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“You shouldn't like me this much.”

The words came out before I knew I was going to say them.

Max's smile disappeared, although his voice stayed gentle when he answered. “I think maybe we should get some more water into you.”

He started to stand, but I caught his hand before he could get very far. “You always do that.”

“Try to keep you hydrated?”

“Look after me.” I held on when he settled beside me again, suddenly unable to understand why the thought made my eyes burn. “You're always looking after me, even when I'm horrible to you.”

“I don't think you're horrible.”

“I told you to stay away from me.”

“You asked for space because something was frightening you. There's a difference.”

There it was again, that unbearable reasonableness I'd been complaining about earlier. I would've preferred him angry because anger was easy to defend myself against, while kindness seemed to slide through every gap the painkillers had opened in the walls I'd spent years building.

“You shouldn't be this nice to me.”

Max's thumb moved slowly across the back of my hand. “I like being nice to you.”

“I know, and that's the problem.”

My eyes were definitely burning now, and I blinked hard because crying over Max being nice to me was possibly even more humiliating than giggling over the word dimensions. Unfortunately, whatever control I normally had over my emotions seemed to have left along with my ability to judge whether anything was funny.

Max saw the change and shifted closer. “Hey. Come here.”

He moved carefully enough that I could've stopped him, and when I didn't, his arm settled around me without putting any pressure on my ribs. I leaned against him and rested my head on his shoulder, telling myself it was because the room had started feeling slightly unreliable again rather than because being held by him felt better than anything had a right to.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

His hand moved slowly over my hair, and I became ridiculously aware of everything about him: the warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest and the fact that he smelled unfairly good after playing three periods of hockey.

“You smell nice.”

A quiet laugh moved through him. “Thank you.”

“I hate that.”

“You hate that I smell nice?”

“I hate that I notice everything about you.” The words were out before I could reconsider them, and once they were there, I couldn't seem to find the part of myself that would've normally scrambled to take them back. “I know when you're watching me from the bench. I know when you're pissed off even when nobody else does, and I know which smile is real and which one you use when you want reporters to stop asking stupid questions.”

Max's hand had gone still against my hair.

“You don't have to tell me any of this tonight.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because you took painkillers that have apparently removed every filter you've ever possessed, and I'd rather you didn't wake up tomorrow feeling as though I took advantage of that.”

I frowned against his shoulder because even in my current state I could recognize the flaw in his reasoning. “You can't take advantage of me if you don't ask anything.”

“That's more or less the plan.”

“That was very reasonable.”