It’d been Betsy who’d had to deal with me when I started yellin’ at the bitches in reception who wouldn’t tell me where my girl was.
It was Bets who’d told me that Lou had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma again.
Loulou stirred slightly, unpeelin’ her heavy eyes to reveal those true blue eyes I loved so fuckin’ much.
“You’re here,” she croaked.
I nodded, pulling our tangled hands against my mouth to give hers a kiss. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Tears wet those eyes and made my heart clench.
“Even though I seriously suck?”
I grinned despite the turmoil in my fuckin’ gut. “Yeah, Lou, even when you seriously suck.”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath. “Thank God.”
“Told ya you were stuck with me,” I reminded her.
She grinned like that was the best thing she’d ever heard. “Can you get up here with me?”
I eyed the little bed skeptically, which had her laughin’.
“I’ll lean up and you can sit behind me? Please, I’m cold and all I want is you all around me.”
Immediately, I let go of her hand and gently helped her scoot forward so I could settle myself against the raised back of the bed and pull her against my chest. She rearranged the blankets against us and carefully pulled the tubes in her hands out from underneath them.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” she whispered as she tucked my arms tighter around her body.
I pressed my lips to her hair. “Forget about it. I know now.”
“What does this mean for us?” she asked, her voice girlish with fear.
That fear wrapped cold fingers around my heart and squeezed like a motherfucker.
“Nothin’. You’re still my girl and I’m still your man. You need anythin’, I’m here for you. That includes puke clean up, pickin’ up drugs at the pharmacy, all that kinda shit. It also means you need someone to sit in the hospital with ya and your parents are too fuckin’ selfish to do it themselves, all the better for me ’cause I’m gonna be here every fuckin’ time.”
She sighed into me, settling warm and contented as a cat when I stroked a hand over her hair.
“I might lose it, you know,” she muttered.
My hand stilled on the masses of gold silk. “Fuck, baby.”
“You might not want me. Cancer isn’t a pretty illness, Z.”
I gripped her chin and tilted it up ’til I could look into those scared eyes. Pressed a warm kiss to her lips and said, “Don’t be a fuckin’ dumbass.”
“I might die,” she whispered even softer.
“You might,” I agreed ’cause I wanted to be honest with her but the thought had daggers shootin’ between each of my ribs, all angled at my heart.
“Do you think I’ll go to heaven?” she asked me.
“Fuck yeah, which sucks for me.”
She shifted between my legs, tippin’ her head up so she could look past my bearded jaw and into my eyes. “You going to explain that to me?”
I reached out to rub one callused thumb along the plump curve of her lower lip, my concentration so intense it felt like my eyes burned. “You asked me any day ’fore I met you, I woulda said there was no fuckin’ chance I’d get into heaven. A man like me havin’ done the things I did, things I needed to do? Fuck no.”
When she tried to protest, I pressed my thumb harder against her lush mouth and felt my face turn to fuckin’ stone. “Now, I ain’t makin’ you any promises here, little warrior, but if your fine ass is going to heaven—and it fuckin’ well is—I’ll find a way to get there too. If I gotta move into that fuckin’ church and pay penance every goddamn hour, I’ll do it. If I gotta give up boozin’, guns and drug runnin’, I’ll fuckin’ well do it and I’d do it now if it meant I got a place beside my girl behind those pearly gates.”
She bit her lip to keep from cryin’ because she knew I didn’t like her tears and then she valiantly tried to lighten the mood. “You’d probably have to give up cursing too. I think that’s a pretty tall order.”
“Fuck yeah, it is,” I agreed before jerking her even closer to me until we were fused together, until I could feel the reassurin’ beat of her heart against my chest. A heartbeat so much more important than my own. “Do it for you, Lou. Do anythin’ for you.”
My house didn’t feel like my home anymore.
Not that it ever really had.
But the curving arms of the double-sided grand staircase, the plush carpets under the heavy antique furniture, the window hangings dripping with tassels and threads of gold and the crystal lights all seemed too opulent to me now, bright in a way my eyes couldn’t handle. I’d grown used to the dark and neon lights of The Lotus and Eugene’s Bar, of the cool natural light that spilled through the wide windows of Zeus’s rustic house on the beach and cabin in the woods. I craved his lived-in furniture, the cluster of family photos hung haphazardly on the wall leading from the entryway to the kitchen. The sounds of laughter and instant feel of warmth the second you opened the door to that home.