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“It’s not funny,” I whisper—because the standing has made all the blood in my head rush off elsewhere, and I’m suddenly dizzy.
“Aww, PL. I don’t think it’s at all funny. I was trying to cheer you up.”
“Your guffaw could wake the dead.”
I’m glaring as her gaze shifts away from me, and to something behind me. I watch as her eyes round and her mouth rounds. Her hand comes up to her face, and she smiles, pointing toward Vance, I think.
For the longest second, I don’t want to turn around, because I’m scared I’ll see the children leaning over him with frowns and furrowed brows the way they often do when some part of his car isn’t going well.
I turn slowly—still too fast for my head—and find both child nurses standing by the head of his bed with these little smiles—because his eyes are just a little open.
“Look at this, Pastor McDowell,” the brunette murmurs, her gaze fixed on the ventilator’s screen. “When the doctors rounded, someone said they thought if we decreased sedation this might happen today.”
Her words pass right through me as I step back to his bedside. Please stay open. I have a theory that his eyes will be blurry when they—now that they have opened. Because of all that stupid eye gel. I need to come in close…and maybe touch him somewhere—since I’m on the broken arm side right now and can’t hold his hand.
I do that—lean down over the bed’s rail, so my face is right in front of his—and he blinks. Twice. His mouth bends as his gaze lifts a little…almost holding mine but not quiet.
Please please please please.
His brows scrunch a little, and the look is so Vance. He looks like a living human. I feel a rush of warm shock as tears start streaming down my cheeks.
His eyes move just a little. Like he’s looking over my shoulder. My stomach slow-rolls. Does he recognize me? Is his brain hurt more than they know? His eyes shift the other way, toward Pearl…and back to me. I press my lips together, hating that he can see me cry.
“It’s okay,” I murmur to him. “Don’t worry.”
As his eyelids sag shut, two twin tears drip down toward his temples.* * *Vance
Three and a half weeks laterI grin at Pearl, and she beams back at me.
“So anyway,” she tells Arman, in that lilting cheerleader voice Pearl has. “Vance is one of the best humans.”
Arman gives a shake of his head. “One look at PL crying. He did a little sweep of the room to see why, and then dropped these two tears for PL.”
Arman steps forward so he can clap Luke on the shoulder. He chuckles. “She’s right, you know. You two are romance goals.”
“After that,” Pearl sends a smile in my direction, “finally we got Luke in the shower.”
“And after that,” Arman tells me, “is when Mrs. McDowell met you.”
I wince, looking down at my lap with a slight shake of my head. It’s still a little tender, but not too bad mostly. “So I heard.”
“You had just gotten the breathing tube yanked out, so you had that good death rattle breathing going, sort of looking around with glazed eyes from the sedatives. And Luke was loving on you.”
Luke rolls his eyes. “We are now a Hallmark movie,” he says to me.
I grin because—while we aren’t; especially one of us is not—he’s really fucking cute when he’s embarrassed.
“I remember some of that,” I say. “Being propped up with those towels, I guess, and your hands touching me.”
“You hear that, Pearl?” Luke says. “Hands touching him. You gonna jot that down for your Harlequin novel?”
She smiles teasingly at Luke. “Maybe I will.” Then she looks at me. “I don’t know how you deal with him these last few weeks, Vance. That day you opened your eyes, no one had even told Luke they were waking you up.”
“Because they were children. Graduated college yesterday. They probably didn’t know.”
Pearl rolls her eyes. “I had been mentioned when the doctors rounded, but no one spelled it out for him. No wanted to field all his questions about how it would go. Or if they didn’t wake you up that day after all, I think they knew he would be threatening the hospital donation.”
Luke’s jaw drops at that one. He points a finger at Pearl. “Employee subordination!”
She giggles, and Luke moves from the fluffy rug onto the half-heart couch beside me, lifting my legs into his lap.
Pearl and Arman stay for a while longer. Then there’s hugs and back claps, and they’re on their way out.
“Keep him on the yoga, now, Vance. Might help with his flexibility issues.” Pearl chortles, and Luke heaves a silent sigh as they three round the corner of the partial wall that divides living room and foyer.
“Will do,” I call.
