Chapter 46 #2
My father, who had the self-awareness to say nothing, set my duffle near the entry.
Bliss looked at him. “You bought this?”
“No,” he said. “This one is a rental.”
Her brows lifted. “Like, for a few months?”
“Yes.”
“But you bought yours?” she asked, pointing vaguely upward, because apparently the concept of my parents existing one floor above us in a penthouse had started doing emotional damage to her common sense. “Like… forever?”
As serious as she was trying to look, the whole thing lost impact because she loved my parents. Somehow, in three weeks, Bliss Bennett had melted the ice off my mother’s ass and removed the stick from my father’s by sheer force of blonde chaos and emotional sincerity.
“Yes,” my father said. “Or until you and Cade decide what you want to do with it. Your apartment is the rental. The penthouse is ours for now, but we planned to gift it to you both once Cade is fully on his feet and Elenore feels confident enough for us to return to New York.”
Bliss went completely still.
I did not.
Mostly because standing still was beginning to feel physically ambitious, and my body had started sending several strongly worded emails about sitting down.
“What?” she whispered.
My mother, who had been pretending not to hover near the door, stepped closer with one hand pressed lightly against her own chest. “We want to be close while he heals. And after everything, we want him to have somewhere secure. Somewhere private.” Her eyes shifted to Bliss, soft in a way I still wasn’t used to seeing. “Somewhere both of you feel safe.”
That was not on my bingo card.
My mother being openly maternal and nurturing while my dad doted on my girl.
Miracles everywhere.
Bliss blinked at her, and I could see the exact second her irritation at rich people nonsense got tackled by the fact that Elenore Mercer had just used the word safe like it mattered to her too.
She turned to me. “Did you know about this?”
I huffed a laugh and tugged lightly on my father’s arm, aiming us toward the nearby chair before my healing organs started a formal rebellion. “I suspected, Pip.”
“You suspected we would just be given a penthouse?”
My father and I both looked at her like she was the crazy one.
Bliss threw one hand out. “Don’t do that. Don’t look at me like I’m being unreasonable. Normal people do not casually gift skyline apartments because their son got stabbed and acquired a clingy girlfriend with trauma issues and likes to cuddle.”
“You’re not acquired,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “That is the part of the sentence you’re focusing on?”
“You moved in.”
“To keep you alive.”
“Still moved in.”
“I will smother you with one of these suspiciously expensive pillows.”
My father cleared his throat, and I could have sworn his mouth twitched. “Speaking of pillows, Bliss, feel free to order whatever you need to make the space more you and Cade. Furniture, linens, decor. Whatever you prefer.”
Bliss stared at him.
Then at my mother.
Then at the apartment.
“Whatever I prefer?” she repeated carefully, like the phrase might be a trap set by generational wealth.
“Yes,” my mother said. “It’s very neutral right now.”
“That is a kind way to say boring.”
My mother looked around, considered that, then nodded. “Accurate.”
Bliss’s eyes brightened despite herself.
I saw it happen.
The moral crisis lasted maybe four seconds.
“Okay, well, if we’re being honest, this room needs warmth. Like immediately. It’s giving divorced architect who thinks beige is an aesthetic choice.”
My father looked personally wounded. “The architect is not divorced.”
“Not yet, dear,” my mother murmured.
I laughed and regretted it instantly, pressing a hand carefully to my side. “Holy shit.”
Bliss whipped toward me. “Do not laugh. Your lung is on probation.”
“My lung enjoyed that.”
“Your lung is a liar.”
My father helped lower me into the chair, and I sank into it like it had personally saved my life. “Thank you,” I muttered to them both.
My father gave my shoulder a careful squeeze, the kind that still felt new between us. “Always.”
My mother opened the door for my very male nurse, Steve. Bliss had the poor guy vetted with the intensity of a federal background check. He stepped inside with a medical bag, kind eyes, and the good sense to look terrified of my girlfriend immediately.
Bliss pointed at him. “Shoes off or covers on. I don’t know where these sensible hospital shoes have been, Steve.”
Steve blinked. “Of course.”
My father watched her for a second, then said quietly, “She looks like a fairy and fights like a feral cat.”
I laughed again, softer this time, because yeah, that was exactly it.
Bliss was already across the room with my mother, discussing color palettes like she had not been morally opposed to luxury real estate thirty seconds earlier.
Apparently being unserious about money stopped being a character flaw the second Elenore mentioned throw pillows, soft blankets, and “whatever would make Cade more comfortable.”
Traitor.
Beautiful, bossy little traitor.
I leaned back in the chair, exhausted enough that the edges of the room blurred, and watched her take over the apartment the same way she had taken over my parents.
Not loudly. Not intentionally. Just by being herself.
By caring too hard. By making people feel like loving out loud was not only allowed but expected.
I would be lying if I said she wasn’t the reason my parents had changed. Or maybe not changed and instead she had just found the door in them nobody else had bothered knocking on hard enough.
Either way, she had them exactly where she had me.
Eating out of the palm of her hand.
Steve helped me to the bedroom because the walk from the elevator to the apartment had apparently qualified as an Olympic event. By the time I sat on the edge of the bed, sweat had gathered along the back of my neck, and my vision had done one brief, irritating pulse around the edges.
Bliss saw it and crouched in front of me, hands on my knees, looking up with that fierce, terrified tenderness I would never survive if I kept seeing it too often.
“You’re pale.”
“I’m always pale. Manhattan money. No manual labor.”
“Don’t joke if you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m not about to pass out.” I paused. “Probably.”
“Cade.”
“I’m fine, Pip.”
“You are recovering from being stabbed by a psychopath. A very dead one you made an art project out of.”
“See? Recovering. Strong verb.”
Her face crumpled for half a second before she shoved it back into place, and I hated myself a little for pushing.
I leaned forward carefully, ignoring the pull in my side, and brushed my thumb beneath her eye. “I’m sorry, Pip.”
She breathed out through her nose. “For what? Almost dying or being irritating while recovering?”
“Both?”
“That’s fair.”
I smiled.
She pressed her forehead to my knee for one second, just one, like she needed to hide there.
Then she stood and turned bossy again, which I greatly preferred because crying Bliss still made me feel like someone had shoved a knife into the only place Luke had missed.
She got me settled against the pillows. She checked my medication schedule.
She argued softly with the nurse about when I should eat.
She made me drink water. She glared when I said the bed was big enough for two and told me organs first, flirting second.
Honestly, tyrannical.
And for the first time since the hallway, being ordered around by Bliss Bennett felt less like proof I was broken and more like proof I had made it back to the life waiting for me.