“Yes,” I breathe out before he can finish. He goes dead silent. “If you don’t mind having me.”
Now his face is almost afraid. “You’re sure? I mean, it really is a hole.”
“It isn’t.” It’s not the nicest place I’ve ever been to, and it needs work, but it’s his. And he’s there. It’s one street away from my house, which means not much has to change except where I’m sleeping. “You have a spare room for me?”
“Ah, uh…it’s a three bedroom,” he says, then coughs. “But the other two are kind of, well… one is still being repaired. The floors, I mean. The other is storage.”
“Oh. That’s okay. The couch will be fine.” I’m lying, of course. His couch is horrible and uncomfortable, but if that’s what I need to do in order to stay with him, I’ll take it. This is an offer I will not refuse.
North takes my hand again, then leans down and kisses me quiet. It’s chaste, but he lingers, and god, I never want it to stop. “No,” he murmurs against my lips when he breaks for air. “You get my bed.”
“North—”
“My bed,” he repeats. “You’re still healing, I’m gone half the week at the station anyway, so if anyone’s sleeping on my crap couch, it’ll be me.”
“Or neither of us,” I say.
He stares at me. Is that…hope in his eyes? Or am I projecting?
“I want that.” I sense abutcoming. “Uh…but…”
There it is. I say nothing, waiting, bracing myself for him to tell me he doesn’t want the same things I do.
“You’ve been through it, so I need you to prioritize what’ll make you comfortable.”
He drags a chair close to the bed, then sits down as I process what he’s saying.
My hand drifts to his hair, and I stroke my nails over his scalp. Letting out a soft groan, he turns his face up to look at me. “This might be too fast. And I’m afraid of fucking it up because I really like you, and I want this to work.”
“I was such an ass to you,” I whisper. My fingers trail down his temple as I try to manage how bad I feel for the way things had been between us. It’s almost as overwhelming as the pain in my feet. “How can you still like me after all that?”
“You weren’t…” He trails off, then laughs when I scoff. “Okay, fine. Maybe you were a bit. But so was I. I know I didn’t make this easy on you. I let my mouth get ahead of me and said some really dickish stuff.”
He’s not wrong, and I think I can admit we were both so messy to each other. I scratch his scalp again, and he hums in pleasure. “I’m so sorry I didn’t realize the truth before now.”
“Me too.” He looks at me. “I want you to stay with me. I want to see where this goes. But I want you to promise me that if it starts to feel like it’s too much, you will tell me, and we’ll find you somewhere else.”
The answer is too easy because all I want is to be with him, and I can’t imagine that’ll stop. “I promise.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” I laugh softly. “Come here and kiss me?”
He does, pinning each hand to either side of me and kissing me soundly for as long as we’re left alone, which, considering everyone is very busy right now, is a very long time.
“Excellent. Well done.” The physical therapy tech can’t be more than twenty-one and very peppy, which is annoying as fuck, but only because I’m in pain.
She’s currently helping me learn how to navigate the hallways and doorways with my new wheelchair. It’s a clunky hospital rental, but considering I’m not allowed to walk on my feet, which are currently covered in blisters, it’s the only way I’m going to be able to get around.
And I’m not sure how that’s going to work in North’s house.
He and Easton came by to check on me, and now that I’ve got the all clear from my neurologist and a brand-new prescription for my seizures, I’m being discharged tomorrow morning.
And that means facing reality.
Luckily, the severe, intense pain of the burns has gone down quite a bit. My knees down to the tips of my toes are covered in that gooey gel shit, which actually does help with the sensation of my skin being too dry.
But I can already tell it’s going to be a hellish recovery, and it’s been messing with my head. Literally. I’ve been dealing with bouts of intense aphasia all afternoon to the point I didn’t speak to the PT tech for the first half of the session while my brain settled down.
