Page 222 of Sinful Like Us

Banks huffs at him. “You’re a fuckinggabbadost’. I fucking wanna kick your ass right now and hug you.”

“I had to,” Thatcher coughs lightly. “Tony is family.”

“Yeah, and we all would’ve mourned you more than him.”

Thatcher shakes his head. “You’re just making me feel badly for him, Banks.” He suddenly doubles-over in a coughing fit.

We need to go.

Farrow jogs over to us, med bag slung across his chest. “Tony is alive and conscious.” He sweeps Thatcher. “Get your ass in the ambulance, Moretti.”

He straightens up, done coughing, and we’re about to help him. But he dips his head down and kisses my cheek, his lips brush my ear as he whispers, “I love you. Always, always.”

My heart swells. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Good. I don’t want you to.”

I climb into the ambulance right behind him. We steal glances in every beat.

He’s still here.

48

THATCHER MORETTI

I put her through hell.I put my brother through hell, and I hate that I dragged them down into that inferno. I understand too fucking well that what they endured was worse than smoke inhalation and third-degree burns.

It weighs on me at Philly General.

I’m on my feet in the hospital room, gripping my IV stand. Abandoning the bed. I can’t sit. I’ve already had to be motionless for hours while a nurse dressed my burn, applying moist, sterile gauze on my right shoulder. I’m lucky that I don’t need skin grafts.

One chest X-ray later, results normal, and I’m now on observation for damage the smoke might’ve caused my lungs. Farrow said, “It’s extra precaution in case of delayed lung injury. I might order a second chest X-ray.”

I have to stay overnight.

You put her through hell, Thatcher.

I cross the room, IV wheels screeching as they roll. Patient drawstring pants ride low on my waist.

“You look distraught,” Jane says softly, an empty Styrofoam cup in hand. Banks just left to go buy more coffees from a machine down the hall. She’s the only one with me, and she’s still wearing my black crewneck that hangs past her thighs.

Reminding me that the fire incinerated her closet. And all of her belongings.

Gone.

I walk back towards her.

Jane stands poised in the middle of the room, like she didn’t just experience one of the worst nights of her life.

My fault.

My fucking fault.

I stop in front of her.

“Do you need more pain meds?” she asks.

My throat is scratched raw, hoarse from hacking up, and my shoulder stings—but that pain is pushed so far back in my mind. Boxed and packaged away.