His mouth tightened with mirth. “Would you have picked up?”
No. She would have ignored the call.
“I called Tristan,” he said, “and asked him to call you. I assume he did, since you’re here and all.”
Another pregnant pause swelled between them until Des exhaled a low sigh. “I’m going to get some air. I’ll be around if you need anything.”
She nodded once, just to show she heard him, and he slipped past her, leaving the way she’d come.
The hospital room was surprisingly bright, with the fluorescent lights beaming down in addition to the sun streaming in from the westward-facing window. There was even a horizontal light affixed to the wall above the bed like an obnoxious headboard, casting shadows across the tiled floor of the different bags hanging from the IV rack next to the bed.
Lenny’s head was wrapped up in gauze, but she looked alert enough as Cami drew closer and dropped her bags into the corner. “How are you feeling?” she asked carefully.
“Like I got hit by a truck.” Lenny snorted at her joke. “I could use a joint, I’ll tell you that much.”
“What else is new?”
Lenny sighed, leaning back against the bed. The top portion was elevated to keep her at a comfortable angle.
Cami shifted forward, pushing a rolling tray out of her way to hand Lenny the elevation controls and adjust the pillow that was bunched behind her neck.
“Des called you?”
She swallowed. “He called Tristan.”
Lenny made a noise of assent, frowning thoughtfully at her right leg, which was held up in some kind of sling, probably awaiting a cast or some other kind of medical attention.
“I thought you were on your way out of town.”
Cami focused on the corner of Lenny’s pillow. “I was.”
Lenny didn’t respond with anything but a slow nod that Cami caught in her periphery. An awkward pause filled the feet between them, and it prickled Cami’s eyes. In the year since she’d met Lenny, she couldn’t remember a single silence between them that had ever been awkward. The dark void of loss in her chest ached, and she swallowed.
“Do you want me to get you a drink?” she asked. Neither of them acknowledged the tautness in her voice.
Lenny seemed to deflate a little with resignation. “Sure.”
Cami could breathe more easily in the hall, even in the thin, stale air. She strolled down the hall, keeping to the side in case someone needed to rush past her. Now that she had seen Lenny with her own eyes, proven to herself that she was okay, it was harder to make herself walk with the purpose she’d had on the way in. The anxiety that had powered her leaked from her muscles, leaving her tired and drained.
The trauma ward had a waiting area, a dark little square sectioned off by strategically placed chairs and uncomfortable-looking benches. A dinged-up coffee table sat in front of one bench, the surface almost covered by lifestyle and celebrity gossip magazines, some months out of date. In the far corner stood a set of vending machines, next to a plant that was either fake or unpleasantly waxy.
Clustered around the coffee table were three people. Two women who looked to be in their thirties, and from their similar features, the three of them were family. The sisters were holding a magazine between them, sharing a crossword puzzle that another person had penciled in. A man about Cami’s age, maybe a little younger, sprawled along a bench, head resting on a bunched-up jacket against the metal arm, his eyes closed.
“Fifty-four across is ‘Producer Gotti.’ Three letters,” said the one holding the pencil. Her chestnut hair was pulled up into a ponytail, sleek and tight at the nape of her neck.
“Tim!” chirped the other. She had the same color hair, but hers was aggressively curly, with tight ringlets threatening to obscure her vision.
“Who the fuck is Tim Gotti?” Ms. Ponytail huffed.
Cami’s heart squeezed at the sight of them. The three of them were comfortable together, enjoying each other’s companyin an easy, effortless way she’d never experienced. Maybe she’d had that kind of relationship once, with her grandmother. She’d never have siblings, though, and any attempts at family had blown up in her face. Since Grammy had died, the closest she’d gotten had been Des, and look how that turned out. Uncle Archie had been family. Des had been...something. And they’d both lied to her, used her. Maybe she just wasn’t allowed to have the kind of perfect family unit that these three had.
“You’re both idiots,” grunted the boy on the bench, eyes still closed. “It’s Irv. Irv Gotti.”
Yeah. This was exactly what Cami had wanted.
And it was what she would never have.
Jaw clenching, she crossed to the vending machine and dug into her pocket for coins. As she thumbed at a quarter and contemplated the beverage choices, she was dimly aware of another person entering the waiting area and addressing the group behind her. A nurse, she realized as she slotted the coins into the machine. Coming to take one of them to visit their ailing father. After a brief back and forth, the young man was selected. She pushed the button for a ginger ale, and as it clanked in the machine and dropped to the retrieval slot, she glanced over her shoulder to catch him disappearing around the corner with the nurse.
