“I kept trying to put you somewhere safer than that. Reporter. Problem. Bad idea. Something I could manage from a distance.”
“And now?”
My laugh is quiet and exhausted. “Now I am too tired to lie well.”
Her fingers brush mine on the floor.
Not taking my hand.
Giving me the chance.
I turn my palm up.
She laces our fingers together.
“I am still a reporter,” she says.
“I know.”
“Still a problem.”
“I know that too.”
“Possibly still a bad idea.”
This time I do look at her.
“Probably,” I say.
Her mouth softens. It is not quite a smile. It is better because it does not ask me to be fine.
We sit like that until the nurse comes by with bad coffee and worse sympathy, and I keep holding Peyton’s hand where anyone can see it because hiding it has never made it less true.
Peyton
Iwake with a dead arm, a stiff neck, and Ryan McAllister asleep against my shoulder.
Not fully against me. He would never permit himself that much collapse on purpose. But sleep has no respect for his control issues, so his head has tipped close enough that his breath warms the side of my throat.
The hallway is still dim. A nurse murmurs at the station. Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeps in a rhythm that makes every other sound seem careful.
My phone says 4:17 a.m.
I stay where I am.
Ryan sleeps like his body has overruled him. Jaw slack. Hands open on his thighs instead of fists. One knee bent, one leg stretched out, shoulder heavy against mine.
This might be the only thing I can give him right now.
Stillness.
So I sit on the hospital floor and let my arm go numb.
At five-forty, a nurse comes toward Susan’s room. Ryan wakes all at once. One second asleep, the next alert, hand reaching for a stick that is not there.
“Hey,” I say softly.
He looks at me. Registers the wall, the floor, his mother’s room.