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So that was what we did.
We ate, we talked, keeping things light.
But it wasn’t long before the topic went back to the restaurant, to the shooting, and the fact that we really couldn’t keep the place closed long.
“I can handle it,” she insisted. Because, no matter what, she was a mom. One who didn’t want her kid hurting herself worse.
“I can work, Mom,” I assured her. “I might have to go a little light-duty, but I can sit my butt on a stool and just get up when there is a task to be done.”
“I don’t like it,” she said, but we both knew there was no way for her to cookandcater to customers.
“We will make it work. We always do. Besides, you know I am going to go stir-crazy by tomorrow. I will be glad to have something to do.”
It wasn’t that I was the kind of person who could never sit still. It was just that, I don’t know, my lazy days came on seasonally, I guess. Like my body was in tune with the cycles of nature. And I was always on the go from spring through fall, then kind of settled in and nested over the cold winter, did cozier tasks. Like nesting around the house and reading. Creating different teas with the dried herbs and flowers I’d grown in the warmer months. Attempted to pick up crafts that I was never all that great at.
“That’s true,” she agreed. “But you need to be on very light duty then. Maybe even making customers pick up their food at the counter. No carrying anything around.”
It could work. It might have to. Since the doctor did suggest an immobilizer for my arm for a week, just so I didn’t hurt the wound in my shoulder.
“We will make it work,” I assured her, reaching out for her hand, giving it a squeeze.
“I’m sorry there’s so much ugly in the world, my darling,” she said, exhaling hard.
“Aren’t you the one always reminding me that we can only appreciate the light because of the dark?” I asked.
The thing was, though, that I had no idea at the time just how dark life could get…
CHAPTER FIVE
Nino
I woke up hard and straining from thoughts of her.
It was fucking insane.
Sure, I’d lusted after women before. But nothing had been quite like this. That was because if I wanted a woman, I typically asked her out, took her home. I “got her out of my system,” as much as I hated that turn of phrase.
Maybe the only reason was because I’d been craving her before the shooting, and now the feeling was still there, but buried under more complex emotions.
Guilt being the strongest.
Seeing her in that hospital, the bed making her seem so small, the blood loss making her so pale, the general blandness of her gown and the thin blanket all dulled the light that had been shining through her the day before, it only seemed to make that sinking feeling inside worse.
She’d lit right back up when she’d seen the flowers and the fruit and when the blanket covered her.
I’d been racking my brain to try to figure out how I could continue to brighten her up.
I had a few ideas.
But, first, I had a meeting with my family to go over who we thought might be targeting me. Or the organization as a whole.
I was out of the shower before I heard it.
Someone in my kitchen.
I yanked the boxer briefs up my legs as I turned the water back on, hoping it would mask the sound of me walking across my room to grab my gun out of my nightstand, checking the magazine, then inching my way down the back staircase, cringing at the racket it made.
Old houses.
