"Because," he said with a faint smile, "I couldn’t stand to see you hurt."
"You think I like seeingyouhurt?" I said.
"This?" he said. "It's nothing."
"Okay," I said. "Nowyou're a liar."
Weakly, he shook his head. "Baby, I'm not lying. Seeing you cry? Hurts way more than this."
I reached up to wipe at my eyes. For his sake, I tried to laugh. "Oh so,now, you tell me." I closed my eyes to blink away the tears. When I opened them, he was asleep.
I sat there with him for the longest time. I kept expecting someone to make me leave. But by some strange twist of fate, or maybe a simple oversight, no one did.
Watching him, I thought of all the twists and turns our relationship had taken since that very first day I'd seen him, standing outside his gate. If I'd only been honest with him from the get-go, things would've been a whole lot different.
I reached out to stroke his hand, relieved to see his long, strong fingers returning to their normal shape. I moved my hand upward, tracing the lines and shapes of his tattoos. Feeling the ridges of his muscles steady beneath my fingers, it made me feel just a little better. Like he was solid and real, not just a figment, and not just wishful thinking.
Except for the faint humming of equipment and Lawton's steady breathing, the room was eerily quiet. Thankfully, I hadn't spent a lot of time in hospitals. There was that time my mom fell off our apartment balcony, and then a couple years later, that crazy accident with Erika's Porsche.
In mid-motion, I felt a stillness overtake me. This scene, right now, it was all too familiar – a different time, a different place, a different person.
Or – I swallowed – maybe it wasn't. Slowly, I let my gaze travel the length of his arm, trying to see beyond the lines and patterns of his tattoos. And then, just when I started calling myself crazy for even looking, I spotted them, faint, but unmistakable, even with the inky camouflage.
Cigarette burns.
Oh my God. It washim.
Chapter 63
I remembered it all too well. It was the night Erika crashed her Porsche. I'd been standing just outside a side entrance, trying desperately to reach her parents before they spotted her car at the end of their driveway and assumed the worst.
Erika was somewhere on the fifth floor, getting X-rays and a few stitches. I'd brought her to the hospital myself, in my piece-of-crap Fiesta, which, come to think of it, wasn't quite as crappy back then.
I'd just finished leaving another message on her dad's cell phone when I heard the steady beat of techno music, growing louder with every second. I glanced up just in time to see a huge white SUV squeal up to the curb. It had dark tinted windows and bright gold rims that kept turning even after the car stopped.
The rear passenger door flew open, and a body tumbled out. It rolled a couple of times, then stopped, face down on the sidewalk just a few feet away from where I stood.
I watched, in frozen shock as the SUV squealed off, leaving whoever – definitely a man – lying there on the concrete.
"Oh my God." Without thinking, I rushed over to crouch beside him. "Are you okay?"
He wore no shirt, no socks, no shoes, just some dark running pants. I saw spiky dark hair and the body of someone I guessed to be in their twenties, at least based on his physique, which was embarrassingly magnificent.
Instantly, I took in the hard lines and sinewy muscle. And bruises. And blood. And – I swallowed – cigarette burns all up and down his arms.
I looked frantically for signs of life. "Somebody help!" I called.
It was stupid really, considering I was the only one out there. Tentatively, I reached out for his hand. Was he breathing? Did he have a pulse?
My own pulse was jumping so much, I couldn't be sure of anything. "Help!" I yelled again. "Somebody's hurt over here!"
And then he spoke in a groggy masculine voice with just the barest hint of humor. "No," he mumbled. "I'm good."
I heard myself gasp. At least he was alive. It was better than I feared, given the blood pooling around his head.
"Uh," I stammered. "I, uh, I don't think you'reexactlyalright."
Desperately, I looked around. Where the hell was everybody? But I knew exactly where. I'd been at the hospital for the last couple of hours. I'd seen plenty of people inside, or lingering by the front entrance, or even near the emergency room doors.
