“It’s why you’re so dizzy,” the doctor said. “I’d like to monitor you here for the rest of the day before we send you to a general ward, and you should follow up with your GP in a few weeks.”
Mateo didn’t have a GP. Neither had I until life had kicked me in the nuts enough to need one, but this doctor didn’t need to know that. She talked more about pain relief, and then she left without Mateo giving her more than a couple of monosyllabic grunts.
“I need out of this dress,” he grumbled when she was gone, yanking on the ties of his gown.
I knew better than to argue, and not just because I knew how claustrophobic those gowns were. I found his stuff, thankful Decoy had thought to swap the clothes he’d come in with for clean ones—plain sweats and one of the haulage firm tees we kept in the rigs. They were the same gunmetal grey as Alexei’s eyes, and it suited Mateo.
Didn’t make him any happier, though. “Can we go now?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s the middle of the night. No one will fucking know.”
“It’s daylight.”
Mateo frowned and looked for a window, but he was shit out of luck. All he found was a stained curtain either side of him and he swayed from the annoyance of it all, one foot in his sweats, both hands gripping the waistband instead of holding his balance on the bed.
I caught him.
He pushed me away.
As calm as I wanted to be for him, my temper flared. “Will you just lean on me?”
“No.”
“Why not? You think I can’t hold you up?”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Then what the fuck are we doing? What’s the point of our entire life together if it’s this one-sided?”
“We’re not doing anything.” Mateo shook me off and fumbled through getting his goddamn clothes on. “I don’t need you to fucking dress me.”
On a distant level, a rational one, I knew Mateo was still off his tits from the surgery, combative from the anaesthetic, and sick as a dog from all of it. And I fuckingknewit didn’t occur to him to want my help because before he’d become a Rebel King, no one had ever helped him with anything. We called Ranger the lone wolf, but in truth, that title belonged to Mateo, and watching him struggle got to me, my fuse far shorter than his.
I kicked a chair out of my way and got in his face. “I spent a year in a thousand pieces. You’ve seen me on my knees, and you won’t put your hand on my shoulder? What the fuck am I to you?”
Mateo blinked. “What?”
I stared him down, knowing I was fucking this up but unable to stop.
Mateo stared right back, then panic flared in his messy gaze. “I’m gonna be sick.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Then he slept for about six minutes before he was awake and wanting to leave all over again. Still dizzy. Still stubborn in a way that reminded me of how he’d been all those years ago when I’d first met him. How Liliana had been when I’d had to leave her on the doorstep.
How had I handled him back then?
I had no fucking clue, and I knew better than to judge us for who we’d been yesterday, let alone five years ago.
Six.
Seven.
However long it had been.
But as Mateo swayed on his feet for the twentieth time and finally dropped his head to my shoulder, I wondered who we were now.