I blinked slowly, then focused on the pale wall opposite me. Plain and pale. No decoration. The darkness of the room wasn’t helping me determine the color, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was beige.
Weren’t all hospital rooms beige? Maybe it was a law that all hospital rooms were as dreary as possible, otherwise patients would want to stay longer than they needed to.
As each part of my body woke up, I felt Daniel’s head lying on my thigh, my left hand loosely encased in his grip.
My Daniel.
It took me a ton of time and effort to lift my right hand and place it on the top of his head, heart rate monitor and all.
Totally worth it, though, because I heard him sigh happily and felt him lean into my palm like a cat nudging me.
“Marshall….”
I opened my mouth to respond to the soft exhalation of my name, but my voice wasn’t cooperating just yet, so I gave his hair a scritch in response instead.
“Marshall?”
Another scritch. Maybe a light tap of the heart rate monitor against his skull wouldn’t go astray, so I gave his head a tap, my lips twitching at the resounding clunk.
“Baby?”
Daniel lifted his head enough to gaze at me quizzically before his sleepy eyes cleared and widened. “Oh my God…,” he murmured. “You’re awake.”
“Mm.” I wanted to say, “Of course I am, you idiot. My eyes are open, aren’t they?” but it wasn’t just my voice that wasn’t cooperating; it was also my mouth. Apparently, my lips could move enough to smirk but refused to open enough to form words.
Which was probably a good thing because the inside of my mouth felt like the Sahara. Dry and grainy and simply murky in general. I needed some water, but was I allowed to have any?
He sat up, dislodging my right hand enough that it dropped from his head and onto my stomach.
Which made me realize how hungry I was.
Holding my left palm to his lips, he pressed a kiss to my skin before he leaned forward enough to kiss my lips gently.
Oh so gently.
Like a butterfly had landed on my lips.
Like I was fragile.
There and gone. And nowhere near enough.
“I thought I’d lost you, baby,” he murmured, his eyes welling as they traced every inch of my face before he cupped my cheek, his thumb gliding softly beneath my left eye.
Slowly, I shook my head ever so slightly, just enough for him to feel the movement.Never.I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Mm?” My tongue peeked out from between my lips.Water. I needed water. Would Daniel be able to decipher that request?
His eyes flicked down to my lips, then back to my eyes, his own darkening slightly.
The corners of my lips twitched. He’d spent so long fretting about the difference in our ages, but it was times like this when it was kind of obvious that his mind was younger than mine. He was still so much like a horny teenager sometimes.
I mean, seriously. Here I was, literally in a hospital bed, and he was making goo-goo eyes at me, fluttering his eyelashes likehewas the damsel in distress, not me.
When he saw my smirk, his eyes widened in realization. “Oh, you need water, don’t you?”
My smirk grew slightly as I nodded slowly.
He gave a decisive nod in response before I watched him step over to the side table and fill a plastic cup half full of water from a jug that had been left there. He popped a straw into the cup, then sat on the bed next to my hip and leaned forward enough to hold the straw to my lips.
