Page 14 of Vows of Betrayal

“I don’t live here, Stefan. You need to let someone else do some crap for you, too.”

Someone behind me cleared their throat.

My head twisted to see the lumberjack still standing behind me.

He looked at me and then at Stefan. “Bye, Stefan. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Stefan’s eyes shot to him. “I won’t fuckin’ answer.”

After that, the guy in the suit said, “Take care, Stefan. Look after yourself.”

Then they both retreated and left.

“Sheesh, what the heck was that all about?” I asked Stefan. Then I wandered over to his supper tray that was still on the table. I opened the cover to see an entire untouched plate. “And you didn’t eat again?” I looked over my shoulder at him. “How do you expect to gain your strength back if you don’t eat?”

Stefan glared at me. “The food here is awful. I can’t eat that slop.” He pointed at his meal. I mean, he was right. It wasn’t great, but it was edible.

I sighed and put the cover back on the plate. “I tell you what. Why don’t you eat my supper, and I’ll eat yours? We’ll trade. Okay?” I’d actually made a wonderful supper for myself today. I’d spent hours and hours preparing it. I was lucky to get the meat on such a sale, it wasn’t even funny. Bernie texted to let me know he’d kept a stash for me. He had a butcher shop below my apartment.

Stefan gave me a disgusted look that almost made me laugh. The way he screwed up his face and tilted it slightly to the left—I had to hold in a giggle. How someone could be so angry over supper, I’d never understand.

Yes, hospital food kind of sucked.

Yes, I could make food that was way, way, way better than anything they served here.

But, like my Nona used to say, beggars can’t be choosers. So, if I was hungry, I’d eat whatever the heck was put in front of me. And I’d be just fine with it.

“I’m not eating your fuckin’ supper, Francesca,” he said incredulously. Like me offering to trade meals with him was the most inconceivable thing he’d ever heard. Stefan shook his head and laid back. Not all the way, though.

Over the last few days, we’d been able to move the head of the bed up more and more. At first, he couldn’t sit up for more than a few minutes before asking to be let back down again.

But now, he could easily stay up for a good hour or more at a time.

I grabbed my lunch bag from the chair and set it down on the narrow table. The smell of meat sauce already hit my nose, making my mouth water. I opened up the plastic margarine container full of pasta and smiled. Stefan was going to love this.

Then I proceeded to move his supper onto the ledge by the window and set up my food on the table. After that, I pushed the patient table over to the bed, directly in front of Stefan.

“I just told you that I’m not eating your supper,” he said less convincingly that time. Again, I wanted to giggle. But I didn’t.

“Too bad. I’m eating yours, so there’s no other choice. If you don’t eat it, I’ll just have to chuck it in the garbage,” I lied. If he didn’t eat it, I was going to put it in the staff fridge and eat it tomorrow.

I sat down in the chair and started eating a very bland, very sad, piece of chicken. It wasn’t horrible. It just could have been so much better with the proper seasoning. A good homemade gravy. And my stuffing.

The mashed potatoes were lumpy as heck. But I’d had worse. Like when Nona’s arthritis was really bad, and she just couldn’t cook like she used to.

“Are you seriously going to eat that?” Stefan’s voice pulled me out of memory lane.

“It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. You’re just picky.” I waved my hand at the food on his table. “You need to eat something. At least take a bite.” I rolled my eyes and pretended like I didn’t care how much he ate. When in reality, if he didn’t lose his mind over how freaking wonderful it tasted—I might have my own temper tantrum over here.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” he muttered to himself. But when I looked up a few moments later, he was taking his first bite.

Yay.

It gave me more joy than it should to know that he was eating food that I’d painstakingly prepared.

“Holy fuck,” he said over top of a mouthful of pasta. “Did you make this?” he asked while he chewed. Watching him eat my food gave me an indescribable feeling inside. One that I’d never felt before. It confused me. But it also made me happier than I’d been in a long, long time.

I swallowed down the greasy, bland chicken. “I did,” was all I said, and stuffed a forkful of mashed—or more like unmashed—potatoes into my mouth.

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