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38
Lila
“He’llwakeupsoon,Sugarplum.”
I sobbed into my hands. Nana had been saying that for hours. The doctor in me knew she was right. His vitals were stable, but I couldn’t stop crying. He had almost died. I’d finally found a man I could trust with my heart, and I’d almost lost him.
Sitting on the bed next to Hawk, I lifted my head and gazed at his face. I ran my thumb over his eyebrow, wanting to comfort him even though he was unconscious.
Please wake up.
“We should take him to the hospital,” I said.
“We’ve been through this before, Honeybee. A man like that can’t go to a hospital, not unless you want to lose him. They’ll arrest him as soon as he wakes up.”
“I might be losing him now. What if he dies?”
“You’re a doctor, Sweetpea. You stitched him all up and even gave him your blood.”
I stared at the Band-Aid on my arm. Maybe I should use my home infusion kit again? Luckily, my blood was type O-negative.
Nana patted my back. “There’s nothing else a hospital could do for him.”
“I haven’t done surgery on anyone since medical school.” What if I’d missed an artery? What if he was bleeding internally?
I checked his pulse again. Stable.
I checked his blood pressure. Normal.
I checked his abdomen. No bruising to indicate a pooling of blood.
The IV bag hooked to his arm dripped the antibiotics and painkillers. Still, I shouldn’t have listened to Nana. “I should have called 911.”
“And explain to them why you have seven dead gang members in your apartment?”
“They broke in, and they had guns. We were defending ourselves. We have nothing to hide.”
Nana pointed at Hawk’s body. “No, but he does. That was crime business. You can’t involve the fuzz in it. It’ll be bad for Hawk if you do.”
All my instincts told me to call 911. To follow the law.
“Pumpkin, listen,” Nana said with a warning in her voice. “If you’re going to stand by this man, you need to learn about his world. He doesn’t live by the same rules as you.”
She was right. Last night, I had made the decision to be with him. To love him, no matter what. I had thought we could be together but still live our separate lives during the day. Then come home to each other at night.
But that had been naïve of me.
I put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat—strong under my palm—calmed my nerves.
I needed to learn the ways of his life, or else we could never work out. I didn’t want to immerse myself completely in it. I had my career and my friends, but I needed to overlap with his world, and he with mine. Finding that precipice to balance on would be the only way we could work out.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Piecrust. It won’t be easy. It’ll take time. It could get dangerous again. But, for the right man, it’s worth it.”
Nana had been able to do it with my grandfather. They adapted, and she never regretted it. I could do this too.
“Is he worth it?” she asked me.
I didn’t have to think twice. My answer shot out of me. “Yes.”
