Page 120 of If This is Love

“Chlo! Ruth! Good, you’re still there.” He practically skidded to a halt in his shiny, black oxford shoes and pitched forward to grab Chloe’s shoulders and smooched her forehead. “I love you. I’m going to walk her back there and then come back. They don’t want more than one person in his room at a time, and he wants it to be her.” He looked at me and held out his hand. “That okay with you, sis?”

“Yeah, it’s…” I laughed, completelyoverthinkinghisuse of the word sis, and then I took his hand as I stood. “I’ve been trying to get a chance to talk to him.”

“Yeah, I know this has been a pretty horrifying combination of awkward as fuck and literally fucking terrifying as of tonight, but…” Luke shoved his hands in the pockets of his black suit pants as he led the way through the doors and down the long, white corridor of the emergency department. “Thanks for sticking around. Saying thanks for that feels awkward as fuck, too, but…” He raked his fingers through his hair and then shoved the back of his hand across his nose. “You know what I’m saying.”

“I do.” I could barely speak around the lump in my throat, but I managed to swallow it. “I do know what you’re saying. And I’ll stick around as long as he and all of y’all will have me.”

Luke paused in front of a door and pushed it open for me. “Then that’ll be like forever, I’d say.” He nodded at the inside of the room. “She’s right here, bruh.”

I stepped in, giving Luke’s elbow a small squeeze as I passed him. Gunner was sprawled out on a folded up blanket on the floor next one wall, and I steeled myself before looking at Gabe, trying to avoid breaking down, but it was pointless. The second my eyes settled on his battered face and braced arm, my face fell into my hand, and a prayer left my lips through a sob.

“Thank you, God.” I hefted my skirt up and out of the way while I marched straight into his scraped-up, outstretched arm. “Thank you, Lord.” I leaned over him and pressed my cheek to his chest, quieting my sobs just enough to hear his heart; to assure myself with my own ears that he was still here. I patted the pads of my fingertips in time to the rhythm of his pulse and turned my head so I could look at his face. “Oh, I have never been happier to see you.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a bit groggy and raspy, “can’t quite tell if I’m dreaming or not with you throwing yourself at me looking so magnificent like that.”

I had to laugh, but it morphed into all the deep, guttural, but completelycleansingsobs that I’d been holding in since that terrifying moment. And,my God, I was just so thankful. I practically crawled into the bed next to him just so I could get my arms farther around him and cried and cried into his neck.

“I was sure,” I suddenly choked out, “I was sure that was justit. MyGod, for so long those people had me so… so…” I pressed my eyes shut for a second and shook my head as I stood up straight. I looked at his bottomless silver eyes, which were now a little red and misty. “But never mind that,I believedGod was about to take you from me to teach me some kind of lesson, but then I stopped myself because that’s not how it works. The god I believe in wouldn’t hurt a good man just to punish me, not for anything. The god I believe in has saved you, and saved you, andsaved you, and he gave you to me as agift. And he wouldn’t take you from me like that. I just refused to believe it because Icouldn’t, Gabriel Martinelli. I couldn’t lose you like that, too. I can’t. And Iwon’t. BecauseIlove you, too. And you’re right, thatisthe bottom line, and it’s honestly the only thing that matters, so I don’t want either of us wasting any words talking about that elephant right now. Can we agree to that please?”

The smile he gave me just then was one I’d remember for the rest of my life. Despite being laid up and battered from head to toe, Gabe looked happier and lighter than I had even seen. It was just a sweet, reflexive curl of the corners of his mouth. Almost bashful. But it was my favorite thing I’d ever seen. For a second, I caught a glimpse of what he probably looked like as much younger man. Boyish and charming, but also genuine from the depths of his soul.

Kind of like the place he loved me from. Because I knew he loved me like that. He didn’t even have to say a word, but instead, he said the mostGabething I could imagine.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

A laugh broke through my tears, and he opened his arm again, and then I did crawl into the bed with him. Very carefully, of course, and I kissed every square inch of his precious, tear-stained face, and we looked plainridiculous, awkwardly bent around each other with my cumbersome asheckdress all over the place, but it didn’t matter.

How could that possibly matter when I was once again holding a love like this between my grief-weathered palms? This was a perfect miracle born from heartache and heartbreak, and anguish, and loss. This was a precious new beginning.

This…

This was love.

33

GABE

ALGIERS POINT, NEW ORLEANS

Wet warmth blanched half of my face, and I flinched. Musty dog breath, just like every morning. Everything ached. I wasn’t getting up yet.

“Lord, I have…you all about… went over there… Connor and Brennan… you were right about Carson and Sabrina. You should have seen this… did Chloe call it? Chaos gumbo.”

Chaos gumbo?

What in the ever-loving fuck was that?

But wait, never-fucking-mindthat… what the fuck was Ruth doing in my house?

I squinted at my ceiling and suddenly couldn’t trust my own perception of reality.

I’d been at the hospital and was on heavy medication, so it was entirely possible I was just imagining the sound of her voice while I was trapped in that place between dreams and morning.

Still staring at the ceiling, I quieted my breathing and listened. “Ruth?”

My room was silent and still for several seconds until a long, distinctly canine snore pierced the heady quiet.

Definitely alone, and definitely not fully awake.

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