Chapter 18
Tristen
Pins and needles take over my leg and I groan.
Fuck, my whole body hurts.
It feels like I was the one that went on a bender and spent half the night throwing my guts up instead of taking care of the one person I wasn’t supposed to do that for.
There’s something about being so close to it, knowing what it can do to you, that seems somehow different when I’m in the rig. Responding to a call where someone is in the same state I found Hatley in. It’s just not the same. I’d swim through the vomit all night long.
Watching Hatley suffer through it?
Knowing it could just as easily have been me?
I swallow back the thickness in my throat and crack open my eyes to look at the way his ribs slowly rise and fall. How the light hits his back and makes his hair look greasy.
He’s gonna be so fucking upset.
I’ll have to be the strong one this time. And that’s okay. I can do that for him … I think.
Fuck, my leg is killing me.
I go to move it; to readjust so I can stay in bed a little longer except it feels stuck. Weighted and prickling.
I know I fell, but damn.
Shifting so that I can look, I curse at the bony thigh laying across mine, right over the goddamn artery, and I go to push it off.
But instead, I freeze.
Hand hovering over the sweatpants-clad knee.
Heart rate kicking up, my chest clenches so painfully, it feels like I’m heading straight for another panic attack.
I hold my breath.
My chest thumps, the pulsing feeding all the way to my fingertips.
Bringing my arm back, I rest it along Hatley’s back where I’m pretty sure my hand ends up on my best friend’s ass.
Yet, it does nothing to take away from the fact that I’m trapped beneath Emmett’s fucking thigh.
Over mine. His ankle hooked over my calf.
The thin limb heavier in his sleep than I ever expected.
And it’s hot.
The lungful burns until I release it, and when I drag in a fresh one, it’s filled with a confusing mix of the scent of Hatley’s room and Emmett.
I turn my nose toward him. Drag in another breath. Hold it.
It’s clean and … sweet.
Like his eyes.
Letting it out, I curl an arm beneath my head and stare at the ceiling.
What the fuck am I doing with him?
But just as easily as I question that, my mind also wanders straight to the reason we’re all in this bed together to begin with.
What the fuck am I going to do with Hatley?
I didn’t bother to ask him what had happened last night. With the state he was in, fuck, with the state I was in, it didn’t even cross my mind to find out what led him right back to the place he fought hard to stay out of. How, in the thick of crashing, he didn’t call me until it was too late.
Rule six.
I’m starting to worry about him.
And that’s not a good thing.
Of all the things I’ve ever had to worry about, Hatley managed to almost never be one of them—
“How’s he?”
I startle at the sound of Emmett’s rasped question and flip my head to look at him.
“He’s—” I have to clear my throat when it cracks, “—he’s okay. Hasn’t woken up yet.”
Emmett nods, his face tipped low enough that I can’t see his eyes, and I don’t know why, couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, but that bothers me.
“How’re you?”
He’s quiet so long that I think he may have fallen back to sleep.
He hasn’t moved his leg yet.
But then he surprises the shit out of me by cinching his hold on me and whispering a ‘thank you’.
What for? I want to ask.
I don’t.
Instead, I nod.
Turn my head slowly, stopping just short of touching him, and inhale the scent coming from his hair.
“I’ve never slept with anyone before.”
His words dig deep into my chest and my heart aches.
Though I cover it up with a soft hum.
“Now you can say two people are on that list.”
His swallow is so thick that I hear it click.
A silence falls over the bed, one that stretches long and gaining heft with each second, minute, that passes. It gets thicker and I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or him.
Is this too much?
I know he’s the one choosing this. The one in control.
But that’s exactly what’s making my palms start to itch.
The numbness in my leg grows painful.
The clawing inside my chest too much to handle and I clear my throat.
“I gotta piss.”
It’s not entirely a lie but it certainly feels like one when he jerks his limb back and fucking apologizes. As if any of this is his fault. As if touching me in his sleep is somehow … wrong.
“It’s not your fault,” I rush out, my chest clenching as I scoot down to the foot of the bed and scramble to my feet.
My bladder screams when I stand and my leg damn near sends me right back down to the floor the mattress is sitting on.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I force myself to walk on the needles shooting up my foot.
All the way to the bathroom, my teeth clench.
What the fuck am I doing with Emmett?