When the Heart Falls(154)

Rocco stops dancing and faces Vincent, his arm still draped over me. "Who are you again?"

"Je m'appelle Vincent. You've been to my restaurant a few times."

Rocco's eyebrows shoot up. "Your chicken is amazing."

"Merci. I've heard about your pastries as well."

"They are too good for this world."

"Oui. They should definitely not be in this world."

"It is good to see you again," Rocco says. "But I must return to my lady Winter."

"Not yet," Vincent says. "First, come sit with me." Vincent grips Rocco's arm and escorts him to the table. Still Rocco doesn’t release me, but at least someone is doing something. Once Rocco is sitting with me next to him, Vincent sits across from Rocco and, with a smile, puts his hands under the table.

Rocco shudders. "Please, monsieur, can you put your hands on the table?"

Vincent smiles. "I like my hands where they are."

"Please, monsieur. I can't sit with you like this."

"No?"

"I don't know what you have down there."

"Indeed. I may have anything under the table. I don't know how you can sit with me. I don't know, even, how you can stay in this club." He smirks.

Rocco starts to shake, and his arm falls off of me as he holds his hands up defensively. "Don't do this. Please, I'm too young."

I hold my breath, waiting, my body so still I could be a statue.

Vincent just shrugs.

"No. No!" Rocco yells. "I go. I leave Winter alone."

Vincent is still silent.

"God will protect me!" Rocco screams as he darts out of the club, hitting a chair on the way.

Jenifer’s jaw drops. "What the f*ck just happened?"

"Only Rocco knows," Vincent says. He pulls his hands out from under the table, revealing a spoon, and digs into Rocco’s chocolate cake.

"Merci.” I whisper it across the table to Vincent, because I know what just happened. He saved me from my own stupid weakness. Tears fill my eyes as he stops eating to look at me.

“Think nothing of it, my friend. Everyone needs someone to stand up for them from time to time."





CADE SAVAGE





CHAPTER 30





NO 48-HOUR PERIOD has ever felt so long. I’ve spent most of my life trying to stay away from my dad, and now it’s just the two of us with the weight of Stevie’s declining health between us. During the four-hour drive back to Paris, he wavered between stony silence—my preference—and an interrogation the Spanish Inquisitors of old would have envied. Then there was the wait in the airport, my fault entirely because he’d booked tickets thinking I was in Paris and so we missed our first flight. When we finally got a flight, it had a layover in London that was delayed three times, sending us to a new plane each time.

It couldn’t be more tense between me and my dad. Now, after listening to my headphones so long my ears ache, just to avoid talking to the man sitting next to me, we’re finally at the baggage claim in Texas. Nearly home.

For all the grief and pain this trip has been, I know it’s just the beginning. I’ve vacillated between wild grief and fear over losing my little brother, to anger at my father for bringing our family to this place of hopelessness, to intense longing for Winter. I left her in bed, naked, alone, heartbroken. I want to call her or text her, to share my misery with her, but I have no words in me. She’s the wordsmith. The one who can take these feelings and craft them into poetry. All I have are the overwhelming emotions threatening to crush me.

As we watch for my bags—again this delay is my fault since my dad doesn’t have any bags that needed checking—his phone rings. He picks it up mid-ring, walking away a few paces and talking so low I can’t hear him. I spot my bags and pull them out, ready to walk out of the airport as soon as he’s off the phone.

He looks up at me, tears in his eyes, and my heart constricts. “Is Stevie gone?” I ask.

He shakes his head and clasps my shoulders. "No. It was the doctor. Stevie's strength is up." He smiles and laughs. "You understand? Stevie might make it."



My dad is silent on the drive home, but there’s a cautious optimism now hanging between us. I wonder if our hope is misplaced, if miracles can really happen like this. The way my dad talked, Stevie’s fate was inevitable. I didn't hear the conversation, so I don’t know if he’s reading more into the doctor’s prognosis than is warranted, but I pray to whatever god is listening that he spares Stevie. The moment I think the words, I cringe. Am I being selfish yet again? Wanting Stevie to stay trapped in his body, unable to communicate or do anything for himself, just so I don’t have to go through the pain of losing another brother?

I don’t know what to pray, what to ask for, because what I want and what Stevie needs to be happy might be two different things, and I can’t wrap my mind around this. The only prayer I can offer that doesn’t feel selfish or cruel, is to ask that whatever happens is in Stevie’s best interest. No matter the consequences to me and my family, for better or for worse, I want Stevie to have peace. Saying that prayer, a calm melancholy settles over me.

We pull up to the house, the familiarity coupled with something new. I’ve changed, I realize. I’m not the same man who left here a few months ago. This house no longer feels like home, but I’m not sure where home is anymore.