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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

PERRY

Hospitals are boring.

I’m drugged up, hooked to machines, and accumulating debt faster than a rat on an exercise wheel.

It doesn’t help that I’m still groggy and, well, not disorientated, but definitely not tethered to reality. Plus, I get yelled at every time I move, so that’s fun.

I groan long and loud, wanting to at least be able to get off this bed to piss.

A passing nurse must hear me because she pops her head into the room, barely repressed smile fighting her before she says, “Is it actual pain this time or still self-pity?”

“Self-pity,” I admit, trying not to pout. “If you help me up for a second, I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“What did I tell you last time?”

“Honestly, Janice, bleeding out on the floor feels like a risk I’m willing to take.”

“You’re fun, Perry. But as much as I like you, I like my job more.”

She walks out again, and I’m left with my too-slow-moving thoughts and maybe more self-pity than I had before she stopped in .

No Margot, no St. Clare, no friends, and I keep reaching for a bracelet that doesn’t goddamn exist anymore. This sucks.

I’m aware that I’m supposed to be focused on the whole being-alive thing, but my legs keep going numb, and weeding through sluggish thoughts is frustrating as hell.

There’s a knock at the door, and I close my eyes, letting out a long groan again. “Quick, Janice, help me up. I’m dying.”

No fake-sympathetic response. Instead, there’s a pause, and then, “Is this going to be another situation where I signal for an emergency and waste everyone’s time?”

My eyes crack open, and there’s the familiar sympathetic and indulgent look St. Clare’s been so good at giving me lately. “We’re in a fight,” I announce.

“Is that so?” He walks into the room and pulls up the chair by my bed. “That didn’t take us long.”

“You’ve been gone forever. I’m spiraling out of my brain.”

“Considering you’re talking at half speed and I was gone an hour, I think we’ll get past this relationship hurdle.”

I reach for him, but my hand isn’t working properly. “Touch me. But angrily.”

“Angrily?”

“We’re not in a fight if we’re not angry, and I can’t get angry right now, so you’re going to have to do it for me.”

His hand wraps around mine, and then he kisses my knuckles. “I’ll do my best.”

“You’re already failing.”

“I’m strangely okay with that.” His free hand reaches up to brush the hair from my forehead, and my eyes close automatically as I nudge him for more. His fingers in my hair are so damn relaxing, and if it was up to me, he’d never leave. Ever. He’d stay here and be as constantly bored as I am. “You’re a lot more alert today.”

I nod, blinking my eyes back open, and as he takes his hand from my hair, I pull the other closer, hugging it to my chest. “Yeah. Feel good. One hundred percent. I think they can discharge me now. ”

“Nice try.”

“Was it?”

“Not even a little bit.” Some of the sweetness he’s radiating dims as he swipes his tongue over his lips, doubt slowly creeping in. “I, ah … I’m sorry about your bracelet.”

My bitterness about it tries to take over. “Yeah. Guess I was probably getting too old for it or something. Luther did me a favor.”

“Did he?”

“Some people would say so.”

“Are you some people?”

Of course he calls my bluff, and of course I can’t lie to him. “I should be.”

His lips twitch, and then he reaches down into his pocket. When he lifts his hand where I can see it again, he’s holding his fist out to me.

I frown as I glance from it to him and back again. “You want a fist bump?”

“No.” He laughs. “This is … well, you’re not Perry without a happy charm.”

A happy charm?

The monitor beeping beside me gets louder as St. Clare turns over his hand and peels his fingers back. There, resting in his palm is … I shake my head, sure I must be hallucinating.

He’s not smiling anymore. He pulls my arm toward him, and then, like he’s slipping the final piece into a puzzle, he stretches the bracelet over my hand and settles it on my wrist.

“That’s … that’s …” Shit, am I even breathing?

“Yours,” he finishes, thumb running over the small plastic beads. “I found all the pieces I could, and some of them are busted up a little, and the smiley face had to be glued back together, but there were two that were too broken to save.” He swallows loudly. “Sorry. But it was small on you anyway, so I thought … I thought that maybe it was time to … to add some more happy charms to your life. ”

I lift my wrist, slowly turning the bracelet. The strawberry is scratched but mostly okay, and it’s a similar story in varying shades for all the old beads. Then I get to the other side.

My thumb runs over the bull head, then the colorful neon swirl, the lime wedge, and finally, a little gun with a heart shooting out of it.

I go back to the first one, noting the design. “T-taurus?” I whisper, moving on to the neon. “And …”

“It reminded me of Elle’s apartment.”

He’s right. “What about the lime?”

His eyes shine as he looks at it, but I can only look at him. “Arlie, Ever, and Tommy tell me that’s your usual at Lethal Poison.”

“You do know Arlie is working with Luther, right?”

St. Clare shakes his head. “It was all a ploy. After Danvers shot you, she didn’t hesitate to take him and Luther out before dealing with your injury.”

The speckled bits of memory I have from the event rearrange themselves and make a whole lot more sense that way. I glance back at the final charm. “And the gun?”

But I already know the answer. Even as he swallows hard and I watch the way his throat bobs with it. “That one’s for me.”

In the history of ever, I have no words.

“Margot put it together this time. If it’s covered in snot and tears, blame her. She couldn’t stop crying.”

But my bottom lip is shaking, and my eyes are all misty, and I have no idea if it’s covered in any of that because it doesn’t matter. I’m about to get snot and tears all over everything myself. “I guess we have that in common,” I manage, voice all squeaky as I try to suppress the building emotion in my chest.

St. Clare stands up, lips meeting mine in the sweetest, gentlest kiss he’s ever given me. I’m not sure if I’m crying or laughing, but it doesn’t matter because I can blame this moment on the painkillers later.

If I was given the chance to go back to the day I walked into Lethal Poison looking for a job and do it differently, I wouldn’t. I’d make the same shitty choices again and again and again.

Because everything in between was worth it.

Just to know St. Clare.