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Wanting to make things easy for her, I came back. “Well, I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” Her smile got bigger, brighter. She wet her full lips. “For the first time, I wasn’t thinking about being perfect. I was just having fun and…” Her head tilted. “You make things fun, Thatcher Reed.”
I make things fun.
I hadn’t expected this, nor the effect her words had on my insides. My soul. I glanced at her hand, my smile teasing. “So you’re saying I made you careless.”
“Fuck, yeah, you did, and thank God for that.” She sat back, her smile teasing now. “I think you and I both know I’m way too high-strung.”
I started to agree with her. I liked getting in her head and messing with her, but she moved and a little pain lanced across her lovely face.
“You should probably get your rest,” I said, adjusting her pillow again. Her eyes creased warmly in the corners, and that told me she appreciated it. I smiled. “I should probably give everyone another update on how you’re doing.”
“Everyone?” she asked while adjusting her position in the bed.
I nodded. “All my buddies are out in the waiting room with their girls,” I said, and Aspen’s mouth fell open. I laughed. “Yeah, and you got my sister worried sick.”
“They...” she started. Her head shook. “They all came? Why?”
I wasn’t surprised she asked. I touched her bed. “They’re my family, and they probably knew I needed them even though I didn’t ask.” I shrugged. “Wells came first.”
Aspen blinked once, then twice. He hadn’t been her biggest fan, so she probably really was surprised about that.
“They knew you needed them?” she questioned, and even though I’d taken a step away, I returned. I didn’t say anything, but I took her hand once more. It felt good in my hands. We felt good together. I did need my family…
But I also needed this.
“I’m glad you’re doing okay,” I said, and I glanced up to see rose color her brown cheeks. “I’ll let you go, though, so you can sleep. I’ll keep my phone on me, though, in case you need something.”
I’d probably crash in the waiting room or something. It was still kind of the middle of the night, but I wanted to be nearby.
“Thatcher?”
She said my name as I got to the door. She was completely up in her bed, her hands in her lap. “Can you stay? I’ll talk to the staff. Um…”
I came back, picking up a chair along the way. I placed it next to her bed, and when she put her hand out, I took it again.
“If I must,” I stated, feigning exasperation. It made her laugh, which was the point. “Night, snowflake.”
“Night.”
I put my head to the wall after sending a text off to my friends. Someone probably would come in here asking me to leave. I wasn’t family or anything, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Not if she wanted me here.
Aspen closed her eyes eventually, and when she did, I leaned down. My hand still in hers, I crossed my arms on her bed and rested my chin on them. I just looked at her and did that until my own eyes got heavy, closed. I thought she was asleep, but she wasn’t.
Her hand in my hair told me that.
It startled me at first, being touched, but then I settled into it. I drank her touch in like a dying man in need of water. She hit every electrode in my scalp, and I felt that shit down to my shoes.
“Snowflake?” I questioned, my eyes still closed. I couldn’t open them even if I wanted to. Her touch just hit different, was perfect.
“Yeah?”
“What would you say if I told you I’m having feelings for you?”
Her hand hesitated for the briefest of moments before she continued playing in my hair, and my heart stopped with it, believing I’d said the wrong thing.
“I’d say you weren’t the only one,” she said, her voice dreamy, light. I knew when she finally fell asleep because, after that, I didn’t. I just lay there with her hand in my hair.
