As Xander stroked his thumb over the back of my fingers, my eyes began to feel heavy, my exhaustion creeping back in. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I have a feeling there are many things I have to thank you for. But my head’s feeling a little trippy, so you’ll have to tell me later.”
“I’ll be here.”
“You need rest.” My eyes slowly shut. “And new clothes.”
“Ryan’s going to bring them by in the morning.”
I smiled at the mention of Xander’s assistant. “Ryan…he likes me. You still should go home.”
Gentle fingers stroked the hair from my forehead then cool lips pressed a kiss there, and before I completely gave myself over to dreamland and drugs, I heard Xander whisper, “I’m not going anywhere.”
3
Xander
“RISE AND SHINE, you two.”
The door to Sean’s room cracked open and his nurse, Win, stuck her head inside. I blinked a couple of times and shifted in the chair that’d become my home away from home this past week.
“I have a feeling today is the day you’re going to get sprung from this joint, and you’re going to want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when Dr. Marx comes to see you.”
A soft groan from the bed signaled that Sean was waking. When his eyes opened and locked on mine, everything inside me sat up and paid attention.
All week it’d been like that. If Sean was awake, he was searching me out, watching me with a look of impatience, as though he wanted to kick everyone out so we could talk and reconnect.
Whenever his eyes were on me, I knew it. My heart thumped, my pulse raced, and every fiber of my being urged me to go to him, to touch him, and I would’ve if we weren’t surrounded by people watching our every move.
But that’s where we were, stuck in a monotonous merry-go-round where every day seemed exactly the same as the one before. And since we were never truly alone, it seemed we’d both reverted to our usual roles in each other’s lives.
Bailey’s big brother and Bailey’s best friend. Two roles that allowed us to be in constant contact, and Bailey just assumed that my desire to stay with Sean was based on some misplaced sense of guilt, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate. I felt guilty about many things.
Sean being at the NPF Awards.
Sean being stabbed.
Sean lying in a hospital bed with a scar as a permanent reminder of our first date, and the fact that the date we’d been on hadn’t just been for show.
Yes, that was the one I felt the guiltiest about. Especially since it’d been splashed all over every news channel that Alexander Thorne’s date had been injured saving him from a crazed attacker. “No” and “comment” had become my two favorite words lately.
“Morning, Win,” Sean said, as he pressed a button to make the bed rise and scooted up the mattress.
“Hey there, detective.” She turned to me and smiled. “Xander.”
“Good morning,” I said as I stretched my neck and got to my feet, then I raised my arms over my head to crack my back.
“Jesus.” Sean winced. “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna end up in here as I’m getting out. That chair cannot be comfortable.”
I ran a hand through my hair as I walked to the foot of his bed and watched Win wrap the blood-pressure cuff around his bicep.
“It’s not that bad.” That was a lie. I’d decided that chair could be used as a torture device. One week sitting, and sleeping in it, would have me caving and answering anything just to get the hell out of it.
As it was, I’d made sure to go for walks around the ward and down to the cafeteria to stretch my legs—but never outside of the hospital, never too far from Sean.
“You’re so full of it.” A half-smile played on Sean’s lips as he eyed me. “Isn’t he full of it, Win?”
Win looked over her shoulder at me, and then the chair, and screwed her nose up.
“I have to admit, I’ve slept in those suckers a couple of times, and they are not comfortable—and you’re much taller than I am.”
Sean chuckled. “In other words, he’s full of it and should’ve gone home to sleep in his huge, comfy-ass bed.”
“I’m just fine,” I said, not wanting to get into this discussion for the seventh day in a row.
Sean wanted me to go home and get some rest. But there were two problems with that: I wasn’t about to leave him until I saw him safely out of this hospital room, and was satisfied that he was able to do things for himself.
And I didn’t want to be alone. The last place I wanted to be was my house, where everything I looked at would remind me of what had happened.
“Don’t you need to be quiet when getting your blood pressure checked?” I looked to Win, who grinned.
“That’s a good idea. It’ll be more accurate. Zip it, detective.”
Sean eyed me as the air began to inflate the cuff, and the expression on his face was one full of curiosity, one full of questions he’d been unable to ask just yet. But I had no doubt that the second we were alone for longer than a handful of minutes, I’d be in for it. The detective in him wouldn’t let things go unanswered for too long.
“Blood pressure is one seventeen over sixty, all but perfect. How’s the side?”
Sean nodded. “It’s good. I mean, considering Marx had to sew it up. It’s still tender, but nothing like it was.”
“On a scale of one to ten? Ten being ‘Nurse Win, I’ve just arrived in the ER with a stab wound to my insides’?”
Sean chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Maybe like a…two point five? A three?”
“Okay. That’s good. Dr. Marx will be by soon to check the incision, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be going home today. You got someone to take you there?”
“Yes,” I said, before Sean had a chance to speak. “I’ll be taking him home and making sure he’s okay.”
Sean arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s good. You know everything that’s been going on here with him, so that’ll help with his recovery.” Win undid the cuff and stuffed it in the basket attached to the machine’s pole, then ran the thermometer across Sean’s forehead. “Ninety-seven point two, perfect. Right, I’m going to go and grab your last round of antibiotics. The doctor has you on pills today, another good sign. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Sounds great.” Sean didn’t take his eyes off me as Win wheeled the machine out the door. As soon as she was gone, and the two of us were alone, he grinned. “You really taking me home?”
Damn, I was in so much trouble. That lazy grin was the only thing that gave my world purpose right now, and that told me I had to tread carefully—so very, very carefully—or I could wind up losing everything I held dear.
“I am.”
Sean’s lips twitched when I didn’t move from the foot of the bed, and I had a feeling he knew the exact reason for the self-imposed distance I was keeping between us. Something he confirmed when he looked to the clock over my shoulder.