Chapter 15
Jasper
There are fingers in my hair, which can only mean one thing.
My baby boy is awake. He’s been awake a few times, but never enough to have his fingers in my hair.
I peel my eyes open. Oh.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, quickly sitting up.
Arlo blinks sleepy, mismatched eyes at me, then pouts. “No. Come back,” he rasps out, patting his upper thigh where I was just resting my head. “Please.”
With a soft breath, I lean back over, resting my head on him. His fingers sink back into my hair, and I close my eyes, reveling in his touch. He makes small circles on my scalp, his body relaxing under mine the more he touches me.
I relax too.
This whole experience has been terrifying and exhausting and heartbreaking, and something about having Arlo touching me like this just makes everything feel a little better.
There’s something almost… profound about it. I don’t even know if that’s the right way to describe it, but that’s all I’ve got.
I almost lost this man. I almost lost him, but I didn’t. He’s alive, his warm body under mine and his fingers toying with the strands of my hair.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too,” Arlo rasps back.
His voice is still scratchy, and it likely will be for a few more days at the very least, but it’s better than what it was before.
“How long have you been here?” he asks.
“As long as you’ve been here.”
I open my eyes, peering up at him.
“How long has that been?”
Glancing at the clock on the wall, I try to get my tired brain to do the math.
“Just a little over forty-eight hours.”
Concern knits his brows. “Go home, baby,” he whispers.
My heart skips even as I shake my head. He so rarely calls me anything but my name. “I’m not leaving you.”
He frowns. “What if I call Luca or Theo to come sit with me? You need to shower. You need to sleep in your own bed. At least for a little. Please?”
“Our bed,” I say automatically, correcting him without really meaning to.
His eyes shift into something soft. “Yeah, our bed. One of us should get some use out of it. When can I leave?”
I start to sit up, but Arlo glares at me, tightening his fingers in my hair.
“Soon, hopefully. They’ll want to make sure that you continue to breathe well on your own and that you don’t have any lingering complications from the smoke inhalation.”
“I don’t want any more pain meds.”
Now it’s my turn to frown. “Baby boy, you have burns and broken ribs. You need pain meds.”
He shakes his head, stubborn as ever. “I have addict parents. I’m good. I don’t want them.”
I sit up, and this time he lets me. I lean in close to him, brushing my fingers down his cheek. His eyes fall shut, and he pushes into my touch. Fuck, I can’t wait to get him out of here.
The longing to hold him for hours, to have every inch of him touching me, is almost overwhelming. I don’t even think I ached for him this badly when I wasn’t allowed to love him yet.
I’ve never felt anything like this in my entire life. It’s miserable and wonderful at the same time. All-consuming. Devastating. I hate it, and I never want to stop feeling it.
I’m pretty sure that nothing is ever going to make this feeling go away. At least not while I still have the image of Arlo’s unmoving body in my head. Not while I can still feel the crunch of his ribs under my hands. Not while the memory of the vent breathing for him is still so fresh in my mind.
Hell, maybe not even then. Maybe I’ll always want him with this ferocity. Maybe I’ll die as desperate for him as I was the day I fell in love with him.
“Okay,” I finally whisper.
His eyelids flutter, drawing attention to his lack of eyelashes, then he opens his eyes. “Okay, you’ll go home and rest?”
I shake my head. “No fucking way. Okay to the no more pain meds.”
“I miss you,” he whispers, his bottom lip quivering.
“I’m right here.” I shift my hand, cupping his cheek, careful to avoid the slight burns on his lower jaw. “And you wanted me to leave.”
His eyes well up, and tears spill over. “No, I mean… You’re right here, and I miss you. I hate this. I hate being here. I just—I want to be with you.”
Scrunching my face in confusion, I search his eyes. “You are with me, Arlo. I’m not going anywhere, remember?”
He groans in frustration, which sets off a small coughing fit.
I grab his water, then help him take a few sips.
Swallowing hard a couple of times, he gestures for the water again, so I hold the straw for him. He drinks a little more, then opens his mouth, letting the straw fall from his lips.
“Like I was saying,” he says, voice even more raspy than before. “I miss you. This sucks. I want to be in your bed and in your arms. I almost died.” His eyes water again.
I let out a humorless laugh, my heart slamming against my chest wall. “Fuck, baby boy. Trust me, I know.”
And I’m pretty sure I could live to be a hundred years old and never forget it.
Arlo shifts a little on the bed, and I stand quickly, ready to help him, when he pats the spot next to him. “Will you lay with me?”
I hesitate. There’s not a lot of room, and he’s already hurt.
“Please,” he rasps, bottom lip coming out in a pout.
“The nurses probably won’t like that.” Unable to help myself, I touch his cracked and dry bottom lip. “You’re injured. You need to rest.”
Arlo squeezes his eyes closed before looking up at me. “I’ll rest better if you’re in bed with me.”
I exhale a slow breath. “It’s not a good idea.” I drag my thumb over his lip. “I’m sorry, baby boy.”
No sooner have the words left my mouth than a nurse knocks, then peeks her head around the door.
