“Oh, so we’re going back to that again. Nice. So, you want to spend your days with me, but when something bad happens, you don’t want to talk about it.”
“When have I ever wanted to talk about anything?”
“That’s exactly my point. Your sister is in the hospital, and you’re freaking out about it. Talk to me.”
“I’m not freaking out about it.”
“Then what do you call this?”
I snapped my gaze to meet hers. “I call it a reflection on my life.”
Her features softened, and I instantly regretted saying so much. “Do you think you did this to her?”
“No, but I think I shouldn’t be here. I think she deserves a better brother.”
“She doesn’t have another brother—”
“Because I killed him,” I snapped, yelling at her. Turning back to the window, I shook my head. “Why the fuck did she ask me to stay? I’m so fucking selfish that I didn’t even pick up the call when people were reaching out to me to tell me my sister was in the hospital.”
“You weren’t being selfish.”
“Then what would you call it?”
She didn’t say anything at first, which confirmed that she didn’t have a better answer for me. “Look, it’s going to take some time to adjust to people being in your life, just like when you had to adjust to being around me.”
“But that’s the point. I don’t want to adjust. I want to be left alone.”
“You love your sister.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “So much that I didn’t bother to pick up the fucking phone.”
“Well, it’s clear that no matter what I say, you’re not going to listen.”
“Then just shut up,” I snapped, instantly regretting lashing out at her.
I watched as her fists tightened around the steering wheel, and the way her jaw clenched in anger, but she didn’t say anything else. I wanted to reach out and hold her hand, to feel her body against mine. I needed the reassurance that she was still here for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I wasn’t good for Carly, that meant I wasn’t good for Ciara either.
I was selfish enough to want to keep Ciara by my side, even though I knew she deserved better. Hell, even a guy like Jack was better for her than a guy like me. I snapped at her, I didn’t have the instincts to help people, and I sure as hell didn’t know how to do something as simple as apologize.
We pulled up to the hospital and I stalled, my hand on the door handle. “Ciara—”
“Just go see how your sister is. I’ll park and meet you inside.”
I nodded, knowing that any argument from me would only make things worse. Slamming the door, I gritted my teeth and cursed myself for being such a fucking idiot. As I walked inside, the whole damn place was already filled with people, Josh’s brothers, some of the wives, even people from town had made it here before me.
I walked up to Josh, unsure of what to say. He looked defeated and concerned, emotions I just didn’t know how to deal with. “Is she okay?” I finally asked.
He nodded, barely glancing at me. “I’ll head back to see her in a few minutes. They’re finishing up some tests now.”
“But she’s not hurt and the baby’s okay?”
“Yeah, but they don’t know what caused it.”
“The tests will tell us, though, right?”
“I don’t know.”
Anger surged up inside me. “What the fuck do you know?”
His eyes finally met mine, but instead of rage, I just saw this lost guy that was waiting to hear about his wife.
“Antonio, I know that you want answers. We all want answers, but we may not get them. The doctor said she could have seizures for any number of reasons. She could have even been having them before and we didn’t know it.”
“How would we not know that she was seizing?” I snapped.
A woman walked over and smiled kindly at me. Why the fuck was she smiling? “You’re Carly’s brother, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Will’s wife, Charlie. I’m a doctor also. I can tell you anything you want to know.”
“How could she have seizures and we wouldn’t know about them? Do you think she’s hiding it?”
“No, Carly wouldn’t do something like that. There’s a type of seizure, an absence seizure, that makes you basically stare off into space for a few seconds. She might not have even known it was happening.”
“That’s what you think is going on?”
“No, I’m just saying that she could have seized before without anyone knowing. That’s why the doctors are running tests. Did anyone in your family have a history of seizures?”
“No.”
“What about other conditions?”
“My dad had cancer.”
“What about your mom?”
I scoffed. “I barely knew my mom.”
“Any family history you can give us could help. Would you mind sitting down with me to do that?”
“Fine,” I grunted, following her over to a chair. She walked over to the nurses station and then returned with what I could only assume was Carly’s chart. She spent the next fifteen minutes talking to me about my family history, and by the time she was finished, Josh was gone, and his family was headed somewhere together.
“Where is everyone going?”
“Knowing the brothers, they’re sneaking back to see Carly.”
I glanced over to where Ciara was sitting. I should go talk to her. I should apologize for my dismissal of her. But first, I needed to see Carly. I needed to know if there was anything left in me that was worth sticking around for these women, because where I was standing, I wasn’t doing them any good.
5
Carly
I woke up groggy and disoriented. After riding in the ambulance, I dozed off again, waking up only when they were drawing blood and running tests. I had been poked and prodded, and now I just wanted to get the hell out of here. Josh knocked on the door and walked in, looking like complete shit.
“Hey,” I said, holding out my hand to him. “What happened?”
“You had a seizure. Do you remember?” He sat down on the bed beside me, taking my hand in his.
