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Her response was to press my hand closer to her chest. “I mean it, Darius.”
“Good, because I’ve spent enough time without you.”
She sighed, but I knew it was to cover the thickening of tears in her voice. “You can’t ever die on me,” she croaked. “I can’t … I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”
“Then you know what that means, don’t you?”
Again, it may have been the drugs because I would never have said words that sounded so much like a proposal out loud without proper planning. My statement was meant as a joke for her to stick by my side every day until she was tired of me. Butthe way she stopped moving simply to stare at me had my nerves prickling.
This was not the face of a woman excited by the prospect of marriage.
“What?” I asked.
Her hold that had been firm and possessive up until that point loosened. My fingers stayed twinned with hers but it was as if she was expecting me to pull away once I found out.
“I did something,” she whispered. Her bottom lip curled up between her teeth. “I don’t know how you’re going to feel about it.”
I wondered just how long I’d been out. Maybe it had been years and all hope was gone and she’d moved on, but because Kami had always been the sweetest person, she came to visit me, never really expecting me to wake up.
Even as I was thinking it, I knew that wasn’t it.
“What?” I asked again.
She sucked in a breath. I felt the thump of her heart where my hand was nestled between her breasts. “I want you to know that I don’t regret it and I would most likely do it again given the chance.”
Both intrigued and concerned, I waited, not expecting the news to be anything wildly crazy. This was Kami, after all, and she was incapable of horrible things.
“You have my undivided attention,” I teased, hoping she’d just tell me already.
The smooth column of her throat bobbed. “I … I went—”
The door opened at that moment and Lavena strolled in holding three cups of coffee and several bags of chips. Her blue eyes hoped from Kami perched on the bed to me and widened.
“You’re awake!” She scrambled deeper into the room and dumped her items on the wheeling table at the foot of the bed.Then she was at my other side, looking me over. “Jesus Christ, you assholes. What the fuck?”
I grunted. “Love you, too.”
Her small hands speared into her hips, a stance I knew well; she was trying to keep from crying.
“Did anyone call the doctor? Is he coming? Did he see you? Where is he?” She didn’t wait for a response before she was matching back to the open doorway and the two figures I could just make out blocking the hallway. “Where’s the doctor?” she yelled over their shoulders.
“Jesus, Lavena!” Kami hissed. “There are sick people here. You can’t be yelling in the halls at ten o’clock at night.” Kami reached for the button next to my bed and clicked it once.
“He should have already been here,” Lavena snapped.
“There are other people—”
Lavena whirled to face us, eyes bright with unshed tears. “There is no one more important than my brother. The doctor needs to come see him now.”
“Knock it off, snotface,” I rasped, desperately needing to move but not wanting the pain I knew would follow. “Come over here.” Lavena glowered from across the room, not budging. “Don’t make me get you,” I warned, only partially meaning it.
Reluctant, Lavena shuffled back to the bed and stopped when her kneecaps hit the mattress. I patted the spot next to my other hip.
With a sniffle and a deliberate avoidance of her face, she sat. I took her tightly bunched fist with my free hand and squeezed.
“I can’t believe you got yourself stabbed,” she muttered, hand waving dramatically but I didn’t miss her wiping her cheek. “How dumb are you? And don’t call me a snotface, asshole.”
I tugged on her hand. “I’m fine,” I assured her quietly. “It was barely a scratch.”
