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“I’m not leaving you. Not going to die on you.”

He remained silent.

“And we’re not breaking up. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

The breath he took was shaky. “You called me baby.”

I winced. “Yeah, I’m—”

“You told Mel you loved me.”

My eyes didn’t flit away from him. I was awake and ready.

“Now tell me.”

It was time to jump. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “I love you, Dreo.”

“But that’s fast, right?” he asked me skeptically, but I knew why.

“Four years is fast?” I threw his words from days before back at him. Or maybe it was weeks. I had no idea how long I’d been in the hospital, but right this second was not the time to contemplate it. Right now was for Dreo.

He smiled just a little.

“It was friendship for a while, and I do worry that it’s changed so fast and that I feel this way already, but—”

“How do you feel?” he asked, moving nearer to the bed until he was close enough that I could have reached up and grabbed his hand.

“Like I want to do everything with you.” I sighed, reaching for him.

He sat down in the chair beside the bed, took my hand, and leaned his cheek against it.

“Is that what you want?”

“Nothing’s different for me, Nate. I made changes in my life for you and Michael. If I was alone, I could do what I was doing forever, move up and live my life in that world, but if I want you two… I had to be free. If I wanted you at my side, Michael to see the kind of man I want him to be, model it for him, how things should be done, then I had to be out.” He exhaled and reached for my cheek, sliding his fingers over days of stubble. “You gotta let this grow back in, all right? I love your beard, and it’s hot as hell.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t want you to ever look at me and think I’m too old for you.”

“I don’t. That’s all in your head.”

“Okay.”

“
Mi sei mancato molto
,” he said, his eyes swimming with tears suddenly.

“I missed you too,” I told him.

“How do you always know what I’m saying?”

“I speak Dreo.”

Lifting up in one fluid motion, he kissed me hard and long, and I whimpered and whined until he started laughing, which brought Mel and Michael and Ben from outside. It was a madhouse after that.

There was a stream of people in to see me for the rest of the day. Friends in every flavor: personal, work, other faculty, the dean, students, Alla and Jen, Ashton and Levi, Danielle and her parents, and even Sean Cooper, who had a look at my chart just to show off. Ashton was not impressed, and his face, like he’d bitten a lemon, made it obvious. Dreo, on the other hand—my grad student thought my new boyfriend was just yummy.

I had to agree.

Chapter 13

J
IMMY
O’M
EARA
came by my room the following morning and explained all about Oscar Darra, the guy who had stabbed me on the street. It turned out, upon investigation, that Joseph Romelli had felt that killing me would send Dreo a message that he did not make decisions, men like Joey made them for him. The same message had been sent to Tony Strada. His girlfriend, Geneva Moscone, had been grabbed and stuffed in a car, and the whole thing might have ended badly but for the lady herself. Four-inch platform boots, long acrylic nails, and a fighter attitude had sent the car full of four men careening into the side of a building.

“This woman”—Jimmy made his eyes big over the word—“or force of nature, I should say, is kicking the crap out of one of the guys when we got there, swearing in Italian, and spitting on him. They needed like eight guys, or just two that actually knew that they were doing, if they were going to kidnap her.”

“She’s a tiger, huh?”

“And then some,” Jimmy assured me. “The thing was, Joey had one professional left on his payroll, and he sent him after you, Nate. The guys who went after Geneva were just punks. They’re lucky she didn’t kill ’em.”

“I’m so glad she’s all right,” I told him, sitting back, squeezing Dreo’s hand. “I don’t even know her and I’m happy.”

“Yeah, us too, because when we caught those guys, they all had a lot to say.”

“About Joey Romelli,” Dreo said.

“Yes.” Jimmy nodded, squinting at Dreo. “I understand you’ve left the life.”

“I have.”

“And Sal Polo as well.”

He nodded.

“That’s good. We all knew the two of you were just muscle, but it was smart to get out. I understand they’re restructuring. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me who they settled on, Pearl or Strada?”

“I have no idea, Detective,” Dreo lied. “Out is out.”

He nodded and looked back at me. “So you know, Nate, they found Joey Romelli in his penthouse this morning with a bullet in the back of his head.”

“Oh God, poor Mrs. Romelli, to lose her son and her husband in so short a space of time.”

“But that’s the life, right, Mr. Fiore?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And she and two of her daughters were on a plane for Milan this morning,” he told us. “I don’t suppose you want to hazard a guess who paid for that trip, do you, Mr. Fiore?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think so.”

“When you’re out—”

“Yeah, I got it,” Jimmy cut him off. “But you gotta know how this looks. Me being here with you. Guys might think you talked to me.”

“If I wasn’t out before Nate was stabbed,” Dreo corrected him. “Which I was. Now the only thing people think is that fuck Romelli tried to kill Dreo Fiore’s boyfriend out of spite even though Dreo saved Joey’s life.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened. “Joey Romelli was there in the restaurant that day when his father and the others were killed?”

“Yeah.”

“No one told us.”

Dreo shrugged. “It didn’t matter then; it barely matters now.”

He turned and looked at me. “You should be careful, Nate. This life may still come and bite you on the ass.”

I opened my mouth to respond.

“Don’t worry, Detective,” Dreo said. “I might not be in anymore, but after this, I got a lot of guardian angels, you know?”

Jimmy sighed heavily. “All right.” He got up then, walked over to me, bent, gave me a hug, and told me to take care of myself.

Dreo told him that I had him to take care of me now.

He rolled his eyes and turned to leave the room but stopped at the door.

“Yes, Detective?” Dreo asked.

“There were some guys that used to hang out close to that park down off Pearson.”

