Page 19 of Forbidden Dark Vows

Ronnie grins at me. “This will be a story to tell the grandkids in years to come.”

“Now she just needs to say yes.”

7

RUBY

“…andshe thought I was joking when I said I’d be back the next day for breakfast. And lunch. And then again for dinner.”

Ronnie’s laughter is easy, spontaneous. He is talking about his girlfriend, Sumaira. They met at a roadside diner when she poured his coffee and served extra maple syrup with his pancakes, and blushed when he asked if he could take her out on a date.

“She obviously said yes.”

Ronnie is easy to get on with, and the boy can talk. Harry hasn’t said much, but I can tell that he’s comfortable just listening to the conversation play out around him. He looks tired, the flesh around his eyes growing shinier and blacker by the moment, but he’s fighting it to stay awake in case he misses something.

Outside our bubble, the world has grown dark and silent, smothered by a blanket of snow. And still, it keeps falling, as if the sky can no longer contain it.

The nurse fetches blankets for me and Ronnie. “This goes against hospital regulations, but these are not regularcircumstances, and I can hardly turf you out in this weather, can I? Besides—” she gives Harry a half-smile, and I realize that he has drifted off to sleep “—after what he’s been through, your company is probably the best medicine we can give him.”

I curl up on the seat with my legs under me and pull the blanket up to my chin. On the other side of the bed, Ronnie takes the other seat, stretches out his legs and crosses them at the ankles, the blanket barely covering his knees. He’ll ache all over by morning if he tries to sleep in that position. We both will.

But neither of us are going to complain.

“It’s not exactly the Hilton,” the nurse says before she leaves, “but at least you’ll be warm and dry.”

I should feel awkward sharing a room with two guys I hardly know, but I don’t. It’s cozy. The gentle blip-blip of the equipment wired up to Harry is soothing, like a child listening to its mom’s heartbeat, and it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable the shiny plastic seats are, I feel protected. Safe.

We both watch Harry sleeping for a while, and then Ronnie’s eyes meet mine. “He likes you; you know.”

I smile. Was this what I wanted to hear? Was this the reason I rushed here the instant I heard that he was involved in the car crash?

That’s not how it works, is it? Love at first sight is for fairy tales and Disney movies, not real life. So, why do I close my eyes with a warm tingling feeling in my gut and a smile on my face?

During the night,I open my eyes and glimpse the nurse standing beside Harry’s bed. The lights are dimmed, the roomis enjoying its own company in familiar silence, and Ronnie is snoring gently from the other seat. My eyelids flicker shut almost instantaneously despite the discomfort of being curled up like a hedgehog in a peanut shell.

When I finally unfurl myself and stretch my legs, a dull burning ache spreads up my spine and across my shoulders, it is morning, and Ronnie is missing.

It takes me several moments to get my bearings, by which point, Harry is watching me from the bed, propped up against the pillows. I rub the sleep from my eyes and arch my back, suddenly self-conscious with his eyes on me.

“Morning,” he says, like getting snowed in at the hospital and crashing on a visitor’s seat happens every day.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like the truck came back in the night to finish me off.”

“Ouch.” I glance across the room at the empty seat. “Where’s Ronnie?”

“He’s probably having a coffee down at the nurse’s station.” Harry smiles, and his face appears shadowy with the bruising spreading beneath his eyes.

Right on cue, the door opens, and Ronnie enters backwards carrying a tray, the aroma of freshly cooked toast and coffee wafting in with him. He sets breakfast down on the mobile tray and pushes it across the bed, motioning for me to join them. He has somehow sourced a mountain of toast, sachets of butter, marmalade, and jelly, and three cups of steaming coffee.

“Where did you get this?” I help myself to a slice and spread it thickly with butter and marmalade, shreds of orange peelglistening in the glow of the stark overhead lights. I’m suddenly ravenous.

“The woman in the cafeteria was most helpful when I explained that we’re snowed in with our reckless friend here. Told her I’m stranded until they thaw out the wings of the next flight back to New York.” He slathers honey on a slice, takes a bite, and then fills his mouth with coffee at the same time.

“You’ll have to excuse him.” Harry shakes his head. “Old habits die hard.”

“What?” Ronnie studies his toast, eyebrows lowered, as if Harry just suggested a spider was crawling across it. “I’m washing it down. Nothing wrong with that.”

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