Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(40)

The older nurse smiled gently and looked to the other. “It can’t hurt.”

“Fine,” Liz snapped. “You have twenty minutes. He’s probably sleeping. Do not wake him up. And sign in here.” She put up a clipboard and a pen.

“Do you need anything, honey?” Nicole asked. “Our chaplain is here…”

“No,” I said, scratching my name on the paper. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Room 146,” Nicole said warmly.

“Twenty minutes,” warned Liz.

I walked down the hallway, which smelled of disinfectant and cold linoleum. I passed dark, open doors where machines breathed for patients, or beeped their pulses. I kept my eyes averted, looking only at room numbers, not wanting to witness some stranger’s pain.

Room 146 was toward the middle of the corridor. The room had two beds but the one closest to the door was unoccupied. Cory lay near the window; a slant of silvery moonlight fell over the white bedding.

I approached slowly. Flashes of the robbery and its aftermath jumped out at me, making me flinch. I saw blood splatter the bank floor as Cory coughed, a jouncing, bumping ambulance ride, and then him being wheeled away. It all faded when I saw him alive and breathing with my own eyes.

They had him inclined into a half-sitting position and he slept with his head turned toward the door. Tubes trailed into his arm and a nasal cannula breathed into his nose, but I was relieved to see he had no ventilator, and that the tube the EMT had jabbed into his chest was gone. I pulled a chair to his bedside, trying to remain as quiet as possible. But when the wooden leg scraped the floor and Cory’s eyes opened halfway, I wasn’t sorry at all.

The smile that split his face when he saw me made my heart ache, though I couldn’t fathom why. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said. “It’s late, but I wanted to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m glad,” he said, and his voice was a hoarse whisper, likely from the ventilator. “Glad you’re here.”

He sounded so weak and I felt terrible for waking him. For being so selfish. “Don’t talk. Your throat needs to heal and if the nurses found out I woke you up, they’d have my head. And they’re right, I should go…”

“No, don’t.” He smiled his crooked smile, but tiredly. Everything he did or said was in slow motion. “Stay.”

In an instant, I was back in the bank, holding him and begging him to stay with me. A coincidence? Or did he remember those awful, blood-soaked memories? I hoped it was the former.

He watched my face and his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. It all ended so quickly, and now I’m supposed to pick up where I left off. Everything feels alien now.” I took off the baseball cap and studied it a moment, then let it drop to the floor to rub my eyes with both hands. “I’ve never felt as out of control as I have lately. Lately, god, it hasn’t even been a whole day…”

“Hey,” Cory whispered. “It’s okay. I get it.”

Of course you do. Tears threatened but I pushed them down. “And here I am, blabbing about my stupid shit when you’re lying here, in pain, because some bastard shot you …”

“Frankie shot me.”

My head snapped up. “What? He did? I thought it was in the lobby, at the end…”

Cory shook his head, smiling dryly. “Frankie, before that. Broken fingers and all.”

“Broken…? You broke his fingers?”

He nodded again. “I warned him not to touch you.”

“But Cory, god, he shot you for it.”

“He wanted to shoot me anyway.”

“Yes, but—”

“I keep my promises, Alex.”

The silence that fell between us was thick with memories. It occurred to me that aside from the bloody chaos of the standoff, the last time I had seen Cory was in that darkened office. After we’d had crazy, magnificent sex, he’d made another promise. To find a way to me, to keep me safe.

“You kept both promises,” I said softly.

He nodded. It hurt him too much to talk, and it hurt me too much to relive any of it. It was all too raw and painful, and I was so tired. If only I could sleep.

“You saved my life,” I told him. “You saved everyone’s lives, really, but you saved mine first. Thank you. I guess that’s what I came here to do, but I should go. Let you rest, and try to get some too.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“No. Or if I do, it’s…bad.”

“Be my guest,” he murmured. His dark eyes were getting heavy.

“I can’t sleep on your shoulder,” I said. “You just had surgery.”

He held out his hand. “Next best thing.”

It looked like a lifeline and I took it.

I rested my head on the side of his bed, pillowed it on our clasped hands. “It’s not the same as your shoulder.”

“It’s….nice,” he said, and then drifted off, a ghost of his smile on his lips.

I tried to get comfortable, thinking I would never fall asleep in such an awkward position, and that was my last thought before warm, comforting dark descended.

And there were no dreams.