So, happy.
Then I got the call.
“What?” I yelled into the phone, pressing a hand to my other ear to block out the sounds of revelry.
It was long after the countdown and the party, unsurprisingly as it was populated with musicians and BDSM worshippers, had slipped into loud, jovial debauchery.
“Cosima,” Mama cried, “She’s in the hospital. They have her in surgery right now but, bambina, it does not look good.”
My phone clattered to the ground as I stared off into the partygoers thrashing on the dance floor.
Cosima was in the hospital.
It was not looking good.
God, what could have happened?
Sinclair swooped down to pick up my phone, appearing beside me even though I had left him in the kitchen to take the call. He watched me as he spoke into the phone but I didn’t look at him. I was paralyzed with fear and pretty certain that I was going to throw up.
“Sebastian?” Sinclair was saying, “Yes, expect us soon. We’ll catch the next flight out.”
I didn’t remember much of what happened after that except for a vague recollection of returning to the hotel to change and pack our bags before catching a taxi to the airport at some time just before dawn. I didn’t even remember enough to say a proper goodbye to Paris. When I woodenly mentioned this to Sinclair, he had kissed my hair and promised that we would go back.
Now, I was so afraid that I was physically sick with it. Sinclair had held my hair as I vomited repeatedly on the plane back to New York. I would have been embarrassed but he sweetly reminded me of how he had fallen under my spell when I was sick on the plane to Mexico and that this was nostalgic somehow, instead of gross. It was pure lies, but I appreciated his efforts too much to say anything. Besides, I was too busy making use of the toilet to talk back anyway.
By the time we landed and dragged ourselves into the waiting town car, my body felt weak and saturated with grime, like a wrung out dishtowel. Sinclair held me tightly against his side as he responded feverishly to emails on his phone. We had to leave in such a rush that he had left a mess of things back in Paris. A part of me was grateful for his distraction, both because it took his mind of Cosima’s dire situation but also because it gave me room to think things through unobserved. If he hadn’t been preoccupied, he would have easily picked up on the rod of discomfort in my spine that kept me from sinking into his warmth.
My anxiety only increased as we entered the city and headed straight to the trauma ward at St Vincent’s Hospital. I hated that my overwhelming fear for my sister was undermined by the drama that had become the cornerstone of my life. Elena didn’t know about Sin and me, which meant that as soon as we entered those sliding glass doors, we would effectively cease to exist as a unit at exactly the moment we needed each other the most. I tried to give myself a stern talking to, like a tough coach before a big game, but no matter how much I berated myself for being selfish, reminded myself that this was the least I deserved, told myself that I was a strong, independent woman capable of handling emotional distress without someone else’s help, I kept coming back to the desire to whimper like a freaking baby.
Sin pressed his lips to my hair and breathed deeply. “Visiting hours are almost over but the family will still be there with her. As soon as we are finished here, I booked rooms at the St. Regis.”
Of course, because we hadn’t talked about what our living situation was going to look like now that we were together. Sinclair was without a home and I couldn’t very well live with Cosima. It would be incredibly unfair to make her choose sides, especially when she couldn’t actually speak for herself at the moment.
It took me a moment to understand what he said but I blamed it on the lingering nausea.
“Rooms?”
Sin picked up his phone and nonchalantly scrolled through his inbox again. “Mmm.”
“Why the plural?”
“I need to give Richard a call before we get to the hospital, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. Why did you book multiple rooms, Sin?”
He sighed, tugging on a lock of his overlong hair. “I wasn’t sure if you would want to stay with me, given the current situation.”
Maybe if he had voiced it differently, emphasized his own discomfort with the living situation, with the fact that there would never be a good time to come out to our family but that it most definitely was not now, I would have felt insecure about the comment. Instead, my heart melted a little inside my chest because I knew that it was Sinclair, my enigmatic, in-control Frenchmen, who was experiencing a moment of doubt.