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“Rook, what are you doing?” Grey demanded.
I could hear Rook’s indecisive footfalls thudding and squeaking across the linoleum.
“I figured you’d all be sick of the hospital slop by now. I got takeout.”
When I managed to see through the brightness, Rook and Grey’s argument fell to the periphery as my eyes locked with hers. She looked down at me over her shoulder, with shattered ice in her blue-gray eyes, her jaw working.
“Hey, Sparrow.”
She shoved me, hard in the chest, making me cough. My ribs creaked, screaming in protest. “Youidiot.”
“Uh, AJ,” Grey said uselessly. “He’s got a few cracked ribs.”
She shoved me again, and I sucked in a breath, letting her get it out.
“I—”
Shove.
“Fucking—”
Shove.
“Know.”
When I was finished coughing, I swallowed hard, grimacing at the coppery taste in the back of my throat. Sort of wishing I hadn’t tossed away that morphine drip cord. “You… finished?” I wheezed.
“I haven’t even started.”
I braced myself for her next attack, ready and willing to accept any and all forms of punishment, but she pressed her lips to mine instead.
I grunted in surprise against her mouth, but that only made her kiss me harder, her lips almost to the point of bruising before she finally pulled back.
There was fire in her eyes when I opened mine to find her inches from my face. “I hate you for this.”
“You should’ve hated me already, Sparrow.”
Her brows drew down, confused.
“I should never have said those things to you at the Docks. I didn’t know what I was—” I cut myself off, heat rising up my neck. “No, that’s bullshit. I knew exactly what I was doing. Because it’s the same bullshit I’ve always done. It wasn’t fair to lay the blame for Grey… for all of that shit on your shoulders.”
She rocked back to sitting, her face paling. “If I hadn’t taken that shot at Lenny Ace then maybe—”
“Isent Drake after you,” I blurted before I could change my mind, hammering the final nail into my coffin. “I fucking fell for his shit. I didn’t see him for what he really was. After you took off, I asked him to find you and…”
The bed dipped, and I found Grey sitting on the bottom right corner with Rook at his back. “We don’t have to do this now, man.”
“I do,” I corrected him. “She needs to know. She has to know that I’m the one that did this to her.”
Sparrow frowned, a muscle flexing in her jaw. But she wasn’t looking at me anymore. Wouldn’t meet my stare.
Good. It was what I deserved. And more.
She didn’t have to forgive me. Not now. But I would earn her forgiveness. No matter how long it took to do it. For whatever fucked up reason the devil wasn’t ready to claim my soul and I wasn’t about to waste this second chance at life with anyone else but her.
“You can hate me for as long as you want, Sparrow, but I’m not going anywhere. You’re it for me. And I’m going to make you believe it.”
She’d have to kill me to get rid of me.
