I drag in a shaky breath. Then another. Trying to stop whatever the fuck is happening to me.
He doesn’t interrupt. He just watches, patient, giving me the time I need.
“I want to try,” I finally whisper.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot these days. The whole truth is out in the open now. For the first time, those evil people are gone, and their shadows aren’t hanging over us anymore. We never had that before.”
My vision blurs. I blink hard.
“I want to see what we could become… if it were just us.”
His throat moves as he swallows.
“But…?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “There’s no but.”
My laugh comes out rough and uneven.
“I’m just overwhelmed. I’ve been trying not to cry all week. Then the divorce decree came through, and you still weren’t waking up, and now you are…” I press my lips together, fighting another wave. “It’s too much. Too fast.”
He stares at me for a second, then his expression shifts into something dramatically wounded.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. “We’re officially divorced?” His brows pull together. “That hurts, adorable. I… I think I need a hug.”
I blink at him and his audacity, ready to tear him a new one. This is not the moment for a stupid joke! But then I see the deliberate softness in his eyes, the way he’s trying to pull me back from the edge. So a reluctant laugh escapes me instead.
“You’re hooked up to half the hospital,” I tell him. “And your nurses are a different breed of spitfire. If I take a wire out, they’ll probably blow my head off.”
“I wouldn’t let them,” he mutters, a faint grin tugging at his mouth. “In fact, they should approve of it. That hug might speed up my healing. I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere, so it has to be true.”
The humor fades. His gaze sharpens again.
“So… we’re officially divorced?”
“I need you to not make a big case out of it and just accept it,” I say firmly. “That’s one of my conditions if we’re going to move forward.”
He goes very still. Watching me like he’s testing my resolve. Then a slow breath leaves him, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
“Okay, I can do that,” he says slowly, his eyes holding mine. “What other conditions are there?”
I straighten in my chair, wiping the last of the tears from my face with the heel of my palm.
“Okay,” I declare, shifting into business mode before I can lose my nerve. “I only have three.”
His brows lift slightly, looking like he’s holding his breath.
“First,” I continue, “you need to accept that the divorce happened and I’ll never marry you again.”
His expression dims for a second. A flicker of sadness passes through his eyes, but he nods.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
The acceptance costs him something, I can see it.
“But,” I add quickly, “I still want the Ol’ Lady cut.Ifwe make it to that point.” I shrug one shoulder. “It looks cool, and I want one.”
A slow smile curves his mouth. Even flat on his back, hooked up to machines, I can practically see the gears turning in his head — already picturing it, getting ahead of himself.