We both turn our attention to her. If I’m not mistaken, she was here yesterday too. Kianna, I think she said her name was. “Just coming to do a check. How are you feeling, Arlo? Ready for your next dose of pain medication?”
“About that,” Arlo says, shifting a little and then grimacing. “I don’t want any more pain medication.”
She frowns. “We’d like to control your pain.”
Arlo shakes his head. “No thanks. I’m not in any pain.”
“Arlo.” She steps closer to the bed, concern in her eyes. “The reason you don’t have a lot of pain is because we’ve been managing it. That’s going to change if we don’t give you anything.”
He sputters a humorless laugh. “Look, I appreciate what you’re tryin’ to do, but I watched my mother and her husband spiral into addiction. They didn’t care about me, they lost custody of my siblings, and now I’m busting my ass to get them out of foster care.”
Kianna’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What about something that isn’t an opioid?” I interject. “Sure, it’s not as good as morphine or whatever it is you’re giving him, but it’s something.”
With a sigh, Kianna nods. “I’ll bring you some acetaminophen.”
“Thank you,” Arlo says softly, then reaches out to squeeze my hand. He smiles up at me. “Thank you too.”
Kianna leaves the room to get Arlo’s medicine.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
He nods. “Yeah, I do, because you’re on my side.”
I tighten my fingers around his hand. “Of course I’m on your side, baby boy.” He sticks his bottom lip out. It’s so dry and cracked, and every time I see it, it makes my chest ache. “I’m gonna get Theo or Luca to bring us some chapstick for that poor lip of yours.”
“Will you please lay with me?”
“That’s not a good idea,” Kianna says, stepping smoothly back into the room.
She hands Arlo a little paper cup with two pills in it, then a small cup of water.
Arlo swallows them quickly, then hands the water back to her.
“Why’s it a bad idea?”
Kianna cocks her head. “You have second-degree burns on your neck and shoulder down to your upper arm. You had smoke inhalation, and you have two broken ribs.”
She raises her eyebrows like she’s daring him to argue with her, but she doesn’t know my Arlo like I do. She doesn’t know that he will. Without a single fucking bit of hesitation.
He proves my point half a second later when he rolls his eyes. “I’m gonna hurt either way. I almost fucking died. I’m not sure cuddling with my boyfriend is gonna be worse than that.”
That honestly gives me heart palpitations. I know he almost died; I was there. But goddamn, I wish he’d stop reminding me.
Kianna chuckles softly. “Tell you what, when I leave the room, I won’t be back for at least three hours unless you hit your call button.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, disbelief coloring my voice, but she’s already slipping out of the room.
“She’s saying you can get in bed with me.” Arlo pats the thin mattress. “Please. I promise if it hurts, I’ll tell you.”
Fuck it. Truly. Fucking fuck it. This is torture, not having him in my arms. I haven’t gotten to hold him since before I thought I’d lost him. And he’s damn near begging, and my heart can’t handle the distance anymore.
“Let me help you get moved over a little. I’m gonna lie on your non-burned side.”
Arlo breathes a sigh of relief, and I feel the echo of that relief in my soul.
I help Arlo adjust, watching his face for signs that he might be in pain as I work with him to get him closer to the edge of the bed.
Thankfully, he only has one IV now, and it’s on the same side as his burns, so as long as we’re careful, I shouldn’t disturb it.
When there’s a slightly larger sliver of bed open, I sit down and kick my shoes off, then carefully lie down next to him.
Our arms press against each other almost immediately given how little room there is. That doesn’t seem to be enough for Arlo. He wiggles and shifts, making little whiny noises in the back of his throat.
“What are you doing, baby boy?” I whisper.
“Trying to get closer to you,” he whispers back.
There must be something about a near-death experience. Arlo’s always been tactile, at least in the way he’d accept touch, but now it seems amplified. Or maybe he’s always like this, and I just didn’t know it. Hell, how has it been less than a week since we’ve become official?
Rolling onto my side, I prop myself on my fist and hook my other arm carefully around Arlo’s waist. “I’m gonna pull you closer, okay? Try to relax. I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
I pause when he lets out a little gasp, but he tells me to keep going, so I do.
After a couple of minutes of careful maneuvering, Arlo is tucked into me, the side of his head pressed against my chest. His hair still smells like smoke, and that makes something dark and ugly slither through my veins.
I rest my hand over his heart, feeling it beat against my palm.
Closing my eyes, I focus on that. On the steady thump thump thump of his heart against my skin. On his chest, which forty-eight hours ago was unnaturally still, rising and falling with each breath he inhales on his own.
He rubs his head against my chest like a cat, a deep breath escaping him as he sighs and settles into me deeper.
“Better,” he mumbles. “So much better.”
“Agreed,” I whisper, slipping my arm under the pillow and resting my head on it. “I love you so fucking much, Arlo. I never want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
He lays his hand over mine where it’s resting on his chest. Aside from a few small cat naps, I’ve barely slept since we got here. But with Arlo’s solid body pressed to mine, his fingers resting against my own, and the sounds of his slow, deep breathing, sleep takes me almost instantly.