“And?”

“And they said that some of Romelli’s boys came down there and told them not be out there anymore. Do you know anything about that?”

Dreo shook his head. “No, I have no idea.”

He nodded quickly. “You can come down to the precinct any time and collect your property from us, Mr. Fiore.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

He grunted, lifted a hand for me, and was gone.

I turned to look at Dreo. “What property?”

“My gun.”

“Oh,” I said, studying his face.

“
Caro
?”

“You and Sal took care of those guys that hurt me and attacked that woman, didn’t you?”

He shrugged.

“You did that for me.”

His hand slid over my jaw. “I would do anything to keep you safe,
tesoro
. Anyone who tries to hurt you or Michael should think first.”

Yes, they should. Dreo Fiore was not a man to be tested. I smiled up at him. “You cut me off earlier when I was going to answer Jimmy.”

“’Cause you were gonna tell that nice detective that the only thing you knew that would bite you on the ass was me.”

I laughed. “How did you know?”

“I know you,
caro
.”

I lifted for the kiss that he bent to give me.

“Nate!”

We both looked toward the doorway as Melissa came rushing through it, followed by Ben, Michael, and Danielle.

Dreo stepped back as my ex-wife flung herself down into my arms.

“Shit,” I groaned, because when I was not all whacked out on drugs, that hurt a little.

“I love you so much.”

I hugged her tight. “You saw me yesterday. You know I’m fine.”

“Not the point.”

“Mel—”

“What would I do without you?”

And I got it because it was her, and I was trained, after thirty years—I’d known the woman since I was fifteen—to listen to her.

What would she do without me?

I was necessary to her, but she wasn’t the only one.

To Dreo, to my kid and his girlfriend and the baby they were expecting, to the woman blubbering in my arms, to her husband standing there looking like death warmed over behind her… I was indispensable. To Michael, who was biting his bottom lip as Danielle held his hand and smiled at me, I was crucial. To the students I had helped, like Greg Baylor, to those that still needed me, like Gwen Barnaby, I was vital. And for Sanderson Vaughn, whom I planned to actually make an effort with, even though it would be damn hard, I would be critical to his success. I was not the second coming, but to the people around me, I was irreplaceable. Time that I worked harder and dug in.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told Melissa, leaning her back, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “You look terrible.”

“Because I’ve been haunting this fuckin’ hospital!”

I snorted out a laugh. “And Jare?”

“I took care of it,” she snapped. “Or, Dreo and I did. We transferred the deed, we’re getting him paid out, and the movers are coming tomorrow.”

I looked up at the new man in my life. “What about your furniture?”

“This is what you care about?”

I nodded.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m leaving the furniture for Jare because he said he—”

“You talked to Jare?”

“Well, yeah. Mel called to tell him you got stabbed, and he was pissed at me for putting you in danger and—”

“It wasn’t your fault! I—”

“He knows that now, but he was mad at first. I would’ve been too. But we’re good, and so I asked about furniture and took some pictures and texted them to him, and he liked what he saw. Gillian really likes the couches.”

Did she.

“And so I’m dumping my bed, keeping Michael’s, swapping out the one you had in your guest room and giving that one to them for the baby’s room, and we’re all good. Like Mel said, the movers will be there tomorrow.”

“And the OB?” I asked my ex-wife.

“I have one, and they’re going to love her. The appointment is made.”

“And when will Jare be here?”

“Next Monday.”

I looked back at Dreo. “What is today?”

“Friday.”

“So I’ve been here five days?”

He nodded.

“And when do I get to go home?”

“Tomorrow. You can sit on the couch and watch the movers.”

Michael cleared his throat.

“Hey.”

He forced a smile.

I lifted my arms for him. “I’m okay.”

And he was there, harder than Mel had bumped into me, his arms tightening fast as he buried his face in my shoulder. I felt the shudder and held him tight. “It’s okay, honey,” I told him, leaning my head against his. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

Dreo stroked Michael’s hair and then mine, and I saw the breath he took.

“What?”

“Just looking at my family.” He smiled. “It’s nice.”

And just like that, the lump in my throat was too big to speak around.

“I
F
YOU
knew my son better,” Mrs. Fiore was telling me later that day when she and Mr. Fiore came to see me, soup and bread in hand, both homemade, “you would know that he loved you for a long time, Nathan. He does not let anyone in his life who he doesn’t.”

The epiphanies just kept coming.

“He thought he should change his life for Michael, but for you, to have you, he had to. I am very grateful.”

I looked at her and then over at Mr. Fiore standing by the window.

“I hope someday that you and I can be friends, sir.”

He grunted, and I knew where Dreo had picked up the now familiar patronizing tone. “We don’t have to be friends, we’re family. What does
friends
matter?”

I had no idea what to say to that.

“Dreo says your boy will be here for Thanksgiving. You bring him to the house, and his girl and your son’s mother and her husband. Them, I will be friends with.”

He just made these statements like of course that was how it would be, so certain, this patriarch, that all of us would just fall into line. And of course we all would. I felt it. Like the man said “jump” and the rest of us asked “how high?”

“Yes?” he barked.

“Yessir,” I agreed fast.

“
Bene
.” He gave me a quick nod.

I looked back at Mrs. Fiore, and she reached out and put a hand on my cheek. “You’ll learn. You have to agree fast in our family.”

Our.

Amazing.

“I know you wanted a woman for Dreo, grandchildren and—”

“I have enough grandchildren. I have three other daughters that you need to meet, their husbands and their children. You will see.” She smiled. “My family is big.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But I will lose no one else, yes?”