“Not really. They said something about it, but…” My head flopped back on the bed as I stared at the ceiling, trying to piece everything together. “I don’t really remember anything.”
“You had a headache and you were going to go home. Then you just…”
I watched his expression, how it turned from confused to terrified. I squeezed his hand. “Hey, we’ve been through worse than this. And the baby is fine, right?”
“Yeah, they said the baby would be fine.”
“See? No big deal. I mean, if I can drive across multiple states with you nearly dying in the seat beside me, we can handle this. I’m sure it was nothing.”
He nodded as the door opened again. I rolled my eyes as the rest of my “brothers” walked in, followed by Antonio, who just looked pissed that everyone else was here.
“How did you all get in here?”
“I bribed the nurse,” Eric grinned. “Josh wanted this time to himself, but we decided that he could have you to himself later.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at him. “You bribed the nurse.”
“Well…technically it was Robert, but I was there.”
“That’s what I thought,” I laughed.
“Hey, I can still surprise people sometimes. I snuck in donuts for you,” he said, pulling out a box from Mary Anne’s bakery. “The whole town is downstairs in the waiting room.”
“I doubt that.”
The door opened again and this time Jack walked in. His eyes lingered on Antonio for only a moment before he looked at me. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring Josh down to the station.”
“For what?” I shouted, pissed as hell.
“Disturbing the peace,” he said, a slight smile tilting his lips. “The whole fucking town is in chaos, wonderin
g what happened to you. My phone has been ringing off the hook. It figures the one time Joe stopped posting on the Facebook town page is the one time it would actually benefit someone.”
“Wait… you’re joking?”
Josh’s hand brushed against my cheek. “Jack was with me when you seized. He took care of Alessa for us.”
“Oh…thank you.”
“It’s no problem. I’m glad you’re okay.”
He walked out of the room, stalling slightly like he wanted to stay. But with Antonio in here, that wasn’t a good idea. I felt torn, wanting to try and get Jack out of his anger and wanting to reconnect with my brother. It didn’t feel fair to either of them.
“Hey, are you going to eat that donut?” Joe asked, plucking one out of the box. “God, I love Mary Anne’s baking.”
“That was supposed to be for me,” I glared at him.
“Yeah, but you weren’t fast enough.”
“I had a seizure,” I said incredulously.
“I had a seizure,” he mimicked. “Are we going to hear that all the time now? I can already hear it. ‘It’s poker night.’” He raised his voice. “‘I can’t. I had a seizure.’ Or…’Carly, we’d really like some of your cookies.’” He raised his voice again. “‘I can’t. I had a seizure.’”
“Since when have I ever made you cookies?”
“You haven’t,” he grinned. “But that doesn’t mean you should limit yourself because of your condition.”
“I don’t have a condition,” I said angrily.
Joe pointed at me eagerly, looking around the room. “Okay, who recorded that? Everyone else heard that, right? Admitting it means you can’t use it in the future to get out of stuff.”
Eric slapped him upside the head. “Don’t you think you’re being a little insensitive? The woman just had a seizure and you’re already trying to blackmail her into making you cookies?”
“Don’t be so salty, bro. It’s not like I asked her to stand up the whole time. She can have a chair.”
“Don’t start with that Millennial shit again. And I’m not salty, whatever the hell that means,” Eric grumbled.
“It means you have a stick up your ass,” Robert retorted.
“It means you get upset over little shit,” Andrew replied, trying to snatch a donut, but I yanked the box away.
Charlie walked in, shaking her head as she saw the donut box sitting on my lap. “Who brought her donuts?”
“Eric,” all the brothers pointed.
“Hey, I was being nice.”
Charlie snatched the box off my lap and pulled one out for herself, taking a bite. “Sorry, but until your tests come back, you really shouldn’t have any donuts.”
“That’s just mean,” I scoffed. “You would take donuts away from a dying woman?”
“You’re not dying, and if your blood sugar is too low or too high, it can cause seizures. Best not to test that theory again.”
“So, you’re just going to eat my donuts?” I glared at her.
She grinned. “Yep. Thanks, Eric.”
“So, how long will the tests take?” Josh asked, gripping my hand tight.
“A day or two. But I can’t technically tell you that since I’m not your doctor.”
Charlie looked at the brothers, giving them a strange look that I didn’t understand.
“We should give you some space,” Will said, coming over to kiss my cheek.
“Why? Is something going on?”
“No, we just shouldn’t have intruded,” Andrew said, snatching a donut. “It was cruel of us to come in here with sugary goodness to tempt you.”
“And Joe has to update the town page before there’s a riot on our hands,” Robert said, slapping Joe on the back.
“Hey, I update the town when it’s important.”
“Right, because telling everyone I was gay was super important,” Will snorted.
“Maybe you shouldn’t wear those shoes and no one would have suspected.”
“You suspected, not the town,” Will retorted.
