Chapter 4 Daniela
DANIELA
The hospital cafeteria.
The ice cream machine. Vanilla soft serve. Topping bar.
Hawk’s entire family, minus Eagle and Mr. Bellamy.
One of these things is not like the other.
Me.
I consider Vinnie and Raven my family, but I’m hardly a Bellamy. Hawk and I have slept together once. We’re not even in a relationship, really.
So why am I here, exactly?
I came to be here for Hawk, but clearly he doesn’t want my presence.
So now I’m eating ice cream with his family in the freaking hospital cafeteria.
I hold my dish under the machine, watch the ice cream coil into it. Then I take a bit of every topping. Every single one. Screw it. Life is short. My father’s rules for my eating have been drummed in my head for so long, and I’m going to fight against him.
The Pink Cadillac ice cream I ate the other day was the first step.
This is the second step.
Rainbow sprinkles. Cookie crumbles. Peanuts. Chocolate sauce. Caramel sauce. Banana slices. Strawberries. Pretzel pieces. Mini M&Ms. Gummy bears.
Every one of them, even the ones I’m not crazy about like bacon bits. Why are there bacon bits at an ice cream bar? I’m a chef in training, and I get the salty-sweet contrast, but this seems to go too far.
The others are all sitting down together, hovering over Star. Her eyes and nose are pink and puffy. No surprise there. Her child is fighting for his life. And her husband is still here as well.
Raven rises and walks to me as I turn away from the machine.
“Hungry?” she asks, looking at my ice cream.
And I realize—funny thing—that I’m not even slightly hungry.
“Not really.”
She forces out a choking laugh. “I hope you get hungry. That looks delicious.”
“Are you doing okay?” I ask.
She sighs. “We’re all hanging in there. He’s strong. If anyone can get through this, it’s Eagle.”
I simply nod.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
For a moment I don’t reply. Why is anyone concerned about me right now?
“Fine,” I finally reply.
“Is my brother treating you right?”
I widen my eyes slightly. “Raven, you have so much else on your mind. Please don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry about you, Dani. You’re like family now.”
“I appreciate you saying that. I consider you and Vinnie family as well. Right now, though, we should be focusing on Eagle.”
“To be honest,” she says, “it would help if I had something else to focus on. God knows I’m sick to death of hospitals and what they mean.” She leans in. “So tell me. About you and Hawk.”
I glance toward the table. None of them are paying any attention to us. Of course they’re not. Eagle is fighting for his life.
So I answer.
“Yes, he’s treating me very well.”
Except when he told me to get out of Eagle’s hospital room, but I leave that part out.
“Good.” She narrows her eyes. “What exactly is going on between you two?”
I bite my lip. “I don’t think I need to spell it out. I spent the night there.”
“I know, sweetie.” She squeezes my shoulder. “And I think you know that I want to ask if you’re okay.”
“I am, actually. I know I’m young, and I know I’ve been through…”
“You don’t have to go into any detail.”
“I know that, too. But in a way… In a way, I lost my virginity last night.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“You know. I mean…consensually.”
“Your emotional virginity,” she says.
“That’s it, exactly. So I’m trying to look at this without getting too emotional.
I mean, it was amazing, and I don’t have any regrets.
” I look down. “But I’m also feeling some things that I never thought I’d be capable of feeling.
But I’m young, and it seems too soon to be feeling anything like that. It was just sex, right?”
She smiles. “Do you care for him?”
“Of course. That’s what I mean by feelings.”
“Then it wasn’t just sex, Dani. It was something very special between the two of you. If he has any sense at all, he’ll return your feelings.”
“So you don’t disapprove?”
“Why would I disapprove?”
“Because I’m so much younger than he is.”
She grabs my hand. “Dani, I fell for Vinnie so quickly. Before I really even knew anything about him. Love can be like that, you know? It can sneak up on you when you least expect it.”
My cheeks warm. “I didn’t say anything about love.”
“You don’t have to, sweetie.” She grins. “It’s in your eyes.”
