Chapter 24
SOFIA
The curtain settles behind Massimo. The second he’s gone, I can breathe easier.
Able to delay the inevitable conversation I owe him.
My pulse is still high, the adrenaline still sitting hot in my throat from the way he almost fell apart at the desk.
Almost collapsed onto me in relief when we locked eyes.
I know he’s protecting me with everything he has, but in the moment back in the ER waiting room, he looked like the young guy he is.
Too freaked out to go through this twice.
Too inexperienced to handle what I see and deal with on a daily basis.
And that innocence and purity, I wanted to protect.
Finally, understanding how he feels about me, because I feel it for him.
“Sof?”
I turn back to the disaster on the gurney. Emilio is staring at me like he’s been waiting for this exact moment. Scraped up, walking boot half torn, shirt ripped to shreds, and bleeding scrapes everywhere. Still holding his hand, I catch his wrist and turn his palm toward the overhead light.
“You let the mailbox win, Nene. Shameful.”
His mouth curves, that reckless, too-bright grin that makes you want to hug him and smack him at the same time.
“It didn’t win. I did. The mailbox lost. Look at me. Still hot. Still irresistible. And my plan worked.”
My stomach twists.
“You planned to get into another wreck. Maybe you don’t get to ride anymore. You wrecked both bikes, yes? Then no more motorcycles for you.”
“Technicalities.” He tries to wave the hand I’m inspecting and hisses when it pulls. “Owie, my angel. I’m delicate.”
“You’re not. You’re my brave, tough guy that’s going to let me get all these out.”
He shrugs and beams. “I AM all those things. And your mi burro.”
I open my mouth to tell him exactly what kind of idiot he is, but he beats me with some confusing words. “Mi burro?”
“Yeah, it means boyfriend. I’ve been learning Spanish on my phone, so I know what those DSLs are saying when you turn away from me.”
It’s cute if not completely wrong. I don’t bother correcting him. If he wants to learn Spanish from an app so he can know when I’m talking about him, it will take years for him to catch on.
“You weren’t gonna come back.”
No lead-in. No softening. No filter. Just a verbal punch straight to the sternum. My breath gets stuck halfway down my throat.
“Emilio…” I start, but even I can hear the guilt in my voice.
He lifts his brows, waiting, like he already knows he just ripped open something I’ve been keeping down. Not dealing with. My fingers tighten around his hand. He hisses but doesn’t move. I hate how the truth burns all the way through me.
Before I can answer, the nurse comes back with a tray. Tweezers, gauze, chlorhexidine, and that tired look ER nurses get when the shift has already been too long.
“Are you family?” she asks, glancing between us.
I snort under my breath. “Algo así. ICU upstairs.”
Her eyes catch on my lanyard. That’s all she needs. She puts the tray in my hand like she’s glad to be rid of the problem, then moves to the monitor to check his vitals. Emilio relaxes back on the pillow, his hand still in mine like he trusts me with his life.
He should. He’s given it to me twice now. I pick up the tweezers. First splinter comes out easily. Tiny thing. Too much blood for such a little piece of wood.
He flinches. “Ouchie, my angel, have mercy on my dirty little soul.”
“Be quiet. I’m working. And you deserve worse.”
He lets his head loll to the side, eyes glued to my face.
“You came,” he whispers as if the nurse standing right beside him can’t hear. Even over all the craziness down here, veteran nurses like her can hear conversations two curtains over and down the hall.
“Of course I came.” I keep my eyes on his skin, not his eyes, and not on her. “When the brother of one of my patients calls me, crying into the phone about another accident, I’m going to show up. Especially when he’s dumb enough to steal his brother’s bike.”
I keep it strictly on the facts. It’s no one’s business here what I did with the twins.
No one needs to know where this might go from here.
Doctors and nurses are always hooking up here.
Cheating on spouses and hiding affairs. I’ve steered clear of all that drama.
I don’t need people to realize they missed out on mine and need to be the source of all the gossip. I’d hate that.
He glances at her, complains as I extract several more. All falls on my deaf ears, but she’s had enough of his whining, deciding to leave him in my capable hands.
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice goes soft, a whisper when she finally leaves. Snapping the curtain closed behind her. “You came.”
I press the tweezers a little deeper than I need to. He yelps.
“Yes, Nene. I heard you the first time. You scared the shit out of me, and you got what you wanted.”
