Page 104 of The Meaning Of You

“I’ll fetch your medication.” He disappeared back into the lounge and returned with a brown pharmacy bag and a glass of water.

I began working my way through the labels but when I’d dropped one of the bottles for the second time, Nick prised the bag gently from my hands and looked himself. I’d have normally chewed him out for the audacity, but I had zero fucks left to give. All I felt was grateful for the excuse to just sit there.

“Here you go.” Nick tipped two pills into my palm and I swallowed them down with the glass of water, not bothering to ask what they were. Then I kicked off my shoes and tried and failed to get my shirt over my head. I cursed at the ripping pain in my shoulder and was about to give up when Nick’s legs appeared in front of me.

“Let me.”

I huffed my displeasure but lifted my arms as best I could and he slipped the top of the hospital scrubs over my head. Then I undid the knot in the bottoms and eased myself back on the mattress so that Nick could pull the things down over my hips. That left me in nothing but a pair of black briefs and a frown. It should have felt all kinds of awkward but it didn’t, and I wasn’t quite sure why.

The bed dipped alongside as Nick sat, our thighs touching.

“There’s a whole bed, you know.”

He rested his head against mine and said nothing.

I caught the drift of antiseptic and whispered, “I didn’t ask how you were doing. Twenty sutures are a lot. Does it hurt?”

“Like a motherfucker.”

I gave a soft snort. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, even if it hurts. You weren’t moving when they took me away and I—” My voice broke. “—I didn’t know what to think.”

He slid his hand into mine and threaded our fingers together. “Me too. We were taking too long to find you and I was losing my shit. When I saw you on the jetty, it was like I could breathe again for the first time.”

I blinked back a tear, my emotions so close to the surface my skin was humming with them. The tiniest slip and I’d be exposed to the world. To him. And I’d be undone.

He elbowed me gently. “You still awake, sunshine? I mean, your eyelids are open, but I fear there’s not much happening in here.” He tapped my forehead.

I rolled my eyes and pushed his hand away. “Your bedside manner could use some work.”

He fell quiet, the two of us sitting there like a pair of mismatched bookends.

“You want me to leave?” he whispered.

And there it was.Did I want him to leave?For a simple question, it seemed monumentally difficult to answer, and perhaps that was an answer in itself. I turned sideways on the bed and he did the same.

I met his troubled gaze. “I think the more pertinent question here is, doyouwant to?”

Nick frowned and studied my face for far too long. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

I gave a put-upon sigh, because really? It seemed he was having as much trouble answering the simple question as I was. “Indulge me, please.”

I expected him to dredge up all the reasons this wasn’t a good idea like he had so many times in the past, but instead he surprised me.

He took both my hands in his, those serious grey eyes travelling my face with something close to wonder.

I turned his left hand over in mine and lifted the words tattooed there to my lips.Will you?I pressed a kiss in place.

His eyes met mine, the significance of those words not lost on either of us. Then he leaned in, stopping just shy of my mouth. Close enough for his warm breath to brush across my lips and send a jolt of electricity crackling down my spine.

“What I’m starting to feel for you is something I never thought I’d feel again.” His gaze intensified. “And I can’t deny it scares me.Youscare me.” He pressed a butterfly kiss to my nose and my heart took flight.

“You scare me too,” I admitted, reaching up between us to rest my fingers on the dense scruff of his jaw. “You’re not the only one struggling here, Nick, even if for very different reasons.”

He turned his head and pressed his lips to my palm. “I know.” He kissed it again, then turned back. “We’re past the naivety and ignorance of youth, and I think that can make things harder in some ways. We know what it takes to make relationships work. The sacrifices. The compromises. We know the chances of the other person changing are pretty minimal. And we know that you can fall out of even the strongest love if you don’t look after it.” He licked his lips.

I nodded. “It seems easier to not take that risk, right? Safer?”

Nick squeezed both my hands. “It does, as cowardly as that sounds.” And yet he was still sitting there. Still holding my hands. He’d kissed me. He hadn’t left. He hadn’t moved. And he hadn’t answered my question.

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