Page 19

pithy and flirty

Ayla

Role reversal is an ironic bitch.

I sit at my husband’s bedside in a hospital close to home.

He’s been asleep the whole time I’ve been here.

Doctors come and go. The smell of industrial cleaner and the infernal beeping are enough to drive me mad…

and they trigger some deep, dark emotions in me.

I close my eyes and take several deep breaths, hating that I can taste the tang of the antiseptic in the air.

“Don’t forget everything.” It’s a plea into the ether from my chair. “We’re well and truly fucked if Georgio is smarter than both of us.”

The weak bark from Christian is followed quickly by a moan. My eyes fly to his face. The pain etched there is evident.

“You’re awake.” Sometimes I’m Captain Obvious. I jump to my feet and reach for him. “What do you need?”

“Are you okay?”

“You’re in the hospital and asking if I’m okay?” I put a hand to his forehead. “Not feverish. Did you hit your head? Oh no, poor Georgio.”

“Princess.” It’s warm and sensual and almost teasing. He captures my hand, kissing my knuckles, before looking me up and down. “What are you wearing?”

“Now I’m really afraid. You were shot and we’re discussing fashion?” I look down my body. “I was cold. That room—whatever it is, is cold and damp, and it seeped into my bones. I wanted warm and cozy, so I grabbed a sweatshirt with my yoga pants.”

“You grabbed my sweatshirt. I like it.”

At least he’s not angry. I shrug. “The doctors have come in and out. You’re stable and will live.”

“Good to hear.”

“Note to self, gunshot wounds make you pithy and flirty. I’ll file that away.”

He tugs my hand, and I fall toward him, catching myself before I crash into him. “Correction, my wife being funny makes me happy. Flirty is just a natural by-product.” His face morphs to heated but for one second a grimace crosses his features.

“What is it?”

“Hurts like a bitch. I have a hole in my body where it doesn’t belong.”

“Let me get a doctor.” I begin to pull away, but the grasp on my hand tightens.

“Ayla?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me first.”

So I do. He cups my head and holds me to him. This kiss isn’t hard or possessive, but tender, and when I pull back his hand remains, and his eyes hold mine. “I was terrified. I can’t remember being as scared as I was last night.”His voice is a ragged whisper.

“I was scared too.” My voice sounds like I dragged it across gravel.

“Ayla.” His eyes close. When they reopen, fire blazes there. “I wasn’t scared for me.” His hand at the back of my head squeezes in emphasis. “I didn’t know how to protect you. I was vulnerable and I made you vulnerable, and that’s unacceptable. It will never happen again.”

His eyes bore into mine, and the hold on my head nearly bites with pain, but not in the dominating, sexual way it did last night. There’s no doubting he means it. I give in and nod.

“Next time, tell Fitz not to leave without giving me an update. Or a blanket.”

He releases me, his face purposefully blank.

“Watching him go but not knowing when I’d be released was annoying. Impressive cameras by the way… that whole screen of The Truman Show . Only, it’s The Barone Show , I guess. By the way, what was up with the masked men skirting around the grounds, avoiding the outside cameras?”

His face is a mask.

Controlled.

Aware.

Calculating.

He reaches for his phone, thumbing over icons before typing something. His eyes scan the device as moments pass in silence.

I sit on the edge of his bed, no longer held captive by his huge palm on my skull, and watch as he reviews what I saw last night. His eyes flick to mine before returning to the screen.

The second time they do, I can’t decipher the expression on his face. “What? Do you need me to get a nurse?”

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes studying me. “Ayla, there’s nobody on the cameras.” He turns the phone to face me. “Every motion sensor sends a signal and timestamps the system. The cameras show all clear from the moment the ambulance left.”

No. No. No. No. No.

I saw it.I saw them.

I shake my head. “Christian, I saw them on that full wall of screens. They were in all black and never faced the cameras. It was after Fitz left.”

They’re why I grabbed the gun. I leave that part out.

“I’ll have Fitz review footage, but there’s no sign inside or out of movement after midnight, aside from my gurney being lifted and Fitz’s following ten minutes behind.”

Ten minutes? Was it only ten minutes?

“What about him leaving your office before that?”

He turns back to the phone and rolls his fingers across the screen. When his face turns back to mine, sadness mars his features.

“He never entered or left my office.” His eyes drop and the playfulness from earlier is gone.

What the hell is going on?

Me: I swear I’m not losing my mind. Or maybe I am.

Me: You’d tell me, right?

I stare at my phone hoping Halley answers or, at a minimum, for some reassurance that I’m not stark raving mad.

When no bubbles appear, I do what has become my default. I toggle to Picstagram and flip to the Aspen & Evergreen feed.

Somewhere deep inside, I hope my brain connects the dots… beauty to memory or memory to remembrance. I’d do anything to make those pathways reengage.

I scroll all the way to the bottom, which is no small feat. The first image is a still in full color. The geo tag says Estes Park, but I don’t recognize it, except for having scrolled these shots before.

What’s worse is not the date stamp, which links to the shop but the copy indicates I took it long before this window of darkness. Apparently, my memory gaps are not just based on time, but also include random holes on random things?

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Me: Are you available to chat? I need you.

My phone vibrates in my hand and I quietly leave Christian’s hospital room and wander the halls, since he finally fell back to sleep. How anyone is supposed to heal and rest with all the noise, lights, and motion in this place is anyone’s guess.

“Hey.” My voice comes out on a choked whisper, as if all the stress has knotted into a ball in my throat, making it nearly impossible to swallow.

“Ayla-girl.” Liam’s voice is warm and gruff.

“I’m not crazy, right?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“You didn’t answer. Tell me I’m not mental.” I slide down the wall to rest on my butt in the too-bright hall.

“And I’m supposed to mean it?” His chuckle dies when a sob rips from my throat.

“What’s going on Ayla?”

I look around, cautious now that things are even less stable than what they previously seemed.

“You and me talk, Li. Just you and me… I’m missing more than just two years. There are things from before the blacked-out window that are gone.” I don’t mention last night. That’s not a memory thing. That’s a mind-fuck thing that I don’t know how to think about.

“What does your doctor say?”

“I haven’t reached out to him.”

“Well, that would be a good place to start. I’m no expert, but it seems your brain has some pockets of… gaps. I’m guessing that it’s not uncommon with brain trauma.”

He’s being reasonable.

“You don’t think—” I pause and drag in as much air as possible. “I’m not losing it, though. It’s just memory. It’s not… I’m not…”

“Ayla, girl. You are nuts. I knew that from the moment they brought you home from the hospital. Feisty, fiery, crazy. But you’re not clinical.

Your brain is sorting or shifting things into different spaces, but you’re not certifiable.

At least, not any more than you were a month ago or a year before that, according to your non-doctor brother. ”

A bark escapes me. “Great. At least there’s that.”

“Mrs. Barone, Dr. Lightfoot is looking for you,” a nurse says from her place above me.

“Who’s that?” Liam’s gravelly voice slides across the line.

“I’ll be right there,” I offer to the nurse, but to Liam I say, “ Long story short, Christian was shot at the house last night and?—”

“What the fuck!” If whispers could yell, that would be my brother’s tone.

“We’re at Porter.”

“I’m on my way.”

Dead air is all that’s left after he bites out the last line. I turn my head up to the woman still hovering above me. “Dr. Lightfoot is?”

“Mr. Barone’s surgeon, and he’s in the room.”

Here we go again.