Page 14 of Gunpowder

There was a little pressure behind the touch and Blair hoped he couldn’t see the way it made the hairs on his arm stand up. “I still don’t completely get it,” Blair said.

“The veins supply—”

“Not that, smartass. I mean why you didn’t just call and recommend that Tristan came back in for further testing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but why did you care so much?”

The question might have offended anyone else, but Wren was calm when he met Blair’s eyes. “It wasn’t because I cared. I just wanted to know if I was right.”

“Whatever you say, Sunshine.”

Wren clicked his tongue and dropped his gaze back to Blair’s arm. If anything, the implication that he might care seemed to have peeved him more than the opposite.

“You can try drinking some water, that might help. Or I can take it from somewhere else,” Wren said, seemingly declaring the veins in his arm a lost cause.

“Like where?”

Wren picked Blair’s hand up and placed his thumb on top of it. Blair had wider palms but Wren’s fingers were long and rested at the soft pulse point on the underside of his wrist. The gesture was so much like holding hands that Blair stared in confusion for a minute before he realized Wren was tapping a particular place on top of his hand. “You have a good vein here.”

“I guess that’s as good a place as any.”

Wren moved his thumb to the side but didn’t let go of his hand otherwise. “You must not care for needles, either.”

“I don’t mind them, Tristan is really the only one in the family with that problem. You can go ahead,” he added when Wren raised the needle in question.

There was little more than a pinch when Wren inserted the needle. “Interesting.”

“Why’s that?”

Wren looked at him over the top of his glasses and tapped a finger against the inside of his wrist, just over his pulse. His lips tilted up slightly. “Because your heartbeat is erratic, Blair.”

Blair cursed the needle in the top of his hand for keeping him from pulling away. He didn’t know how to answer that, even to himself.

He’d been shot a few days ago, so that was fun. Plus, his little brother could have a rare and fatal infection. That was plenty reason enough for his heartbeat to be irregular, right? It definitely had nothing to do with Wren being… well, gorgeous.

Nope.

Wren capped the collection tube and removed the needle. He put a band-aid on Blair’s hand, smoothing it with his thumbs, the ghost of a smirk still on his face. Blair tried not to let his eyes linger; his gang was prepared to burn half the city down to get to Phantom, he really didn’t have time for this. Not that he wanted time for it.

Blair pulled his hand away and grabbed his crutches from where they were leaning next to the chair. Wren stepped back as though he had heard every one of Blair’s unspoken words. He didn’t look offended by the sharp withdraw of Blair’s hand. Instead, Wren watched him with curiosity and an expression Blair could only liken to satisfaction.

“I better get Tristan home, and talk my mom into getting the rest of them tested, especially my sister. She’s younger than Tristan.”

“I’ll walk you out. I need to move my car, anyway.”

Now that the wait had begun for the results, the trip back to the entrance felt far longer than when they came in. Blair could feel the prickle of fatigue behind his eyes and deep in his muscles. They went through the automatic doors to find the sky had gone dark, leaving the city in a harsh, artificial glow.

“Keep him as isolated as possible,” Wren said.

“That’s the plan.” He cleared his throat and toed a crack in the sidewalk. “I know you said you just wanted to know, or whatever, but thank you. I don’t care what your reasons were if it means he’s going to be okay.”

Wren’s eyes flicked down to Tristan, whose skin glistened with sweat where he slept in the wheelchair. He made a vague sound of acknowledgment and Blair continued, “You should let me thank you for real sometime.”

“Oh, are you asking me on a date?”

Blair’s face flamed. “What, no! I just meant I should buy you dinner or drinks or whatever to say thanks, don’t let it go to your head.”

He didn’t have to look over; he could feel the look on Wren’s face. Blair really wasn’t asking him on a date, he had too much going on already without adding to it. There was just an old-fashioned streak in him that felt like there was a debt to be paid for what Wren had done, his supposed motives be damned.

Blair finally glanced to the side as an ambulance passed them on the way to the emergency vehicle bay and painted Wren’s face with a myriad of red and blue. Part of him wished he had left it with a verbal expression of gratitude but Wren’s actions might have saved his brother’s life. From what he had been hearing about this typhoid fever, it could easily become life threatening to a child. That wasn’t something he could take lightly.

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