Page 140

And then she watched him slip off into unconsciousness.

For a moment, she stayed where she was. Kneeling there beside him with her hands almost touching him, but not quite.

After the intensity of the last hour or so, it was almost like she didn’t know what to do now that everything was quiet again. Now that her house settled around her the way it always did.

Except everything was different, wasn’t it? Because even the air seemed to have a different spice to it when Vesuvius was near.

Aeryn couldn’t believe she’d actually sat here and told him their tragic little story like that. Or that he’d caught on. She couldn’t decide if she had expected him to understand who she was talking about or if she’d thought that it was cute, somehow, to tell a man with no memory of who they’d been to each other the story of the two of them, just to see how he’d react.

Vesuvius calling himself a dick was the added bonus—the holiday gift, she supposed—that she hadn’t known she needed.

She felt too many things, then, and all at once.

It was Christmas Eve and she was always a bit emotional at this time of year. Everybody talked about Christmas cheer, but Aeryn had always spent most of her Christmas seasons alone, aside from Christmas Day itself with her parents.

And for years now, she’d spent her Christmas seasons thinking of him. He’d always been so busy at this time of year, so she’d gone about her business in the crushing Chicago darkness—lit up marvelously, it had to be said, but there was no getting used to a sun that set a little after four p.m. There’d been ample time to wonder what Vesuvius was doing.

Some years she’d tortured herself by going online where she could quickly look and see exactly what he was doing, dressed in his formal attire, smiling for the photographers, posing with dignitaries. She’d looked at too many pictures like that, always knowing that she would never be at his side. That it was never, ever going to happen.

That all of her dreams were foolish.

This time of year had always been about the lake effect snow, the bitter wind chill, and the cold seeping deep into her bones. It was about beautiful songs in church, candles in windows, and the holiday lights that brought dark, northern cities alive despite the long, frigid nights.

It was also about loneliness like arthritis, sitting heavy in her every last joint.

Vesuvius actually being here didn’t change any of that. In some ways, she thought, it almost made it worse. Because now she was experiencing a phenomenon she hadn’t had to contend with in quite a while.

That being missing him while he was in front of her, because she knew that he would leave.

Or more properly, that she would leave because she was always the one who left. Because she didn’t live on the right continent. Because she wasn’t aristocratic in any regard. Because she didn’t belong to his world and not only that, could not be allowed anywhere near his official events or residences lest anyone figure out who she was to him.

She was depressing herself.

Aeryn stood and made herself breathe properly as she hurried back into the kitchen. She got her first aid kit out of the drawer where she kept it and went back to him. Then, carefully, making sure not to wake him, she squeezed antibiotic ointment out of its tube and smeared it along the gash on the side of his face.

She expected him to flinch, to wake up and demand that she leave him alone.

Or worse, draw her near.

But he slept. He even snored, just barely, and it told her things she didn’t want to know about herself that she actually found she’d missed that sound. Surely that was some kind of psychosis, because who missed snoring?

She finished applying the ointment to the gash in the side of his face, pleased that at least it had stopped bleeding. Then she carefully rolled up his sleeve and treated the gash on his arm to the same treatment.

On another trip to the kitchen, she swept up her phone from where she’d tossed it and her bag after her cold walk home. She set an alarm for one hour, then went back into the living room. She settled herself in the big armchair across from the couch—a minimum safe distance, to her mind—and tucked herself in with a throw.

The first thing she looked up were instructions on how to handle someone with a concussion.

Her instinct was to wake him up every hour or so, but the internet told her otherwise. The brain needed to rest, the articles assured her, and constantly waking a patient who needed that rest would only exhaust him and quite possibly make him worse. At the same time, the first forty-eight hours were crucial, and she was to look for various signs that things were okay—such as Vesuvius having trouble waking at all.

Though she didn’t know how she would know if he was having trouble waking if she didn’t check.

Aeryn decided that she would wake him in an hour to assess the situation, then let him sleep the rest of the night if he seemed all right.

She also couldn’t really allow herself to think about him not being all right.

Then she looked at her weather app and saw nothing but snow. That meant no hospital. It also meant that Christmas was looking more and more unlikely, and she really didn’t like that at all. She didn’t like being away from Faith, even when it was necessary. She knew that both her parents and Faith delighted in the time they spent together, and she loved that they did, but she hated coming home when her baby wasn’t here.

Especially now that it was Christmas. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment that after everything that had happened, she should still be all alone on Christmas. Or with Vesuvius, she reminded herself, frowning across the living room—though he wasn’t quite himself. Even if he was, it didn’t matter, did it? He was never going to be hers. Being with him was like being alone, only worse, because there was always a crushing heartbreak lurking.