Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 230

Chapter 230

CELESTE

I paced the length of Dominic’s hospital room, my thumb hovering over Pat’s contact, the call already disconnected, the silence on her end still ringing in my ears. She had not said a single word after my question. Just breathing, wet and uneven, and then a sound I rarely heard from her, a sob that seemed to claw its way out of her throat like it hurt to come up. And then nothing. I had stood there listening to dead air for ten seconds before I realized she was not going to answer me.

“I do not understand,” I said, more to myself than to Dominic. “She released Seraphine’s videos, and now she is crying on the phone like a baby.”

Dominic shifted in the hospital bed, the IV line tugging against his arm. “Maybe you should call her back.”

“I don’t think she is in the right mood to speak over the phone.”

“Then maybe you should go to her.”

I stopped pacing and looked at him. He was sitting up now, the color slowly returning to his face, his eyes clearer than they had been a while ago when I found him delirious and burning with fever.

“I cannot leave you here alone,” I said. “Not after what happened. Your grandmother is out there. Imelda is out there. For all I know, there is another photographer hiding in the janitor’s closet.”

He chuckled. “I can take care of myself, Celeste.”

“You could not take care of yourself a while ago. You were hallucinating and asking me to sit on your face in the back of a moving car.”

A grin spread across his face, slow and crooked. “That part I remember clearly and I stand by every word of it.”

I tried to glare at him but the laugh escaped before I could stop it a sharp burst of sound that cut through the tension in my chest. “You are impossible.”

“I am serious. Go to Pat. She needs you. I will be discharged in a few hours and I will come pick you up myself.”

“She did not call me last night, Dominic. Not once. And Pat knows I was not planning to spend the night with you. She knew I was just going to come see you and go back. For her to go an entire night without calling me, without sending a single text to ask if I was okay, that is not like her at all. Something had to have kept her occupied and I doubted it was good news.”

He nodded slowly. “So you noticed something was off.”

+15 Bonus

“I noticed everything was off She tried to act lively when I walked in that morning but her eyes told a different story. She had cried herself to sleep the night before. I could see it in the way her makeup sat slightly heavier on one side, in the way her voice cracked on certain words that she usually pronounced without effort. I decided not to push her. I figured she would tell me when she was ready. And then, she kept staring at my phone”

+15 Bonus