I blink.
“You can try to hide it, but it’s there. I know you’re young, and I know you’re confused, given your past. But my brother is a good man. I love all my siblings equally, but Hawk is special.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He’s strong in a way that is hard to describe. He’s always concerned with what’s right.”
I nod. “I can tell that about him already.”
“He’s always been that way. If he thinks something is unjust, it bothers him.” She looks at my ice cream bowl. “Come on. Let’s sit down with the others before that mass of ice cream melts.”
We walk back to the table, and I sit down next to Vinnie on the end. Raven sits across from him.
“Where are Falcon and Savannah?” Raven asks, pointing to two unfinished bowls of ice cream on the table.
“Falcon got a call, and he left to take it,” Robin says. “Savannah went with him.”
“Baby,” Vinnie says to Raven, “I’m going to need to head home after the ice cream. I have a meeting that I can’t miss. Do you want to stay?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll stay,” Raven says. “But you could probably take Daniela home.”
“Did you need a ride, Daniela?” Vinnie asks me.
I sigh. Hawk drove me here. “Yeah, I could use one.”
“Okay. We’ll finish our ice cream and you and I will leave. You keep us posted,” he says to Raven.
“Absolutely.”
Robin, who’s sitting next to Raven, glances to her sister. “I feel terrible about all of this, but mostly for Hawk.”
Raven raises her eyebrows. “Hawk?”
“Yeah, this is going to hit him hard. Hawk likes to be the fixer of the family. He’s going to blame himself for this.”
Vinnie clears his throat and wipes his lips on his napkin. “I don’t mean to be blunt here”—he glances at Star, who’s in her own world, watching her ice cream melt—“but this is Eagle’s fault and Eagle’s fault alone.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Robin says.
Star lets out a choking sob.
Raven rises. “For the love of God, Robbie.” She helps Star up. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go to the bathroom and get you fixed up.”
Once they’re gone, Robin glances at Vinnie and me. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to upset your fiancée.”
“She’s fine,” Vinnie says. “I’m the one who said it first. You just agreed with me.”
“Still—”
Vinnie holds up his hand to stop Robin. “We’re all just worried, and Raven always says that Eagle was her baby.”
Robin nods. “I know. She considers herself his second mother. I shouldn’t have been so cynical. The thing is that Hawk and I kind of have a middle-child bond.”
“But you and Raven are twins,” I say.
“We are, but Raven was really close to Mom growing up because she’s so much like her. And she was born first. Falcon’s the oldest, and Eagle’s the baby. So that left Hawk and me stuck in the middle.”
“I get it.”
“It’s just so strange, though,” Robin says. “Eagle’s been clean for eight years. Eight freaking years. Why would he use now?”
“Maybe because of your father?” I say.
Robin inhales. “I’ve thought of that. But Eagle is… Don’t get me wrong. I love my brother and I want him to pull through more than anything, but Eagle isn’t one to really put others before himself. Part of being the baby, I guess.”
Vinnie nods. “Raven is a bit blind when it comes to Eagle, but even though I haven’t known this family for long, I’ve been able to see that side of him.”
“And then Hawk…” Robin begins.
My ears perk up at Hawk’s name.
“He’s the opposite of Eagle. He puts others first all the time. Even to his own detriment sometimes.”
I nod.
It all makes a certain kind of sense.
Robin and Hawk have that particular kind of closeness born not from being the oldest or the baby, but from being the bridges. The peacekeepers. The ones who learn to stretch in both directions to keep the family from falling apart.
That’s Hawk. Always reaching, always holding. Not loud, not flashy. Just there. Quietly catching what others drop.
I think about what it means, that bond. The way he sees people. The way he tries to fix everything. Not the way he looks, though he’s the best-looking man I’ve ever seen. But the way he moves through the world like it’s his responsibility to make it better for the people he loves.
And I wonder—dangerously—what it would be like to be one of those people.
I smile. Maybe I already am.
Except…
He basically told me to go away.