Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
First Responders pry Tony out of Thatcher’s clutch—taking him to an ambulance—and Thatcher nearly stumbles forward, but I come beside him.
I hold his waist.
Banks holds his other side, and we bring him to the second ambulance. Soot is smeared across his face and body. Skin eaten on his right shoulder. He’s badly burned.
Thatcher coughs, “I found him like that…a rafter knocked him out.” It must’ve taken him a while to carry Tony to the garage. He hacks up a lung. “I’m fine.”
“Like hell,” Banks says.
I can’t be upset at Thatcher for risking his life for Tony. It’s engrained in him, and to tell him to do differently would be to tell him to be less of who he is. I’m angry that it had to happen.
I’m angry at the circumstances.
I think Banks is too.
Thatcher takes a seat on the back of the ambulance. His hand—his hand is in mine. He seizes my gaze like he’s implanting me in his memory.
I’m crying all over again. “I love you, I love you. Don’t go anywhere. Please.”
“I won’t.” He brings me closer to hold me, but I won’t let him with his third-degree burns. I don’t want to hurt him.
“No. You need a hospital.” I flag down a paramedic, but I keep my hand in his.
Light touches his serious eyes.
Banks huffs at him. “You’re a fucking gabbadost’. 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.
I shake my head. “No.” I keep shaking my head, upset at what I’ve done. “You always say that you’re being unfair to me somehow, but tonight, I feel like…” I swallow a rock, my bloodshot eyes on fire and filling. “I feel like I threw you to the fucking wolves, and you deserved better.” I blink and tears track down my face, slipping off my jaw.
Jane quickly sets the cup on a tray table, and I watch her walk to the corner of the room. She drags over a stepstool and climbs up. A foot taller, she reaches my exact height.
I breathe stronger.
We’re eye for eye, and her small hands brush the wet lines off my face, before staying still on my jaw. “I’ve fallen madly in love with you.” Her powerful blue eyes flood with tears, and I hold her wet cheek while she says, “And the you that I know is all unwavering strength and resilience and South Philly grit—and every day, you risk your life for me and for other people who need your strength and resilience and grit.”