I nodded, my throat growing tight. I remembered what it had been like for me, when Declan had been lying in hospital. Those had been the most awful moments of my life.
A little fever was nothing like it.
“I’m all better,” I reassured him, and it barely came out squeaky at all.
There was a creak by the door and Erik walked into the bedroom. He came round the other side of the bed and looked down at me. I hated that he looked so pretty and I felt so gross. I wanted him to think I was pretty, too.
And, no, I didn’t want to explore whether I was trying to scare him away from Declan or impress him.
“You look much better,” he said.
Oh, the irony.
“I feel better, if a bit sticky and sweaty.”
They looked at me for a second, and in that moment, I felt a flash of memory, mixed up with dreams of an ocean and long tentacles.
I was sure one or other of these men had been sitting with me the whole time.
“Can I have a shower?”
Declan said, “Of course,” and smiled at me. Was that smile strained?
Erik, however, said, “I don’t think a shower is a good idea.”
He must have seen how quickly my face fell at the prospect of staying all smelly and covered in pond scum, because he added, “You can have a bath. That way, you won’t have to stand up.”
“I feel fine.”
“You haven’t actually moved yet,” he pointed out. He was using a calm, no-nonsense tone of voice and it made me feel squirmy and weird inside. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not.
Declan squeezed my fingers and I realised he hadn’t let me go yet. That was nice. I felt a bit better, then, like I’d been grounded all that time and not realised it.
“Erik’s very safety-conscious.”
Erik shrugged a bit sheepishly. “It comes with the job, I suppose. I’d rather you had a bath, and that way of you’re dizzy or light-headed, you can’t fall over. And it’ll be nice for you to relax in hot water.”
I got the impression that Erik was used to reasoning with his clients as though they were toddlers throwing a tantrum, and I didn’t want to be the toddler. So I very grown-up-ly acquiesced.
As I was about to haul myself out of bed, on Declan’s side, and I didn’t mean anything by that, either, only his side was nearer the door, Erik suddenly appeared out of nowhere and wrapped a towel around my middle.
And that was when I realised I was naked.
“I’m naked!”
It wasn’t the most witty thing I’d ever said, but it was a shock, to look down at myself and realise I had no clothes on when the last thing I really remembered with any clarity was skating on the lake, at which point I was very much dressed.
“Yes, we had to take your clothes off – they were soaked through with icy water. Staying in those was a sure way to catch hypothermia.”
“Oh.”
I took hold of the towel and pulled it slightly higher, over my chest.
Declan cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to have your bath.”
With that, he stood and walked out of the bedroom. I noticed he didn’t have his prosthetic on and he was walking with one crutch, hopping on it every other step.
More to the point, he didn’t have any trousers on.