I glance at him. His hand is starting to feel warm to the touch, and I think he’s developing a fever. I’ll tell them when they grab him for the tests. Otherwise, he’s a mandatory admission for observation at the very least.
His mouth wobbles, but he keeps trying to act slick.
“What I wanted was you and Mas in the same room again. Mission accomplished. I’m basically Cupid. You can thank me on Valentine’s Day with that fat ass in the tiniest g-string they make. Like fucking dental floss string so I can go cave diving to find it.”
I breathe out through my nose so I don’t laugh.
He doesn’t deserve it. But the corners of my mouth twitch anyway.
He spills the most random, crude, and useless stuff, but it usually brings a smile to my face.
To be like him and take nothing seriously, even another accident that he didn’t intend to cause, but did intentionally to bring us all together again.
It’s a terrible decision, even if he’s celebrating it like it’s not.
“But you weren’t gonna come back, huh?” he whispers, finally realizing that the curtain isn’t soundproof for his overly loud voice.
The tweezers pause between splinters. My shoulders tighten.
Guilt floods my body, and I know I can be honest with him.
Emilio couldn’t lie his way out of a hospital bed on an incline.
“I don’t know,” I admit, voice low because anything louder might crack. “I tried. Every day. Every night. But every time I picked up my phone, I—”
He interrupts with a gasp so dramatic it echoes off the curtain.
“SO YOU DID GET OUR MESSAGES?”
I almost choke. “Shh, Nene. That’s not—”
“You loved my dick pics, didn’t you? Masturbated to them, huh? I yanked my chubby to you every time. Those DSLs sucking my chubby, stuffing everything in you on the bathroom counter.”
I take one out harder than necessary. He howls in pain. But it works in shutting him up. His loud voice carries more than he thinks.
“Hush!”
He points at me with his splintered hand, winces, then keeps pointing anyway because apparently, pain is optional when he’s being nosy.
“You missed Mas and me. Admit it. And don’t lie because I’ll know, Sof. Don’t you dare lie to my injured face.”
My eyes sting, and I turn away. Pour some chlorhexidine onto a swab and dab it onto the torn skin. He sucks in, cusses a lot, and tries to yank his hand back. My grip tightens, and I resume working.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t NOT say it. So, it has to be true.”
I rub my forehead with the back of my wrist.
“Emilio—”
“And you didn’t block us,” he adds, softer now in a serious way that’s not like him and more like his sensitive twin. “If you really wanted space, you would’ve blocked us. But you didn’t. You ghosted. Ghosting is different. Ghosting means you’re scared of how much you like us.”
My stomach tightens because he’s wrong about what ghosting means, but not wrong about that I didn’t block them. I sink lower on the stool beside the bed. His head lulls closer to me.
“I wasn’t scared of you,” I admit after lying in bed, scared of my ex coming back, scared of how I feel about them, but not scared of them, far from it.
“I was worried about how fast everything felt. How big you both felt. How suddenly I have two of you in my life. Doing things for me and wanting things from me. Last time I fell that fast, I ended up rebuilding my whole life from scratch.”
He watches me, unusually quiet for him. It makes me a bit nervous. I’m not comfortable with introspective Em. I hope this calm side doesn’t stay around because I’m not sure how to handle it.
“And I didn’t want to make another mistake,” I add, weakly. If we are both showing different sides of us, might as well show this one that rarely comes out.
He snorts. Loudly. Then cackles, back to his usual self. I’m thrown off guard by how fast he changes.
“We’re not mistakes, my angel. We’re PREMIUM CHOICES!”
I don’t know what to say or do other than to keep holding his hand and digging for splinters. Which suddenly doesn’t seem to bother him. Again, being nosy seems to block his pain receptors.
“You like us. A lot. I can tell. You’re doing the sad-eyes thing right now.”
“I’m not doing sad eyes,” I argue, even though I might be.
They’re certainly tired eyes after they interrupted my shift and dragged me through unnecessary worry to find him here. Banged up but basically fine.
“You ARE,” he says, pointing again. “Your eyebrows do the little tilt thing. Like you’re about to tell me you don’t want dessert, but you really do. And I definitely want dessert. I want creamy donut holes with the filling leaking out.”
I drop my head back with a groan.
“Dios mio.”
He shifts, trying to get more comfortable, wincing when his ribs catch.
“You don’t gotta run. We’re not asking you to move into our crib and pop out twins. We just like you. And miss you. And Mas is being all tragic and shit. He listens to Adele now. ADELE, Sof. ADELE! Do you know what that does to me?”