"Wait here." As if I had any intention of going anywhere.
He returned moments later with a glass of water and several pill bottles. Arranged them on my nightstand.
"Antibiotic." He opened one and tipped a pill into my palm. "Painkiller. Anti-inflammatory." Each bottle was opened in turn. A small regimen of medications lined up on my outstretched palm.
I swallowed the pills one by one. Chased each with a sip of water. The medication would no doubt soon put me to sleep. But one question remained clear in my mind.
"Why did you let him hit you?" The words came as Hawley adjusted my pillow with unexpected attentiveness.
He paused. His grip stilling. "What?"
"The stepfather. You could have blocked it easily, and it would have been considered sufficient to arrest him." I'd seen Hawley spar at the boxing gym. His reflexes were lightning-fast. There was no way Min's stepfather had caught him off-guard.
Hawley shifted on his feet by the bed. His weight transferring from one leg to the other. It was a small tell. But from a man who rarely betrayed discomfort, it spoke volumes.
"Partly to get him arrested. But mostly..." He hesitated. His gaze finally meeting mine. "My partner took a hit saving that kid. It seems fitting to take one too."
Something warm and unexpected bloomed in my chest. Not pity or gratitude. A complicated emotion I couldn't immediately identify. The fact that Hawley, who barely tolerated me a week ago, had deliberately taken a punch in some misguided show of solidarity was both ridiculous and strangely touching.
I snickered. "Dummy."
Hawley's eyebrows rose slightly. He didn't defend himself or walk away. Instead, he remained by my bedside. A solid presence in the dimly lit room. His profile bore the evidence of his choice. A darkening bruise along his jaw that would match the ones hidden beneath my bandages.
I sighed. The medication made my tongue looser than usual. "Thank you."
The words carried more weight than they should. Hawley nodded once. But something in his gaze had changed. The distance he kept between himself and the world seemed thinner somehow. More permeable. Or maybe that was just the painkillers talking.
"Get some rest."
As he turned to leave, I found myself strangely reluctant to let him go. This strange, quiet moment between us felt significant. Like we'd crossed some invisible threshold. Not just colleagues forced together by circumstance. Something else. Partners, perhaps. Friends, maybe. Or something I didn't yet have a name for.
"Hawley."
He paused in the doorway. Looked back over his shoulder. The hallway light silhouetted him. Cast his profile in shadow.
"You're not what they say you are."
He was still for a long moment. "Neither are you," came so quietly I almost missed it.
Then he was gone. Pulled the door mostly closed behind him. I stared at the ceiling. Hyperaware of Hawley's presence on the other side of the wall.
Something just changed.
Like tectonic plates settling into a new, precarious alignment. The ground beneath us had shifted, and I wasn't sure what that meant for tomorrow, or the day after.
I listened to the soft sounds of Hawley navigating the apartment. Water running in the kitchen. The quiet click of a lamp being turned off. Domestic sounds that shouldn't have been comforting but somehow were. My eyelids grew heavier with each passing moment. The medication pulling me toward sleep.
The last thing I remembered before drifting off was the strange realization that I felt safe here. In this too-small government-issued apartment with a man I barely knew. A man who had taken a punch for me. A man whose palms could be gentle despite everything his reputation suggested.
A man who had seen me at my most vulnerable and hadn't looked away.
My thoughts grew increasingly disjointed as fatigue took over. The ache in my ribs had dulled to a distant throb. The memory of Hawley's deliberate contact followed me down into darkness as I finally surrendered to sleep.
Chapter 17: Daniel
Ryan
I inhaled until my ribs protested. Still healing. Still bitching about that rooftop rescue three weeks back. Worth it, though. Min was safe, tucked away with his mother under proper protection. And Toronto had finally remembered it was supposed to be spring.
