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“Dr. Thomas said you were ridiculously lucky. That the shot was super shallow. You’ll be in pain but there’s no real damage. No heavy lifting for a while.” She gives me her “I mean business” look as she says, “You and Boston are going to have to put your workouts on hold.”
Hearing her say Boston's name makes a heavy weight of worry come crashing down on me. Our eyes meet, an entire unspoken conversation passing between us in one glance. Only having one another growing up, we often read each other’s minds. She's obviously thinking the same thing I am.
We're in a shit ton of trouble right now.
And neither one of us is ready to talk about it.
I reach out a hand to her. "Can I get a cookie?"
"Of course." She peels foil back from a plate, joining me in having one of Boston's crispy on the edges, gooey in the middle, delicious cookies. I have to hold back a moan.
"Still warm," I say, washing it down with a gulp of ice-cold milk.
She takes a dainty bite then a sip from her paper coffee cup. "The doctor wanted me to let you rest before I came, so Boston and I just started cooking up a storm. I came straight here the second the cookies were out of the oven. It’s as long as I could wait."
"You staying in the Village now?"
"Just till you're better. You know there's no way I'd be at home with you here, injured."
"I'm fine," I say, sitting up in the bed. A sharp gasp goes through me as pain thrums through my chest. "See."
"You're not fine. And the doctor gave me something to give you for the pain."
My heartbeat picks up at the mention of narcotics. "No drugs."
She eyes me, uncertain. "Are you sure? Can you handle the pain?"
"Nothing a few cookies can't take care of." I flash her a grin, wanting more.
"Fine, but don't think for a second you're getting away with skipping the antibiotic he prescribed." She hands me another cookie. "Now, we need to make a plan."
"Fine." Where do we start? "How much do we tell them?"
"Everything.” She glances down at her teal ballet flat. "In fact, I've already told Boston our whole plan, how we didn’t want to burden the family with our vengeance against Bruno. Of course, he knows that everything has changed now. They are going to decide what to do moving forward. It’s out of our hands. He's with Rockland now."
The cookie turns to dust in my mouth. “They’re already making a plan?”
“Yes. This is out of our hands now.” She leans forward, grabbing my hand. “Thank you for trying. I appreciate you doing everything you could to keep it between the two of us.”
“Of course. I’m sorry if I let you down.”
Her eyes hold mine with that big sister confidence she has. “You could never let me down.”
I run the hand of my good arm over the back of my neck. “If Rockland is involved? The war is already in motion. Exactly what we were trying to avoid by taking care of this ourselves. Fuck.”
"Yeah," she says. "Fudge is right. But Boston did say everyone understood why we tried to keep the family out and take care of it ourselves."
"Damn." Relief floods me. Boston's done so much for me. I hate the thought of letting him down. "That's good news at least."
She pulls a gold tube from her purse. She flips the camera from her phone to her face, using it as a mirror as she applies another thick coat of red paint. "He wished we had come to him first, but he respects that we tried to keep from starting a war."
"I'm happy to hear it." I take another swig of ice-cold milk, washing the stress down.
"Moving forward, no more secrets from the family." She gives me a long look, holding her pinky out to me. "Pinky swear."
I glance down at her fingers, manicured sea-foam green to match her aqua dress. "Seriously, A? We haven't done that since we were kids."
"Do it. Now."
