Page 57 of Avalanche
Eddie huffs and his foot goes momentarily still. “It means ‘yeah nah’,” he explains unhelpfully. “No, I guess?” He cocks his head, considering. “Suppose I never really thought about it.”
The tapping starts up again, slower than before, but just as persistent. Somewhere down the corridor a machine beeps, the sound faint but jarring. Eddie’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, then clench again.
Matty gives a light jolt beside me, his large hand landing on my knee, his eyes widening in recognition before turning to give me a meaningful look. It takes me a full heartbeat to understand Matty’s concern, what he’s trying to say.
I turn back to look at Eddie with his pinched expression, looking like a wild animal ready to bolt. Eddie, who spent years in hospital as a child fighting for his life. These sounds, these smells, they must be torture for him. They must be dragging him right back to those moments.
“Why don’t you go and get us some food?” I suggest, my throat thick. I dig through my coat pocket for my car keys and wallet. “You can use my card…”
Eddie snaps the keys from my hand without a second’s hesitation, but wrinkles his nose at the offered card.
“Fuck that, missy.” A wry smile curves the corners of his lips. “You’re broke as. I’m not using your money.” Then a more mischievous grin in Antoine’s direction as he adds: “Moneybags here can pay me back once you make him his millions.”
Antoine chuckles, but it’s a hollow sound. “Assuming that all happens. Sure.” He shrugs, offering Eddie a faint smile before slumping into his seat.
I tighten my hold on his hand, give it a reassuring squeeze. It’s going to work out, I want to tell him. It will.
But of course, I don’t know that.
Matty clears his throat. “I’ll come with you.” He rises, then shoots me a questioning glance. “If you’re okay with that, guys? You don’t need me?”
I stare up at him, longing a persistent ache behind my ribs. I do need him. I need all of them. Don’t they know that? Can’t they see that?
“That’s a good idea,” I rasp, even as I want to reach out, pull him back down beside me. “Eddie isn’t used to driving on the right side of the road.”
“The wrong side of the road,” Eddie counters.
“It’s literally the right side,” Antoine points out. “You drive on the left.”
Matty bites back a smile.
“Come back soon?” I pull Antoine’s hand against my chest, curl my toes inside my winter boots.
I know it isn’t fair to ask that of them. Not of Eddie, at least. But loneliness is spreading out around me, filling the space where my guys usually are, like cold wind gusting in through an open door.
Matty doesn’t answer. Instead, he bends to press a kiss to the top of my head, his lips warm, his breath sweet. “Text me if you get any news, okay?”
I nod wordlessly, my throat too tight to reply.
And then they’re gone. And it’s just me and Antoine in the empty waiting room, with the sound of florescent lights buzzing above us and the glare of the polished floors and the thundering of my own heartbeat.
“Come here.” Antoine gives my hand a tug, then sits back in his seat and pats one spread knee.
I hesitate, looking self-consciously down the narrow corridor, to where the sound of nurses and doctors bustling mingle just out of sight.
“No one will care.” Another pull, this one more insistent. “Come on.”
I climb from my seat, lifting myself over the metal armrest between us as I clamber onto his lap. “Are you sure?” I ask, even as he wraps his arms around me, pulls me against him.
“Hmm,” he sighs, closing his eyes as he presses his face against my shoulder. “Sure.”
I relax against him, turn my face until my nose is pressed against his tight curls and breath him in. He smells like clean clothes and the lingering hint of expensive cologne and him.
“This is so… fucked,” he whispers, and I find myself jolting in surprise at his words. At the unusual sound of him swearing in English instead of French. “I just… how could this even happen?”
A strange sound catches in my throat, an almost-whimper.
“I mean, whoever hit him would have had to have driven completely off the road,” Antoine continues. “You could see the tire tracks and everything. There was an entire snowdrift.” He pauses, shaking his head where it’s pressed against my shoulder. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”
