Page 145 of College Town

Belatedly, he realizes the doctor is still talking: “I’m afraid he’ll only be allowed one visitor at a time in ICU. Family only.”

“That’s Lawson,” Natalia speaks up, and all heads turn their direction. “He’s his fiancé.”

Lawson stops breathing, and waits for angry shouts, for protests.

Slowly, Noah nods.

The doctor nods, too, satisfied. “Okay. Cindy will come get you in a few minutes once he’s in his room.”

~*~

Tommy looks very small and very sallow against his very, very white hospital sheets. The head of the bed is angled slightly upright, and Tommy’s hair is greasy and mussed on the pillow. His eyes are shut, the lids bruised-looking, his whole body unnaturally still save the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath his diamond-printed gown. A cannula sits in his nostrils, its tube snaking over the side of the bed to join the several IV bags, the heart monitors and their wires. He’s hooked up like a cyborg, and if the doctor hadn’t told him, Lawson wouldn’t believe he was alive.

A chart waits in the plastic bin at the foot of the bed. Without picking it up, Lawson can read the name at the top: Katz, Thomas R.

A lone, uncomfortable plastic chair sits beside the bed, and Lawson eases down into it. There’s a name on the braceleted wrist nearest Lawson, too: Katz, Thomas R.

Lawson tips his head back against the wall, closes his eyes, and between one beep and the next, the heart monitor lulls him to sleep.

~*~

There are rules in the ICU: only family, one visitor at a time, and Lawson knows you aren’t allowed to spend the night.

But when he opens his eyes, he sees daylight pressing at the blinds, smells coffee, and sees that he’s no longer alone in the room.

Noah stands at the foot of the bed, holding a McDonald’s bag and a steaming paper cup.

As sick as he still feels, and as gross, greasy, stiff, and crunchy-eyed, mouth still tangy with Coke vomit, his stomach growls.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Noah says, and sets the bag and cup down on the room’s small table, beside a small vase of daisies that wasn’t there when he fell asleep.

Lawson rubs sleep out of his eyes and glances toward Tommy – still out cold, monitors beeping steadily – and then back to Noah. “How are you in here? How am I still in here? Why didn’t they kick me out?”

“They let you bend the rules a little when it’s a cop. It was either let me back here or deal with Thurston chewing them out for the next half-hour.”

Lawson frowns and reaches for the coffee. “That’s not fair. They’re just doing their jobs.”

“Yeah. But.” He shrugs and shoves his hands in his pants pockets. His tie is loose, shirt crumpled, folded-back sleeves dark with dried blood. He hasn’t changed clothes since yesterday, and probably hasn’t left save to get Lawson food. His demeanor is wholly different than the one Lawson’s come to think of as the new normal: that stern, asshole persona who hates Lawson and barely tolerates everyone else. Now, despite the exhaustion dragging at his face, he looks younger. Softer. Almostkindas he meets Lawson’s gaze.

He kicks at the floor while he makes eye contact, expression considering. “You really shot Ray, huh?”

Lawson bristles. “Sorry. He a friend of yours?”

Noah snorts. “Down, boy. No. Definitely not.”

“You’re a detective and you didn’t know he was a mole?”

“I didn’t trust anyone except Tom. And Frank – he sends his thanks and well wishes, by the way. He’s still in New York, mopping up the last of the Gino mess.”

Lawson perks up despite himself. Fuck Gino. Fuck what he did to the people he cares about. “You got him?”

“We got him.” Noah smiles with grim satisfaction. “His whole fucking crew. And the local boys picked up Mark Walton and his dumb fucks last night. It’s over.”

It’s over. Holy shit.

But it’s a hollow sense of victory. Lawson looks back at Tommy, the stubble coming in along his jaw dark against his too-pale skin. His chest rises and falls, rises and falls.

“You should eat,” Noah says. “But I brought you something else.”

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