Crown Jewels (Off-Limits Romance #1)(82)

“I don’t know the baby,” I try to tell her in my cracked voice. I never met my mother’s baby, my sister, because she died.

I’m going to die, too. I can feel it.

“Lucy… Will you hug me?”

“Sure. Of course. Poor Liam.” We’re lying down again, and Lucy’s holding me. “My headache—it hurts…really bad.”

“He said it’s because your blood pressure is high. The doctor gave you something for it. Do you remember? It’s been almost an hour since you took it. He gave you a shot of pain meds too. So the headache would ease up.”

“Not eased,” I mutter. Her hand strokes my hair. “That, though…” What she’s doing makes me feel better. My Lucy.

“He’s coming back with something to help you detox.”

“Detox…”

“He said you have to take it for a little bit, maybe a few days, and then you could taper off. Don’t worry. It’ll help you feel better. Come here…” She wraps herself around me, urging me to rest my cheek against the softness of her neck.





*





Lucy





Seeing Liam like this—shaking, gripping his head, murmuring nonsense—is so much harder, so much stranger, than I ever would have known. It’s not as if I’ve known him for a long time, but in the time I have known him, I guess I’ve gotten used to his easy smile, the careful way he held himself apart from me the first day I was here, before we gradually tugged together like a pair of magnets.

Before the doctor left the first time, he chastised Liam, saying, “You might have tapered off.”

Liam, whose eyes were shut, clenched his jaw and shook his head—and I know why. I know why he quit drinking cold turkey.

“I’m prescribing Librium. For a few days, if not longer. We’ll see how you do,” Dr. Burns told him.

Then the doctor left, saying he’d be back soon. As soon as the door shut, Liam whispered, “You should go, Lucy.”

But he’s still holding onto me. He seems to like to press his face against my throat and hide in my hair.

Right now, he’s murmuring something about paying someone off. I stroke his hair back. “It’s okay…”

Dr. Burns is back a short time later, rolling an IV pole that makes my stomach flip-flop when I see it. “I want to give the first dose of Librium this way, along with I some electrolytes and vitamins. Things he’d get if he was at a center.”

Shit. A center.

I hold Liam close as the doctor cleans the inside of his elbow with an alcohol swab. When the needle goes in, he stiffens just a little. When the doctor starts the IV bag, I feel him shiver.

I know the doctor’s here to help, but I’m glad when he leaves. He tells us he’ll be back in two hours and gives me instructions to call him if any number of things happen. When the door shuts, I draw poor, still Liam closer to me.

“Is your headache any better?”

He doesn’t answer, so I play with his hair. “You’re okay. You’re going to feel better soon. Is there anything that I can do for you right now?”

“Worried,” he whispers.

“About what?”

“About…you.”

“I’m okay.”

“The baby,” he rasps.

“The baby is okay, too. Promise.”

He shakes his head, his eyes rolling just slightly.

For the next few hours, I hold him while he sweats and trembles. I hold a cold rag to his forehead and his throat, and stroke his hair. Finally, whatever’s in the IV seems to reach him. I feel it when his body relaxes. He goes still, and falls asleep with his arm around me.

He murmurs and whispers all night. He talks about his mom. He talks about the baby. He kisses me and once, tells me to go—to keep the baby away from him.

“You’re fine. So is the baby.”

I hold him. It’s all I can do. At one point mid-morning, he wakes up and blinks slowly around the room. He looks puzzled. Unhappy.

“You okay?” I stroke his forehead. “Feeling bad?”

He shuts his eyes. “Embarrassed,” he says hoarsely.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s okay.”

He shakes his head.

“We’re friends—and lovers, too, remember?” I tease.

“I don’t…want…to be this way for you.” He rests his arm over his face.

“You don’t have to be any way for me.”

“I didn’t know…I couldn’t stop.”

“No—of course not. I know, baby. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. Just go to sleep.”





*





Liam





“People found out I’m pregnant somehow. Like, the paps found out. Some of them think it’s yours, but no one really does. That’s just some unreliable, unsourced side story on one of the raggier rags.”

Lucy rolls her eyes, her hand over her still-flat stomach. She looks gorgeous in a pink and white paisley gown, her hair flowing around her shoulders.

“I’m going to go get you some chicken and dumplings,” she says; it sounds like “dumplins” in her soft accent. “I just want you to have a few bites.”