to keep me breathing. Because a bit ago, down on that street, I felt nothing, but then I saw your light on, and for a moment, I felt something."
"What did you feel?"
"Hope."
A smile touched her lips as she repeated the word. "Hope."
He dropped his hand from her cheek, putting a bit of space between them. "It's a pipe dream, thinking there's any hope left. Just look at me."
"I am looking at you. And I see a guy who is being way hard on himself." Her brow furrowed as she stepped closer, erasing the space he'd created, to run her hand along his jawline. "He's also a guy with a nasty bruise. What happened?"
"Some schmuck punched me."
"Same one who keeps stabbing you?"
"Different one this time." He grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away from his face. "I probably shouldn't have come here."
"You're probably right."
"And I probably shouldn't be doing this."
"You're probably right again."
"But I just…" He ran his hands down his face, cursing under his breath. "Fuck."
"You like how it feels to have hope. It feels like maybe you won't die in the dark all alone."
Those words were like a lightning bolt striking his soul. "How do you know that?"
"You said that in the hospital," she said. "One of those moments you were in and out of it, you said you didn't want to die in the dark alone."
"That's… fucking embarrassing."
She laughed, the sound light and airy, and grabbed his arm when he tried to turn away. "Ah, don't be embarrassed."
"I ought to be," he said. "You sponge-bathed me, for fuck's sake. You touched my scars. You saw my dick. And there was a tube shoved up in it. You shoved a tube up my dick."
She was trying not to laugh at him. "Well, I didn't do it. You were already catheterized when you got to me."
"It doesn't matter. It still happened. You still saw it."
Shaking his head, he walked out of the kitchen, making his way to her couch. The room was spinning. He needed to sit down before he passed out.
Gabriella followed, lingering in front of the couch when he took a seat. Dropping his head down, he ran his hands through his hair, fisting handfuls.
"It grows, you know," he muttered under his breath. "It was cold in the hospital, so it was trying to shrink away. And I lost a lot of blood… probably didn't have enough blood left to make the damn thing hard if I'd even wanted to, but I wouldn't have, considering the fucking tube. It was traumatizing."
Loud laughter cut through the room, the kind that stole breaths and caused tears to stream down faces. Dante cut his eyes in Gabriella's direction. Unbelievable. She was seriously laughing.
"That's not helping, you know," he said.
"Sorry. Sorry!" She held her hands up, fighting to keep a straight face. "It's just… that's what you're worried about? I mean, okay, yeah, I did my job, but I don't even remember what it looks like. I wasn't looking at it like that. It wasn't a memorable moment or anything."
He groaned. "Still not helping."
She cracked again, laughing. "I didn't mean it that way. I'm not saying it isn't memorable."
"That's exactly what you said."
"I'm just saying I don't remember it. I wasn't checking it out, Dante. It was a penis. I see penis all the time. Every single day."
"Awesome."
"It's just a part of the body," she continued. "It's another limb, a smaller limb, no different than touching an arm or something. It's nothing special. It's just a penis."
"You know, sex with you must be wild."
"Oh, hush." She kicked his shin. "It's not like that. When I'm Nurse Russo, a penis is nothing. It's just skin and soft tissue and blood vessels and—"
"Careful," Dante said. "All this dirty talking might turn me on."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying…"
"You're saying Nurse Russo didn't give a shit about my penis."
"Basically."
"That's good to know, because you should never judge a man by his dick when he's in the hospital."
"I don't think you should judge him by it period."
"By what?"
"His penis."
"Penis," he echoed, staring at her. "That's what Gabriella calls it, too? A penis?"
She blushed.
"Not cock? Not dick?" Reaching out, Dante grasped her by her hips, pulling her between his legs. "Tallywhacker?"
"You're terrible," she said, her hands resting on his shoulders. "Horrible."
"And you're too innocent for your own good."
"I'm not as innocent as you think."
Dante wondered what she meant by that, but he didn't have to question it. Gabriella's hands drifted, her fingers running through the