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As if my thoughts conjured her, I could hear her footfalls as she ran up the stairs. She was still tucking something tiny into her front pocket as she came into view.
“I brought this,” she said, lifting her other hand where she was holding the neck of the liquor bottle. “But small sips,” she demanded as she handed it to me.
It was maybe just five minutes after that when there was the smack of the screen door in the front room, making the Morellis reach for their guns. Just a second before Salvatore came rushing into the kitchen.
“Sal,” I said, offering him a weak smile.
“Is it ever not you getting shot?” he asked. His gaze scanned around the room, giving the Morellis nods, then landing on Saylor.
“Let me look,” he said, setting his bag on the kitchen table beside me, but turning to Saylor.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Take care of Anthony.”
“He’ll keep,” Salvatore said, reaching for a pen light from his bag and shining it in each of Saylor’s eyes. “Open,” he demanded, pressing her lower lip until, with a scrunched brow, she did what he asked. “Lucky. Didn’t lose any teeth,” he said. “Don’t even look loose.” With that, he set down the light to press his thumbs into her cheeks and jaw, I guess feeling for breaks or something. “You’re alright,” he declared.
“I told you that,” she said, getting a smile out of the older man.
“Ice all that, though. And ibuprofen for the swelling. Alright, onto your clumsy ass…” he said, turning to me with a smirk. “How long you gonna need to be on my couch again?”
“He’s coming home with me,” Saylor insisted, making all the men try to hide their smiles. “I can take care of him,” she added.
“Dunno about your bedside manner,” I said, shooting her a smirk even as Salvatore pulled open my shirt and started poking around.
“I can be nice,” she said, slitting her one good eye at me.
“Hmm,” Salvatore said as he pulled the packing out and flashed the light inside. “Can someone find the bullet, so I can see if there is any major damage to it that could suggest shit scratched off inside this?”
“I’ll go—“ Matej offered.
“Wait,” Saylor said, reaching into her pocket, and pulling out the bullet.
So that was what she’d been looking for.
“Babe…” I said.
“It was the bullet you took trying to save me,” she said, shifting her feet.
And she wanted to keep it as a memento.
“Should make a necklace out of it for good luck,” Elio said, and the way her neck went a little pink suggested she’d thought the same thing.
“Should I fish the one you used to fill the fuck who’d shot me out of him?” I asked.
“Dunno, man,” Miko said, smirking. “She practically emptied a magazine into him. Hard to tell which one finally did him in. Could make you a pearl necklace out of ‘em all, though.”
I offered him a small smile, but my gaze was focused on Saylor.
And I knew right then, without a fucking shadow of a doubt, that all the men in my family were right. You knew it when you had the right one.
Saylor was the one.
It might take some convincing on her part to make her accept that.
But, hey, I had nothing but time while I recovered…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saylor