“You married into a strange family,” Antonio muttered. “Can I get a minute with my sister?”
I got hugs from everyone, and a profuse apology from Eric for tempting me with donuts. When everyone was gone, Antonio sat down beside me and slowly reached out for my hand.
“You’re okay?”
I shrugged. “I feel fine. I mean, besides the gaping hole in my memory.”
He nodded, his brows furrowed in concern.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he wasn’t looking at me. “What’s strange?”
“I’m sitting here beside you, worried about you because of a seizure. I feel this…” He swallowed hard and his shoulders slumped. “I killed him, and he was my brother. I didn’t show any concern for him when I put a bullet in his head.”
“Antonio—”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said quietly. “I don’t deserve Ciara or Jo.”
I gripped his hand and squeezed until he looked at me. “We had a really shitty way of growing up.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“No, but now we have a chance for something different. We’ve already been through all this, and I know it’s hard for you to live with yourself because of what happened, but it’s in the past. We’re moving on from that. You have Ciara, whatever she is to you, and you have me. You have Josh and your niece and this baby. Don’t walk around talking like you don’t deserve to live.”
“But I don’t.”
“And do you really think that would make my life better? Do you think I would be okay if you weren’t around?”
“You’ve lived without me just fine for years.”
“And now you’re back in my life. If you walk out, I’ll just come hunt you down and drag you back here.”
“Not if you’re twice your normal size and waddling around like a penguin,” he smirked.
I twisted his hand, just like I used to do to him when we were kids and he would pick on me.
“Ow, ow, ow! Fine, you’re not waddling and you’re not twice your normal size.”
“I know, and I can still kick your ass.”
He laughed like he didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care. I was just happy he wasn’t thinking about leaving again.
“The sheriff came by to tell me you were in the hospital, but instead of believing him, I thought he was trying to come after me in some way.”
“Yeah, well, when you grow up around people that are constantly trying to kill you, it tends to make you think it’s true.”
He looked at me incredulously. “You’re not pissed at me?”
“Because your first thought was that it was a setup? No. Honestly, knowing Jack, I would probably think the same thing.”
I watched as he worked his jaw. He was pissed at himself, but I had a feeling it was all still because of our brother, and he was just using this as an excuse to punish himself again.
“It shouldn’t have mattered. I should have taken that chance and come to you.”
I gripped his hand, forcing him to look up at me. “Antonio, I hope you’re always that careful. We’ve made some enemies over the years, and I wouldn’t want you to lose all your good instincts just because we live in a small town with people that only concern themselves with who’s sleeping with who. You’re not going to relax overnight, so stop beating yourself up over things that are beyond your control.”
He sighed and stared out the window. “Nobody’s scared of me anymore.”
I burst out laughing, covering my mouth quickly. That had been the last thing I expected him to say.
“I’m sorry?”
He sighed heavily. “Ciara and Jo, nothing scares them. I can give them the death glare that used to make grown men quiver and they laugh at me.”
I looked at him sadly. “I think that’s sweet. You have a cohort of women.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t have a cohort. Who even says shit like that?”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You used to have women that feared you, but now you have women that love you unconditionally. It’s cute. I hear you even have your eye on a cat.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Who told?”
“I can’t say,” I said innocently. “So, did you finally break down and get the cat?”
He grunted. “Harding caught me snuggling it when he showed up at the house.”
I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying my best not to laugh at him twice in one day, but he was making it too easy. “Well, that had to change his opinion of you slightly. Mafia bad boy Antonio Scavuzzo snuggling with a kitten… I think your image is tarnished.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
It was so good to see him laugh, but I had a feeling it would be short-lived. Antonio carried around more baggage than Josh and I combined. I wasn’t sure I had totally forgiven him for killing our brother, but then I wasn’t really sure it was my place to give it. We’d lived in a crazy world, and I didn’t have any right to judge him for the choices he made given the circumstances. He’d been tricked into killing off his own family. Even if he wasn’t responsible for Ricardo’s death, he still played a part in it unknowingly. I was just lucky he hadn’t put a bullet in his head yet.
“You scared me, and I don’t get scared,” he finally said.
“Well, it proves you’re human.”
He nodded. “You scared Josh.”
I smirked slightly. “Well, I’ve always been the stronger of the two of us. It’s a heavy burden to wear the pants in the family, but someone has to do it.”
He grinned at me, leaning forward to press a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be in the waiting room.”
“You don’t have to stay. I’ll call when they know something more.”
He smirked at me. “It’s cute that you think you can make me leave.”
As he walked out the door, Josh walked back in, a big smile on his face. “It’s good to see the two of you getting along.”
“Right, that’s what you’re happy about.”
“Well, if you mean I’m happy you’re not dead, then you would be right.”
I sighed and leaned back against the pillow. “So, how long will the rest of these tests take?”
Drawing Dead: A Small Town Romance (A Good Run Of Bad Luck) Page 4