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I exhale, placing my hands on my hips. I’m never angry enough to correct him. I don’t like being called by my title. “It’s Ari, Gianni. We’ll be down in five minutes. Have coffee ready, please.”
“Coffee over a dead body?”
“If I waited to have my coffee in peace overlooking the gardens, I’d never get it.” I head back into the room to see Rosie already dressed.
She’s wearing skinny jeans and one of those baggy college T-shirts I got her. Her curls are messy and wet, thrown in a bun on top of her head that should be considered a catastrophe. Her hair is too pretty to be trapped in a hair tie.
“You look beautiful,” I say, loving her just like this, just like how I met her.
I love that out of everything I’ve gotten her, all the expensive dresses and blouses, she chooses what makes her comfortable.
She rolls her eyes at me, and I yank the towel from my waist, throwing it at her. It catches her off guard and it smacks her in the face. Rosie tosses it back at me and I spin it around until it’s nice and tight.
“Don’t you dare. Ari…don’t do it. Don’t---Ah!” she jumps out of the way as I let the towel fly, the end snapping in the air right next to her ass. “You are a child!” she laughs.
“You make me feel lighter than I have in a long time,” I admit without thinking, ruining the moment with something serious. I clear my throat and disappear into the closet to get dressed.
“I’m glad,” she says from behind me, following me into the closet.
I slip on my slacks. “Of?”
She hands me a dark blue button-up shirt. “That you’re lighter. I am too. With you. I feel lighter with you too,” she explains, leaving me smiling like I don’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
We fall silent, staring at one another but it is only a little awkward because we are both grinning and I’m man enough to admit when I’m blushing.
I take the shirt from her, making sure to brush our fingers together and bend down to kiss her cheek. “You don’t know how happy that makes me,” I tell her, wincing when I put on my shirt as the skin pinches on each wound I have.
“Are you okay? Maybe you should take it easy. You just got new stitches. I can…I can…”
I watch her, waiting for her to finish her sentence when I notice the beautiful flush disappear from her skin. She seems pale.
“Rosie? Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m just saying if you want to relax because you’ve done a lot with your shoulder—”
“—Yes, I have,” I interrupt, making her fluster.
“—I’ll take care of the body. You relax and I’ll…go dig a grave or something. Isn’t that what you do? No, you don’t. You’d do something darker, right? Like feed them to the fish. I’ll do that.”
I tug her close to me. “You’d do that?”
“If it means that nurse won’t come back, yes,” she grumbles, shifting her weight.
Ah, she doesn’t want me to tear my stitches again. “I really do love jealousy on you, Tesoro.” I kiss her lips gently. “And it means the world you’d get rid of a body for me. Even if you look physically ill at the thought of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize. The day you don’t get sick at the thought of seeing a dead body, is a day I need to worry. I don’t want you to see it. I’d rather you stay here.”
“No. I’ll be fine. It’s your job, right? It’s what you do. If I’m going to be here, I should learn some things, right?”
She’s right. She does need to learn. “If anything bothers you, you leave. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees.
“Come on. Let’s go before they send in the cavalry and it’s me you have to feed to the fishes.”
She laughs and slaps her hand in mine while I pull her out of the room. I’m wondering when the shift in us changed but I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s so much easier being with her like this than fighting constantly.
