“She’s so bossy for such a little person,” Benny grumbles as we head for the elevator.
“She is, isn’t she,” Jack says, grinning as he blows Dr. Moretti a kiss.
I shake my head. “I can’t believe you’re sleeping with Lars’s surgeon. You’re as bad as my brother.”
“Ha.” Jack snorts. “Not even close. From what I’ve heard, that is,” he adds hastily, his eyes not quite touching mine.
I frown. “I didn’t realize you knew Mickey so well.”
“Oh, I don’t.” He hits the button for the elevator, studiously avoiding my eyes. “Just from his time here. And by reputation, obviously.”
By reputation?
Then I remember that Mickey is in Miami. “I gather my brother is dealing with his breakup in true Miami style,” I say dryly, as we travel down to the ground floor. “I thought they’d all be too busy for partying, but I guess he managed to fit some in anyway.”
“Partying.” Jack gives a choked laugh. As the doors open, he mutters something that sounds like, “I guess you could call it that.”
“Hey.” I frown at him. “Not that I’m defending it, but Mickey just had a rough breakup. Go easy on him.”
“Go easy on Mickey Stevanovsky,” he says, grinning. “Sure. I’ll try to remember to do that.”
We come out into reception, and several of Jack’s men fall in discreetly around us. Since the explosion, the security presence doesn’t bother me like it used to. And Jack’s men are so good I often barely notice they’re with us.
Benny looks pale and miserable. He walks with his phone in his hand, checking the screen every other minute, making sure the volume is turned up so he doesn’t miss a call.
“You know they’ll tell us if he wakes up,” I say, tucking my arm through his. “We need to be patient, Benny.”
“Patient,” he mutters, shaking his head. “You have no idea how fucking sick of that word I am.”
Fair.
“Where are we going?” He looks around, blinking owlishly in the brilliant sunshine. “I only know how to find the nearest decent coffee,” he says miserably. “I don’t think I’ve walked farther than that since we’ve been here.”
“Then come with me.” I turn us toward the port. “There’s a place I want to show you. It’s not far from here, just down by the marina.”
We walk through the busy streets toward the port, past modern apartment blocks with graffiti-covered walls and ancient stone overhung by trees. Even the side streets are busy in Palermo, scooters racing past between fast-moving cars, all honking their horns at the slightest infraction.
“Not the most scenic,” Benny says dryly, looking around.
“Not here, perhaps.” I glance at him. “But Sicily is growing on me, despite the circumstances that brought us here. It’s beautiful once you’re out of the city.”
“I guess.” His face is distant again.
“Have you spoken to your parents?” I ask, as we draw closer to the port. “Does anyone in your family know what’s going on?”
“My sister, Rana, who’s studying in New York.
She’s the only one who still speaks to me.
I thought about texting her, but honestly, I don’t know what I’d say.
” Benny’s face is gaunt. “My family are Arab royalty. What we do privately is our own affair, so long as we maintain appearances. But when I met Lars, I didn’t just open the closet door.
I walked through it in public—and kept on walking, including onto the gossip pages.
” He grimaces. “My entire life with him is one my family would never understand, let alone approve of. I don’t know if it’s fair to ask that of Rana.
And I don’t think I have the strength right now to put up with her rejection. ”
He hunches his shoulders, putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“I can’t believe Lars’s parents aren’t here either,” he says bitterly.
“I mean, do they just not care that their only son is—” His voice breaks off.
“I don’t understand it,” he says bleakly.
“Apparently the research season is nearly finished, whatever that means, and if they leave their project now they lose funding. His mother actually said to me that since there’s ‘nothing they can do,’ there’s no point in them being here. ”
He shakes his head. “Talk about polar opposites,” he says. “My family might never forgive me for being gay, but that single fact looms so large in their minds that it’s literally all they see. Lars’s parents don’t seem to see their son at all—or care what he is, or who he’s with.”
“I’m not sure they ever did.”
Benny glances at me inquiringly.
“Deda Sergei told me once that Lars spent every holiday at the Miami compound from the moment he and Alexei met at boarding school. It got to the point where Lars’s parents asked Sergei if he’d assume a guardian role legally so they wouldn’t have to interrupt their trips to sign inconvenient school forms. I got the feeling he didn’t really approve, but he’d never have said so. ”
“Lars has never really talked about them.” Benny frowns.
“There are so many things we never talked about,” he says somberly.
“I think that’s why I felt so—fucking angry—at Pirate Boy.
It’s like Alexei and Lars had this whole world that was just theirs, one that contained secrets only they could share, and automatically excluded anyone else. ”
His shoulders crowd in toward his face. “I was jealous, I guess. But now, after seeing the way Alexei was with him—” He grimaces. “It seems so stupid. And after dealing with Lars’s mother, I can’t help but think that Alexei was probably the closest thing to family that Lars ever really had.”
“Was she really that bad?” I ask curiously.
He rolls his eyes with a semblance of his old camp bitchiness.
“Her exact words to me were ‘What a terrible thing that a brain like his might be ruined.’” He gives me a wry glance.
“Not ‘What will I do if I lose my beautiful son.’ I got the feeling they were mourning the loss of a potential Nobel Prize, rather than Lars himself.”
“Their loss,” I say, bumping him gently. “No wonder he came looking for someone like you.”
“Thanks, princess.” He touches his head against mine. “Where are you taking me?” He looks around as we near the water. “No offense, but the sea has definitely lost appeal for me lately.”
“Understandable.” I point to a side road parallel to the seafront. “Down here. I need your opinion on something.”
“Ooh.” Benny forces a weak smile. “Girl. Fun.”
I kiss his cheek and lead him toward a small baroque building with whitewashed walls and warm dusty-yellow render framing the facade.
“A church?” Benny gives me a quizzical look as we mount the stone steps, terracotta potted palms on either side.
“I’ve said a lot of prayers these past weeks, Ofelia, but I’m not sure saying them in a church is going to make any deity hear them more clearly.
” He reads the sign inside the tiled entrance.
“Particularly not a Russian Orthodox church.”
“That’s not why we’re here.” I lead him into the cool hush of the church itself.
The floor is a swirl of patterned tile, intricate and Sicilian in character rather than Russian.
Palm fronds and greenery flank the nave, in quiet contrast to the gilded Byzantine icons of saints and the rich jewel colors of the devotional paintings against the white plaster.
The barrel vault ceiling is long, high, and curved, lending an airy light that makes the space feel like it’s alive.
“Nice,” Benny says, looking around, “if churches are your thing, I guess.”
“Not for most occasions.” My face heats up. “But I’ve always thought it might be nice to get married in one.”