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Right.
I didn’t have to make all my decisions through the lens of a child. And it was a timely reminder that he did.
“You’re right.”
“She already thinks you’re a superhero, especially after today. No matter what invisible line is up”—he paused meaningfully—“if she saw us in bed together …”
I nodded. “I get it.”
My eyes burned hot, though, because it very much seemed like an hourglass had been turned over when I crawled into his bed, and I was watching the last few grains of sand slip through the opening.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Carefully rolling onto my back, I took a quick assessment of my body. “My head doesn’t hurt as bad as it did last night.”
He held a hand out. “Let me see your wrist.”
I turned again and laid my taped wrist gently in his palm. His face held no expression while he turned it, smoothed his fingers over the area.
“Swelling isn’t too much worse, so that’s a good sign.” He glanced up at me. “No tingling in your fingers?”
I shook my head.
When his fingertip traced the edge of the tape and brushed the skin over my knuckles, I made a discovery that maybe no woman in history had ever discovered: if the right man, with the right fingers, touched the skin on your knuckles, you could feel it spread warm and slow over your entire body.
I couldn’t breathe, let alone answer his question.
My lack of speaking didn’t seem to draw his notice because his eyes stayed trained on our hands. Slowly, so slowly, and so gently, he found the edge of the tape and started unraveling it.
Over the years, I’d seen him inflict incredible violence. Leave his opponents bleeding and sweat-drenched on the mat.
And watching his hands slowly peel away the medical tape like he was unwrapping a priceless gift almost made me burst into tears.
I hated when people took care of me. The last time I had the flu, I crawled my ass into bed with a veritable drugstore set up on my nightstand and told everyone to give me forty-eight hours to ride out the plague in peace.
All anyone had to do was ask the paramedics who helped me what kind of patient I was.
The worst. I was the worst patient in the world.
What was it about Aiden that made me feel safe to be in this position?
I shifted, bringing my arm to a better position for him, and he glanced up with a tiny smile.
It was easily four o’clock in the morning, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
“What’s your favorite food?” I whispered.
His hands paused in their unwrapping to check the bruising on the underside of my wrist with only the slightest brush of his fingers.
I shivered.
He noticed.
Before he answered, he went back to removing the wrap. “Not strawberry Pop-Tarts.”
I laughed.
His eyes landed on my mouth. “You don’t laugh very often.”
