I wake him an hour before I need to leave. By now, I’m sure the beer he drank last night has filtered through his blood enough for him to take the medication stashed in a drawer beside the rock he chucked at my window all those weeks ago.
Like a good soldier, he snaps to, gaze darting around my room, taking it all in. But I stop him as he starts to rise, my hand on his chest, where it’s been all night. “Not yet.”
Mal lies back again, swallowing the pill I slip between his lips. He frowns as I hold a water glass to his mouth, but tough fucking shit.
He drinks until I take the glass away, fatigue already creeping back into his tired green eyes. “You’re leaving.”
His voice is rough with sleep, and lacks the inflection of a question.
I nod anyway. “Work. Early shift.”
“Are you all right?”
“Me?”
Mal shifts a little, wincing. “Some idiot barged into your bed last night.”
“It’s fine.”
“Did I piss you off?”
“No.”
Mal looks as if he might say more, but a shiver rattles him, and I remember what he said about the meds making him cold.
“Get in the bed.”
He stares as though I’ve suggested he streak across the town square. Which makes me think of him naked, which I absolutely don’t have time for.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, blocking it out. “So you might as well be warm.”
I leave him for the ten minutes it takes to roll through the shower and take control of my hair. It needs cutting, but I haven’t cared enough to get round to doing it.Need to eat.So does Mal, which means I’m the worst person on earth for him to wake up to.
Still, when I’m done in the shower and halfway dressed, I try.
Breakfast is one of my better meals. No one thinks twice about a bowl of yoghurt or oats, but Mal needs more than that. I cut bananas and raid Sol’s stash for the nuts he buys for Jack.Brain food. Won’t do me no harm either, eh?Whatever. I’m glad of it, his gentle voice in my head. Sol’s been my friend a long time.
I raid my stash of electrolytes and take both bowls back to my room.
Mal’s stuck one leg under my duvet. The rest of him is still rebelliously on top of the covers, but I take the small win and hand over breakfast.
He eyes it. “Am I allowed to sit up?”
“If you drink this and behave.”
Mal catches the electrolytes I toss him. “That could mean fucking anything.”
It really could. But I actually need him to sit upslowly, because that’s whatheneeds, and nothing else really matters.
Mal gets the memo and levers himself upright, tipping the electrolytes down his throat. In the low light of the early morning, he’s still as deathly pale as last night, but I can see he’s doing better by the challenging grin he sends me. “Look at that. I’m alive.”
“Shut the fuck up and eat.”
His gaze strays to my bowl. “Don’t like bananas?”
I shrug. It’s not a lie if you don’t lie.
Mal, though, tired as he is, he’s that dangerous mix of observant and perceptive, and heknows.