“I think understanding what your emotions might be like has helped your family prepare themselves for what you’re going through. You’re having to play catch up and are obviously the one going through it, which is very different.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “But now that I hear what Ryan said, it pretty much fits where my head’s at.”
Studying him, I came up with a potential plan for Croix. “You know your sister’s house was demolished?”
When he glowered at me and nodded, I continued, “We’re having a new house built in its place. Once you’re out of here and finished with therapy and feel like you can do it, you’re welcome to move into the new place. People are going to be breathing down your neck for a long while, making sure you can cope, so that way you’ll have us nearby in case you need help, but you’ll also have your independence.”
“I was thinking of joining the police when I got out,” he admitted. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that now.”
“Why not?”
He looked almost angry as he gestured to his leg, which didn’t surprise me. “Uh, because I don’t have half of my damn leg.”
“You’ll have a prosthetic. There’s a range of them available, you just have to find the one that’s right for you and get used to it. If you can walk and run with one, why wouldn’t you be able to join the police? They’d be fucking lucky to have you.”
I wasn’t being flippant or blind to what he was going through, I was trying to get him to see the possibilities and that he still had his life ahead of him.
“We’ll see,” he said, not committing to anything right now, which I could understand.
“Just don’t write the plan off.”
Croix was silent for a moment, and I made a point of unlocking my phone and reading the news headlines that’d popped up on it while we were talking, making it clear he didn’t have to speak if he didn’t want to. He had enough going on inside his head, and people watching and expecting him to get everything off his chest wouldn’t make him feel any better right now.
Finally, he asked, “So, you and my sister?”
Lifting my head to show him how serious I was, I nodded. “She’s my world. When she’s not with me, I feel like something’s missing, and when she’s next to me, I feel like I can conquer anything. Without her and Toby, I’d be nothing.”
“You better treat her right,” he warned, his jaw tensing. “I might only be able to do it sitting down right now, but I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her.”
“Hurt her? I’m going to marry her.” My outburst surprised both of us, but it was true.
A smile played on his mouth after a moment. “If you can handle being tied to that for the rest of your life—and it will be for the rest of your life—I wish you nothing but the best of luck. I’ll also offer up the services of the psychiatrist who’s coming to visit me later. You might want to memorize their number.”
Throwing my head back, I burst out laughing. “I’d say the same thing to any guy who married my sister. She’s a real handful with questionable sanity, though.”
Almost like talking about her summoned her, there was a knock on the door, and Odette stuck her head around it. “Hey, I’m completely sane. You just don’t know what it looks like.”
Getting up, I pulled her through the door and into a hug. It’d been roughly eight months since I’d last seen her, and I’d missed the little pain in the ass. Like she did every time I hugged her, she tried to squeeze the air out of my lungs, but all she did was make the raw skin where my tattoo was sting.
Hearing my breath hitch with it, she pulled back smugly. “Not so strong now, are you, old man?”
Releasing her, I lifted my t-shirt so she could see my new ink. “It’s not that you squeezed me, it’s that you were pressing on this.”
Odette leaned around to inspect it, just as Croix got up on his elbow and did the same.
“You got my sister’s name inked on you? Man, don’t you know that’s the kiss of death for relationships?”
The tattoo artist had shaded above and below the names, just where the spaces between the bones were. I don’t know how they’d pulled it off, but it made it look like their names were actually on ribs.
I explained, pointing at them, “I had them tattooed on my ribs because they were both made from them and are a part of me.”
Odette finally straightened up and looked at Croix. “Well, it doesn’t get any clearer than that, does it?”
Croix finally slid his eyes off the tattoo, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes skimmed over my sister from head to toe. Smiling brightly at him, she moved until she was in the seat I’d just vacated.