“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, baby, I’m good,” he promised, bending down to kiss me before disappearing again.
Cabot, Drake, and Josue had been there for hours, apparently, helping Aruna—Cabot was her favorite—serving food, washing dishes, and in Josue’s case, reading tarot cards in the laundry room, where he was laying the cards out on top of the dryer. They were finally allowed upstairs to see me, and of course all three of them flopped down on the bed, never mind the chair sitting right there.
Josue put his hand on my head. “You don’t have a fever. Do you feel all right?”
“I’m okay,” I yawned. “I’m just wiped out.”
He nodded. “Well, you never sleep, and you don’t take care of yourself at all. I could move in here and do that for you.”
“That’s me,” Ian said as he came up the stairs with an enormous plate of food for me and a huge glass of apple juice. “I take care of him.”
“But you’re never home,” Cabot said, looking sheepish. “I mean, shouldn’t we start taking care of Miro since—”
“I’ll be home all the time now. I’m done with the Army, so you’ll see a lot more of me.”
He was baffled, I could tell from his squint, when they all clapped, even Josue.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Drake sighed. “I mean, if I missed you a little, I can only imagine how tore up Miro was.”
Ian nodded and sent them all downstairs. Josue stopped at the top and looked back at me.
“What?”
He bit his bottom lip. “I met a guy at the record store in Oak Park, where I’ll be working. His name’s Marcello McKenna. Isn’t that awesome?”
“It is. You think he might be special?”
“Miro, he was looking at me all weird, and he finally said that he’d dreamed about me coming into the store.”
“And?”
“He blurted out that he didn’t believe in any woo-woo stuff.”
“But?”
“But he dreamed about me.”
I nodded. “Maybe just be his friend before you hit him with the whole you-saw-him-in-your-cards thing, huh?”
He nodded, bolted back to me, bent and kissed my cheek, and then pounded down the stairs, announcing to Aruna that he was ready to read her cards.
When I turned to Ian, he was chuckling.
“What?”
“You have the strangest effect on people.”
His on me was sort of self-explanatory. “Would you please put the plate down, take off all your clothes, and let me have you under the covers?”
“Oh, baby, it’s gonna be days before you see me naked again. White brought his Xbox over with him, and Sharpe is doing laundry. It’s gonna be an endless loop of guys through here until Sunday night.”
I groaned. “His Xbox? Do you know how annoying he is with all those shooter games?”
“As if he can beat me.”
“Oh no. Please don’t go into hypercompetitive mode.”
“What?” he balked. “I am so not competitive.”
“Do me a favor and go stand on the other side of the room so the bolt of lightning doesn’t hit me too.”
He scoffed. “I’m sure God has better things to do.”
Perhaps.
“What?”
I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Speak.”
“You just got here. I want to kiss you and hug you and fuck you and…. Jesus, Ian, I need you so bad.”
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Here, have a little nosh. You’ll feel better.”
“Don’t you care at all?”
“Yes, baby, and don’t you worry, you can have me any time you want from now on.”
I perked up.
“After Sunday.”
It was going to be the longest three days of my life.
ARUNA BROUGHT me pumpkin pie with a mound of Cool Whip on it, and I wondered what she was doing there since she loved hosting and it made no sense that she wasn’t.
“Liam’s mother is downstairs,” she said quickly, flipping through Netflix to find something she wanted to watch.
“And?”
“And nothing. I’m staying up here with you.”
I cleared my throat.
“What?” she said without turning.
“Hey.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“She hurt your feelings,” I said, because I knew my friend and knew it had.
“Well, we both know I’m a lot of things, but a diva is not one of them. I know what she said and I know what she meant. She honestly didn’t think I could cook anything traditional, and that’s why she wanted to help me.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “But she’s down there, right?”
“Yes.”
“So she came.”
She rolled her head on the pillow so she could look at me. “Your point?”
I shrugged. “She made an effort and she’s eating your food now, right?”
“Begrudgingly, I’m sure.”
I raised my eyes to the sky.
“We both know she never liked me.”
“Oh, gimme a break,” I muttered, bumping her with my elbow. “That woman adores you. Liam was wild and took way too many chances before you came along. But because he fell so hard, he grew up, and now that he’s a husband and a dad, he’s ridiculously grounded.”
She huffed out a breath.