“North…” He stops and frowns. I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t know my last name or because he’s just now realizing who he’s with.
“Wright,” I finish for him. “That’s fine, I won’t count that one against you.”
His hand twitches, and I wonder if he’s trying to find the muscles to flip me off.
Reaching into the kit, I pull out my little penlight and hold him by the chin. “This is going to suck.”
He doesn’t move as I flash it across his eyes, and luckily, both of his pupils are properly responsive. I click the light off and drop it in the bag, next to the loose pile of Band-Aids I should buy a case for.
“What am I doing here?” he asks softly.
“I don’t actually know. Uh…you had some food with you, and you seemed kind of pissed off. Then you had a seizure.”
His eyes go wide, and he sucks in a breath before grabbing his crotch. It takes me a second to realize why he’s doing that, and I immediately soften.
“No. You didn’t, ah—I mean, you’re fine. Nothing happened.” I really have had enough piss and shit to last me a lifetime, but in this case, I wouldn’t have thought twice. It’s not like he could have helped it, but I also know he would have been mortified to have it happen in front of me.
He lets his hand flop back down, and his cheeks turn a deep, mottled pink. “Thanks,” he whispers.
I nod, not really sure what to do now. “I should, ah, get you some water.” Standing up, I start to step away, but he grabs my wrist and holds tight.
“No.”
“Leo…”
“Just…can you wait a second? Sometimes the seizures happen in clusters.” He sounds all shattered, and as much as the guy has been a massive dick to me since the second we met, I can’t help but soften.
Dropping back to the table, I shift my hand, and his fingers loosen, but they don’t let go. Instead, he slides a touch down to my palm and begins to trace the lines over my knuckles and in the space between my fingers.
I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. I doubt his brain is fully back online because there’s no way he’d be touching me like this. Not with this kind of tenderness. Not with this sort of need.
My dick twitches in my pants, and I feel like a fucking monster because here he is, recovering from a seizure, and I’m thinking about taking my cock out and rubbing it against his.
Stop it, North. Get a fucking grip. You will not fuck the man who hates you. This is not how you’re going to finally, finally, lose your virginity.
I am not that desperate.
“You’re staring,” he says softly. His fingers spasm against mine, but he still doesn’t let go. “Does my face look weird? Is it droopy, or?—”
“You look perfect,” I say, then blush. “I mean fine. You look fine.” He throws a look of severe doubt at me, and I roll my eyes. “You might think I’m the world’s biggest dipshit, but I’m also a trained EMT. I wouldn’t let you sit here twiddling your thumbs if I thought you were having a stroke.”
He blinks slowly. “How long was I seizing for?”
“Barely over a minute,” I tell him. He turns my wrist and I let my hand fall on my knee, palm up. He looks down at it, then touches the scar that goes from my middle finger across my palm, down to my thumb. “It’s not a war wound.”
He frowns.
“I got this trying to cut a bagel.”
His lips twitch, and then he bursts into laughter. “A bagel?”
I pull back, huffing and hot in the face, though there’s a huge part of me that doesn’t mind that I made him laugh. I don’t think I’ve seen him so much as smirk since I met him.
“Fuck off. Bagels are dangerous. And I was twenty, okay? My brain was still, you know, cooking or whatever.”
He nods and swipes a hand down his face. “Sure.”
“Look, my mom was home from her first stint in rehab, and I was just trying to take care of her, but I was sleep deprived and scared she was going to fall off the wagon.”
