Page 309 of Ricardo

Apparently, I don't do much of a job hiding it, though, because his smile fades.

Even half-drugged and recovering from a gunshot wound, Dante notices too much.

“What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

“Jules.”

The name drags me back to every version of us that existed before this. Naples, then years of long-distance calls and visits in different parts of the world wherever we could. Then the distance. The first time I heard his voice in over a year when I called him from Connecticut with a bruised cheek and a shaking voice.

My apartment.

Blood under my hands.

I blink and force the memory back.

“It’s just good to hear you sound like yourself.”

He studies me for a moment.

Then he says, “I always sound like myself.”

“You absolutely do not. For days, you sounded like a haunted Victorian child.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Rude.”

“Water,” I imitated in a shaky, hoarse voice.

“I was shot.”

“That excuse is quickly losing power with me.”

“Already?”

“It’s been a week.”

“I nearly died.”

“You are going to use that forever, aren’t you?”

“I think it warrants a week,” he says indignantly. “Maybe two.”

“Two?” I say, bug-eyed. “Big baby.”

“Fuck off.”

I lean back in my chair, and for the first time in days, my laugh doesn’t feel forced.

Dante laughs too, but I can tell it takes a lot out of him.

He looks at me for another moment, and the humor fades.

“You okay?”

I look down at the magazine in my lap. I was reading some article about summer entertaining. Blue plates. Lemon desserts. A patio full of people who look like no one has ever bled on their kitchen floor.

“I’m okay.”