Page 83 of Stitch
Camille smiled, leaning closer to me, her lips teasing at mine.
“I love you, Stitch. Finding out that I get to keep you is the best damn news I’ve ever had. So the real question is, are you prepared to be stuck with me? I’m not planning on ever letting you get away from me.”
Thank fuck for that. “Good answer, babe. Okay, this is happening. Let me go lay down the law in Church, and then we’ll get my fucking name on your body, where it belongs.”
She pushed up from the bed as I stood up.
“And my name on yours, right? That’s how this works?”
“Fucking right, babe. I’m yours. Uh…” I glanced at the door. “Can you do me a favour, babe?”
“As well as letting you permanently mark my skin?” She giggled, and nodded. “Sure, what?”
I checked the door again, so I wouldn’t get caught asking her this question.
“When Elise gets back, uh… something’s bothering her. I don’t think it’s just this shit with me. I think there’s something else, and I really hope I’m wrong and it wasn’t one of my brothers here doing something to hurt her. Can you see if you can get her to talk? I know I’m asking a lot, because you barely know each other, but maybe that’s easier for her. I don’t know. Jesus. If someone hurt her… I just, I can’t bear the thought of her suffering in silence.”
She nodded, following me to the door.
“I’ll do my best, Stitch. No promises, though. Like you said, we don’t know each other, and if I ask, she’ll probably know you asked me to talk to her.”
Hell.Why were women so fucking complex?
Thirty-Seven
Within a few minutesof Stitch disappearing to meet with his brothers, there was a light knock on the door, and when I opened it, I was relieved to find Lissa standing there.
“Okay, so we need to talk.” She looked serious, and I dragged her into the room.
“What’s up?”
She pushed the door closed.
“Look, Ice says the hospital systems are down, and he can’t get in. He’s talking about trying some other way to get in, but I’m worried he’s going to get caught and in trouble.”
I held up a hand. “He doesn’t need to do that. We have the test results, babe. Stitch isn’t dying, hell, he’s not ill at all. It was benign.” Yeah, there was that lump in my throat again.
For as long as I’d known him, I thought I wouldn’t have him for long, and now that I had hope, I wasn’t sure how to cope with that. I’d been prepared for heartbreak, prepared for bad news, and my head was still spinning from the fact that we’d had the opposite.
“Oh my god, that’s amazing!” Clearly Lissa didn’t have the same issue, so when I burst into tears, she frowned, and dragged me onto the sofa to sit with her.
“Talk to me, girl. You’re happy about this, right?”
I nodded, trying to push tears away but they wouldn’t stop coming.
“I… I guess I was so sure that it would end badly, my god… it shouldn’t be this hard to accept good news, right?”
Lissa laughed. “The human mind is a complex thing. Just cry it out, babe. I’m sure he feels like doing the same.”
“No, he’s… he’s just the same old Stitch. I mean, he looks less troubled, but he barely reacted.”
Lissa stroked my arm. “It’ll hit him at some point, maybe not until he relaxes tonight to try and sleep. Maybe a week from now. He’s been living with an axe over his head, but now it’s gone, and it’ll hit him eventually. Just be ready for it. He’s been holding in a lot of pain and fear, and it’ll need to be released, just like yours.”
See? She was exactly the right person to come in here.
“So I’m guessing the urgent meeting they called was to tell the club he’s okay?”
I nodded, digging a tissue out of my jeans pocket and blowing my nose.
