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“Um… Nino,” I said, realizing I didn’t know his last name.
“Grassi, right?” she asked, taking a look at my chart.
She said his last name as though it meant something. Maybe he was a local celebrity or something. Or someone she’d gone to school with. The popular guy who everyone loved. I had no idea. I wasn’t from the area.
She let it drop then, talking to me about my injuries, about my recovery, what I could expect, what I could and could not do, giving me timelines for everything.
My head was swimming a bit by the time she made her way out. But it did sound like I would be released the day after tomorrow, which meant I could hopefully get back to my life, back to my work, relatively quickly.
I wouldn’t claim to be a workaholic.
But the fact of the matter was, we couldn’t afford to have the restaurant closed for any length of time. Not even for a shooting.
I was silently praying that the shooting didn’t mean people would avoid the place, thinking it was unsafe or something like that.
I was still worrying about that while I munched on some perfectly ripe fruit when there was another knock. But this time, it wasn’t a handsome customer who came to visit.
It was a police detective.
He’d asked me questions about the events of that day, about the men.
“I’m sorry I am not more helpful,” I told him when his face went tense as I gave him a brief description. “It just all happened so fast. I didn’t really notice anything unique about either of them.”
“That seems to be the general consensus, unfortunately,” the detective said, exhaling hard. “I really suggest you get some security cameras at your establishment, Miss Vanjoy,” he said.
“Do you think they’re going to come back?”
“No,” he said, holding up a hand like he was trying to calm my growing anxiety. “But just as a precaution for you and your mother,” he told me.
There were some more questions, advice, and a request to contact him if I remembered anything.
Then he’d put his card down on the nightstand. Right next to Nino’s.
Was it just me, or did he stare at that for a long moment?
Then he was gone, and my mother was breezing in soon after as I picked at the melons in the bouquet, knowing I needed something in my system if they were going to keep giving me pain medicine. And, honestly, as much as I hated taking any sort of medication, the pain that started to come back was enough to have me pressing that little button that supposedly released a dose into my IV.
“Oh, my!” she said, smile spreading as she took in the flowers, the fruit, and the new blanket. “I see you’ve had a visitor! And one with good taste,” she decided, walking over the flower to lean down and breathe their scent in. “Who was it?”
“Nino,” I told her. “The man who’d been putting pressure on my wounds,” I clarified.
“Oh, yes. He is one good-looking man,” she said with a bit of a dreamy sigh.
It was no secret that my mother had been, well, a connoisseur of men. She always enjoyed sampling a new one. Though, much like her palate for food, her taste in men was fleeting at best. She liked to have her fill, then move on.
I wasn’t sure she’d ever had a relationship that lasted longer than, at most, a summer. And that was only once that I recalled.
“He is,” I agreed. “He had a suit on today. Which has never been my thing, but he looked even better.”
“I’ve never been adverse to a man in a suit,” she said, brows wiggling a little. “This was incredibly kind of him.”
“He thinks he owes me,” I told her. “For saving his life.”
“Saving his life?” she asked, brows pinching.
“I, uhm, I pushed him down when I saw the gun. Just… pure instinct, honestly,” I said.
“You’ve always had such a protective nature,” she said, giving my foot a squeeze through the blankets as she set her bags and pastry box down. “You might very well have saved him, my darling girl. Is it so bad to have a handsome man feel indebted to you?” she asked, running her hand along the blanket. “Especially one with such good taste?”
