“Hush,” Dee says, her cheeks flaming with color that has me instantly aroused.
That’s not a good idea with her sharp-eyed grandmother watching. I get busy stashing the bags containing our dinner in the back seat of Dee’s car. When I turn back, her grandmother is hugging her and whispering something in her ear that adds to Dee’s embarrassment.
“Go to work, Nona.”
“Love you, honey. See you at brunch.”
“Love you, too.”
I hold the passenger door for her. “FYI, embarrassed Dee is sexy Dee. Actually, all Dees are sexy Dees.”
She covers her face with her hands. “Stop.”
“Never.” I lean in, nudge her hands out of the way and kiss the peach hue of her cheek. “You’re adorable.”
“She is incorrigible.”
“What’d she say?”
“I can’t repeat it. It’s scandalous.”
Laughing, I close her door and go around to the driver’s side. After I’ve put on my seat belt, I turn to find her watching me. “What’d she say?”
“That she hopes I’m taking you home to bed before someone else does.”
I howl with laughter.
“My freaking grandmother.”
“I love her.”
“She’s crazy. They’re all crazy.”
“Nah, they’re funny.”
She pulls her phone out of her bag. “I can’t believe I haven’t even checked on my parents today. Do you mind if I give them a quick call?”
“Of course not. Do your thing.”
Dee puts through the call on the car’s Bluetooth.
“Hi, honey,” her dad says. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m fine. I heard Mommy had some trouble with her port. Is she okay?”
“She seems fine, but she’s got some redness around it that Maria said could be the start of an infection. She’s watching it.”
“I heard you got a special delivery from the restaurant.”
“We did! That was a nice surprise.”
“I thought Nico was bringing dinner tonight.”
“He was, but Nona called him and told him they were doing it. Everyone has been so good to us.”
Her dad sounds a little tearful, which is so sweet.
“What’ve you been up to?”
“I took a friend out fishing from Black Point. Everyone there says hello.”
“Ah, that’s lovely. I miss seeing them. We need to get back out there soon.”
“We will. Are you guys coming to brunch?”
“That’s the plan. We’ll see how your mother feels in the morning. She’s in the shower now, or I’d let you say hello.”
“Tell her I called, and I love her.”
“I will, honey. Thanks for checking in.”
When Dee ends that call, she puts through another to her sister. “Hey, what’s up with Mommy and the port?”
“It’s a little red around the edges and causing her some discomfort. I treated it with antibiotic ointment and have a call into her doctor.”
“Do we need to be worried?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Okay, good. Thank God for you, sister. What would we do without you?”
“Aw, you’re sweet. Where’ve you been all day?”
“I, uh, took Wyatt fishing.”
“That sounds fun.”
“It was. I have to run. He’s waiting for me to tell him how to get to my place.”
“Don’t let me get in the way of that. Have a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, you will.”
After she ends the call, I tell her, “I hate to say it, but I need to run by Jay’s and get my stuff. I need my meds.”
“That’s no problem.” She directs me where to go, and I realize we’re backtracking.
“Sorry, I should’ve said something before the restaurant. Blame it on not knowing the lay of the land.”
“No worries.” She yawns and puts her head back against the seat. “I’ll be lucky to last until eight tonight.”
“I’ll make sure you get a good night’s sleep.”
“And I’ll make sure you get one, too.”
We hold hands on the way to Brickell. My mouth is watering from the smell of the food. “I’m not sure what Carmen and Jason are up to, but if you want, we can eat on their patio. The view is amazing.”
“I’ll text her to see if they mind.” She taps away on her phone. “She says they already ate, so feel free to use their patio and table.”
“Excellent. I’m starving.”
“I’m starting to realize that’s a common theme with you.”
“There’s never a time when I couldn’t eat. The people I work with in Phoenix call me Tapeworm. They like to bring in food for me and then get pissed because I never gain a pound.”
“That’s irritating.”
“I can’t help that my metabolism is spectacular.” I glance over at her. “You want to hear something crazy?”
“Uh, sure?”
“The being-hungry-all-the-time thing started after I got my new heart. I later found out that Emma, the girl it came from, was always hungry, too. She was known for that—and she, too, never gained a pound.”
“Wow.”
“Right? It does happen in some cases. I’ve heard of others who’ve reported similar things, such as a woman who never liked coffee until she got the heart of a coffee drinker.”
“Wow. That’s so cool. It must’ve strange to hear Emma was always hungry.”
“I was! At first, we thought it was because I was healthy again, and my appetite was rebounding along with the rest of my health. But when I connected with her mother, and she told me that…”
“It’s really amazing. Emma is alive in you.”
“That’s how it seems. There are other weird things besides that. Like I used to hate peanut butter, and now I love it. She did, too.”
“My mind is truly blown by this.”
“Mine was, too. It took a long time to wrap my head around the magnitude of someone else having to die so I could live. I had a lot of guilt—and therapy—about that.”
“Did the therapy help?”
“It did. The therapist helped me accept that Emma was going to die whether I got her heart or not, and her death wasn’t my fault.”
“That’s some heavy stuff for a seventeen-year-old to deal with.”
“Yeah, I was messed up about it for a while. It helped to meet her family and to hear more about her.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was in a skiing accident. She crashed into a tree and suffered a severe head injury.”
“That’s so sad.”
“It was, but she saved the lives of five people with her organs. Her family took great comfort in it. They said she would’ve loved that.”
“I find myself feeling sad for someone I’ve never known.”
“I felt that way for a long time after the transplant. All I knew at first was that it had come from a nineteen-year-old woman, so I had these visions at first of her trying to get used to living inside a seventeen-year-old boy.”