Page 112 of Call Me Anytime
Dom is in surgery.
Dom might not survive.
48
Dominic
8:30 a.m.
My entire body hurts like a motherfucker, and when I squint my eyes open, my reality isn’t much better. It takes a few blinks to clear the woozy fog, but it’s not long before I realize I’m lying in a hospital bed with IVs stuck in my arms and beeping machines providing medical white noise.
“Hey, Tony.”
Sherry is standing beside my bed, staring down at me.
“Hey, Sherry.”
“Not going to lie, this was almost as bad as that time we almost lost you from the pneumonic plague,” she says and purses her lips as she looks around the room.
Funny enough, I actually know what episode she’s referring to. It’s the one where a woman sends a letter filled with genetically alteredYersinia pestistoNCISand Tony opens it.
“Glad you’re okay.” Sherry reaches out to tap my hand. “Ziva was real worried about you, but I told her you’d pull through.”
“She was?” I ask, but Sherry doesn’t answer this time.
“She was.” Hannah is at my bedside now, and it’s only then that I realize my room is also filled with Shane and my mom and my dad and my sister. Grandpa Louie sits in a chair, a smile on his face.
“You think now is a good time to make a career shift, Dominic?” he asks, his voice teasing and warm at the same time. “I hear the coffee business is a hell of a lot safer.”
A laugh escapes my throat, but it results in a shooting pain that radiates from my chest to my shoulder. The shoulder I realize is currently bandaged up and immobilized by traction. A vague memory of my surgeon talking to me while I was in the recovery room fills my head. I was still heavily drugged from anesthesia, but I remember him saying the bullet was lodged in my shoulder and had just barely nicked an artery. He said he got it out without any trouble, but if it’d been even a millimeter to the right, I would’ve been a dead man.
I meet Hannah’s eyes, and I see emotion shining in their gorgeous depths.Thank everything, she’s okay.I want to reach out to her, I want to pull her into my arms and hold her, but my mom and dad and sister step in front of Sherry and Hannah to give me gentle hugs.
“Glad you’re okay, son,” my dad says, smiling down at me. He clears his throat of emotion and squeezes my hand. “Definitely had us a little worried there for a minute.”
“A little worried? More like out of our minds,” my mom whispers into my ear as she hugs me again. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“Yeah, Dom,” Dakota agrees and moves my mother out of the way to point a stern finger in my face. “I swear on everything, if you try to die again, I’ll kill you myself.”
My dad laughs and puts a hand on both my mother’s and my sister’s shoulders, gently edging them away from my bed. “How about we give Dominic a minute to get his bearings? Man’s been through a lot.”
“I could really go for some of those doughnuts I saw the ladies stocking that cafeteria buffet with,” Grandpa Louie says and stands up. “What do you say, Sherry?” He gestures to Hannah’s mom. “Would like you to join me for a little breakfast date?”
“Okay.” Sherry smiles and blushes and walks over to take his outstretched hand.
“I think I’ll join you all,” Shane agrees. “Could use some coffee.”
“Oh, Gibbs,” Sherry says through a grin. “You sure do love your coffee.”
“That I do, Sherr Bear,” Shane says and flashes a grin at both Hannah and me before joining my family and leaving my room.
And then, it’s just me and Hannah. Alone.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, but funnily enough, the same exact words come out of my mouth at the same time.
Hannah’s head tilts to the side as she searches my eyes. “Why are you sorry?” she asks, and I tap the empty spot on my bed for her to sit down beside me.
She does, thank fuck, and I don’t hesitate to pull both of her hands into one of mine.
