Page 7 of Sinners Keepers
Next to the cup was a small vase of pink dahlias. They had always been my favorite. Carefully, I brought the marker back to his skin, outlining the delicate petals. I was no artist, but it looked pretty cute. I admired my work with a satisfied smile.
“Next?”
I considered how silly this was, that he was using child psychology on me to work through post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by beingshotby the love of my life.
But it was actually helping.
So I looked for the next object.
A wry smile tugged at the corners of my mouth, and when I lifted the marker from his leg for the last time, a beautiful rendering of my right foot was left behind.
“Did you just draw a foot on my leg?”
“Myfoot,” I said, wiggling my toes at him. “Ugh, I need a pedicure,” I added, looking down at my neglected toes.
“Noted,” he said, tugging his shorts back down over the drawings. “Also, you’re ridiculous. Now, tell me three things you can hear.”
We both went quiet for a moment before I answered. “The movement in the hall, the heat blowing through the vents, and your breathing.” The hospital was always so quiet at night aside from when my nurses would come in to check on me.
“This is the last thing. Move three parts of your body.”
I wiggled my toes again—prompting him to roll his eyes playfully—then my fingers. For the grand finale, I looked up at him and exaggeratedly batted my eyelashes.
“Cutie,” he said, tapping my nose. Butterflies erupted in my stomach.
I shied away from him, lowering myself back down onto the bed. He pulled my blanket up around my shoulders and made to move back to the chair he’d been sleeping in next to me.
“Alec?”
“Yes, Hunny?” he paused.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he smiled.
Then, with every ounce of courage I could muster, I said, “I’d feel better if you stayed with me.”
At first, I thought he’d refuse. But he didn’t.
Without a word, he curled his body around mine and rested his head on the edge of my pillow. I relaxed into him, relishing every point of contact between our bodies.
I drifted to sleep with the warmth of him seeping into my bones. The nightmares didn’t return.
CHAPTERFOUR
Hunt
My nurse Nelia was a literal freaking saint.
There were days when Alec had to leave forwork things, and I knewwork thingsmeantunsafe things. I tried not to think too hard about all the possibilities.
I’d begun to enjoy having him around, and each time he left, a ball of anxiety wound itself tight in my chest.
In all the years I’d been married, I never felt anything but overwhelmingreliefwhen Mattia left me alone to do the things he did. Fuck, most of the time I hoped hewouldbe injured or worse while out collecting the heads of people who owed him money. Then I’d never have to see him again.
I’d always known that Alec did all of those things too—probably worse because my late husband used his men to avoid getting his own hands too dirty by torturing anyone before he popped a bullet in them—but he’d become something more to me now. It was hard for me to align the soft, sweet, caring Alec I’d grown closer to over the last few weeks with the man I knew he was once he stepped outside the hospital doors.
I found myself wondering more often than not what it was he was actually up to now that he was no longer working for my dearly departed husband, but I refused to ask questions. I guess deep down I felt like I was better off not knowing, but in all of those instances, I also found myself spiraling.
