“He doesn’t work. He’s at college. He’s a math major.”
Why am I telling him this? I sound proud, which I am. But why am I telling him, specifically?
He nods. “Then if the college officials discovered that Wyatt has been taking illicit drugs, they might have something to say about it, correct?”
Tell me this is not what I think it is. “Are you threatening me, Angelo?” I whisper. “What is this?”
“I can make it go away,” he says.
“In exchange for what? What the hell are we talking about here?”
I feel the crowd parting behind me. Jack and Rose are wheeling Wyatt to the ambulance. Of course they’re not waiting for me. They don’t have time to hang around while I repartee with this douche bag. More to the point, Wyatt doesn’t have time.
But I’m trapped by Angelo’s eyes.
“In exchange for your hand in marriage,” he says.
Despite everything—how much I viscerally hate this asshat, how many times I swore I’d never have anything to do with him again, how scared I am for my brother’s life, how embarrassed I am to be in this situation to begin with—I laugh ferociously. “Are you high?”
His smile doesn’t fade. “For, shall we call them “political” purposes … I need a woman to play the role of my wife. You’re—” He cuts off before he can say what I am. “It will be worth your while. More importantly, it will be worth Wyatt’s.”
He palms my ass. I look down in disbelief, and then I realize he’s sliding a business card into the back pocket of my pajama bottoms.
“I love the outfit, by the way,” he adds, grinning as if he can’t help himself. “Are those roses? Very ladylike.”
I push him hard in the chest. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking tonight,” I say, “but I’d rather go celibate for the rest of my life than be your—what? Your political wife? Your fake wife? Hell to the no. Now let me go!”
I have to check on Wyatt. When he lets me go, I take a step back, shaking my head.
“It’s fate,” Angelo says. “The hospital—the accident—and now here. Destino, Dani. We can’t ignore it.”
Destino: destiny. My senior year Italian comes back to me. I guess Mrs. Roberts was right when she said of course it would be applicable in the real world. I search my mind, and settle on the word for “randomness.”
“Casualità,” I tell him. “Nothing else.”
He flinches, looks closer at me. “The accent could do with some work,” he says appraisingly. “But I’m impressed nonetheless.”
“I wasn’t trying to impress you. We’re done here. Oh, and that business card? Don’t hold your breath. Bye.”
I walk through the crowd and out to my car.
Get fucking lost, Angelo De Maggio.
I drive to the hospital and fly up to Wyatt’s room, ignoring the why-is-this-crazy-bitch-wearing-pajamas looks I’m still getting. When I open the door, I’m scared of what I’ll find. But it’s just my little brother, looking a little fuller in the cheeks but still pale. He’s sitting up in bed half watching a gameshow on the TV. It’s the British show Countdown, a math-word puzzle game.
“Three-five-two,” he’s murmuring. “No, five-two. Dammit, woman.”
“Sexist,” I chide lightly, sliding into the seat next to him.
He glances at me, looking somber, looking so young my heart could melt.
“I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t … I didn’t go over the top tonight, I promise. I just forgot to drink enough water. I’m pretty, uh, embarrassed.”
I glance at the IV drip, the needle in his arm. And at the other needle marks. A big part of me wants to lecture him right now, but that would just widen the gap between us. He apologized. That’s gotta count for something, surely.
“I just worry about you, Wyatt.”
“Because of Mom and Dad.”
We’ve found each other’s hands. Outside, the wind whistles against the window. It makes it feel cozy and private in here. There is hardly any noise apart from that. “Yes,” I say. “But not just that.”
“I’m your brother, Dani. Not your kid.”
“I know.”
“But thank you—you know, for saving me in your PJs. I know I’m a mess sometimes. It’s just—I miss them, Dani. I miss them bad. Fucking black ice, they said. Black ice. What the hell even is that?”
He’s rambling, but I don’t say anything. He’s not really asking what black ice is. Plus, I’m scared that if I talk he’ll shut up. He never shares his feelings about Mom and Dad.
“You know Mom was always the one pushing me at math and gym, right? You were Dad’s project and I was Mom’s.” He smiles softly. “Don’t deny it, Dani. It’s not a bad thing. I think it worked for us. You and Dad going to the race course together, me and Mom going to those gym shows. But we did family stuff, too. Do you remember the time Rex kept bringing that chewed-up old tennis ball back to the porch?”
I laugh sadly as Wyatt tugs on my hand. I slide onto the bed next to him, wrapping my arm around him like I did the day we learned the news about our parents. He hasn’t let me hold him like this since then.
Rex was our dalmatian who died a couple of years after Mom and Dad did. One summer, when we were staying at a rented lake house in Maine, he kept bringing this tennis ball back to the porch, no matter where we hid it. We even went as far as to hide it in the woods, in a tree. Nothing fazed him. So from then on, if somebody was being really stubborn—like if Wyatt wouldn’t budge on wanting pizza—we’d just say, “Tennis ball, Wyatt.”
Everybody who didn’t know about Rex would just look at us like we were crazy, but we’d get the message: calm down, psycho.
“Do you think Mom would still be proud of me?” Wyatt whispers. He’s crying, but I know better than to acknowledge it in any way. I just stroke his hair. “I mean, shit, the worst thing she ever saw me take was a painkiller.”
“You’re at college,” I say. “You have friends. You’re a smart kid—a smart man. Of course she’d be proud. And she’d be proud that you still watch Countdown and yell at the contestants for screwing it up.”
He laughs through his tears. “Do you miss Dad and the cars?”
I swallow hard at that, remembering me and Dad in the rented rally cars speeding around the course, passing each other by, the thrill as the tail whipped out and mud splattered the air.
I’m feeling really sentimental right now. I have to blink back a tear.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course I do.”
We sit there in silence for a few minutes, saying nothing and everything.
“Sorry, Dani, do you mind turning up the TV?” he asks a bit later. “I wanna watch the rest of this. Will you play it with me, like Mom used to?”
I’m in danger of outright bawling. I just about manage a nod as I climb from the bed in the corner and go to the wall-mounted TV. I turn up the volume, British voices filling the room, and then return to the bed.
“I love you, sis,” Wyatt says.