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His mouth hitched at the corners. “Don’t try to make me laugh. Feels like my guts are gonna fall out.”
“Jaysus.” I patted his shoulder. “Should I ring the nurse? They could up your meds…”
“No. I’m pretty damn high right now. I have a feeling this’ll hurt a lot more in the morning.”
“I think you’re right. Happens when you let a knife stick you in your belly.”
“Right.” He snapped his fingers in slow motion. “I’ll remember that next time. Knife in belly, bad.” He blinked a few times. “How is Iris and why aren’t you with her?”
“Mild concussion, stitches in her scalp from lacerations from a broken mirror, seven stitches on her stomach, even more on the stab wound to her bicep.” I rubbed the center of my forehead and answered the second part of his question. “I was with her, but she’s asleep and already has a room full of visitors. You don’t have anyone.”
He nodded, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to her sooner. I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”
“No.” Pressing my mouth into a hard line, I shook my head. “No, you’re not doing that. Olivia Grayson hurt Iris. You saved her.”
His eyes slowly opened again, and he peered at me from under a pinched brow. “Are you not sitting here blaming yourself just as I am? If you say you’re not, I’ll call you a liar.”
“If I’d pulled my head from my arse for a minute and listened to my girl, I would have been there with her. Olivia Grayson wouldn’t have gotten close to her. None of this would have happened.”
Olivia Grayson had held the blade, but I’d put Iris in her path.
“Not your fault, Ro.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Finn’s eyes hooded, the meds creeping up on him as he lay there. “You have to go make it right. The last words you said to her weren’t tender. Fix that. She can’t forgive you if she doesn’t know you’re sorry.”
I lowered my head to the railing on his bed. “And if you’d died saving my girl, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive you. Let’s cut the shite before I have to live in a world of regret. I forgive you, Finn. For the crash, and for Vanessa. I won’t hold it against you. You’re my brother for life.”
He gave me a sleepy, crooked grin. “Not a coworker, though?”
“I think the feck not.” I snorted, some of the knots strangling my chest loosening. “Those days are over, but you can’t rid yourself of me as easily outside of work.”
He huffed as his eyes closed. “Wouldn’t want to.” His eyes snapped open again. “I shouldn’t have messed with her.”
Knowing he was referring to Vanessa, I sighed. “No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I tried to end it. Told Iris I did, and it wasn’t a lie. But she—”
I waited. Finn was barely awake, but this was weighing heavy on him. He needed to get it out, and he needed me to hear him.
He sucked in a deep breath, then winced. “Aw, feck, that hurts.”
“I’ll ring the nurse.”
He nodded. “I’m okay. I just wanna say, I tried to end it. I did. But I love her, Ro. She’s mine, and I’m hers. This thing…it’s real. I know it’s fucked up, but it’s real.”
Dipping my head, I rested my forehead on the rail on the side of his bed. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry, brother.”
“I know you are.”
I understood the thunderstrike that came with falling for a woman when it was least expected. I couldn’t fault him for that. He was never going to work for me again, but there’d be no grudge between us.
“Now, go get your Iris.” His eyes fell closed, his face lax. “Tell her I said hi.”
I ruffled his hair as I stood over him. “Sleep easy. I’ll be back soon.”
