Chapter 9
Joe is still looking down at his shoes when I open the door. "Joe?!"
Joe continued looking at his shoes, shaking his head, saying "I'm sorry, Stephanie. I know you want me to leave you alone, but I just couldn't go home to an empty house. Not tonight, not after the day I've had." Joe raised his eyes to me then. In them I could see pain, apology, affection. "I need to be with my best friend."
"Joe, what are you talking about? What's wrong? Are you ok?" I fired the questions at Joe without even giving him a chance to reply.
At these questions his look changed to one of disbelief. "You don't know?"
"Look, Joe, you're really beginning to scare me. What's wrong?" I could hear the fear, the hysteria creeping into my voice.
Joe's eyes cut over to my answering machine, where he took in the rapidly flashing light. He closed his eyes and ran his hand down over his face. "Jesus, Cupcake. I thought you just didn't care."
'Joe…"
"I'm ok, Steph. It's Tony. It's was such a beautiful day after that week of rain we had that Tony asked if he could borrow the Ducati and go for a ride. There was an accident"
"Is he alright?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. It's pretty bad, Steph. He was in surgery for five hours. The doctors said they were able to do a lot of repair work, but he hasn't woken up yet. They're hoping the coma is temporary but it's too soon to tell."
I was speechless. All I could get out was "Oh, Joe…" as I went to him to give him a hug. "How are you doing?"
Joe wasn't hugging me back. He was holding onto me for dear life. "I don't know. I'm scared. I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at the son of bitch that hit him."
"Joe, come in. Sit down. Do they know what happened?"
"Yeah. It was a kid, only had his license for 5 months. He was talking on a cell phone and blew through a red light."
"Oh, God, Joe. That's just so senseless…" Joe just nodded his head in agreement.
"Like I said, Cupcake, I'm sorry to come here when I know you don't want to see me. I just didn't know what else to do."
"Of course it's ok that you came here, Joe. It isn't like you're here for a booty call? Are you?"
Morelli gave me that wicked grin that always turned my legs to jello and warmed my doodah. "And if I am…?"
At my exaggerated eye roll he continued "Actually Steph, even if we wanted to I don't think I could. Between emotional and physical exhaustion I don't think I've got it in me." When my eyebrows shot up Joe told me "And I will deny I said that if you ever tell anyone!"
"Go to bed, Morelli! I'll be there in a minute. And no funny stuff, you!"
"I promise, Cupcake. And if I'm not up by 9:00 will you wake me up?"
"Joe, that's less than fours away. You need more sleep than that."
"Yeah, I know. But I think they'll want me at the hospital. That's probably what time Grandma Bella will be arriving."
"Oh. OK. Gotcha. Nine o'clock it is."
As Joe went into my room I headed into the kitchen to set up the coffee maker for the morning. It really doesn't need to be done right this minute, but the idea of watching Morelli stripping down to his boxer briefs and then sliding between my sheets is a little more than I want see and deal with right now.
OK, he's had enough time to get settled in. Great, he's already asleep. There's one bullet dodged. Taking a deep breath I get into bed, hoping I'd be able to get back to sleep.