Chapter 11
REID
I woke before sunrise because the apartment had forgotten how to sound like home.
For years, Noah’s sleep had filled the dark with its own vocabulary.
Sheets whispering as he rolled toward me.
A bare foot searching beneath the blankets until it found my ankle.
Irritated sighs whenever I stole back the pillow he had already stolen from me.
Occasionally, a half-formed curse aimed at the rain, the mattress, or whatever enemy his dreams had invented.
From the spare room, I heard none of it.
I lay awake on the pullout couch beneath a blanket twisted around my legs and stared at the ceiling. A metal spring dug into my hip. The disused printer on the desk blinked its green power light at regular intervals, judgmental in its persistence.
Sleeping here had been my decision.
Noah needed control over his space. He needed the bedroom to belong to him without the silent pressure of my body in the other half of the bed. Every medical professional we had spoken to agreed that choice mattered.
A sensible decision could still feel like banishment.
A floorboard complained in the hall.
I sat up immediately.
A pale bar of light appeared beneath the bathroom door as Noah’s chair moved past the spare-room entrance. The motor gave its low electric hum, then stopped.
I waited for him to call.
He did not.
Water ran. A cabinet opened and shut. After several minutes, the chair carried him toward the kitchen.
I dressed quickly and followed.
Noah sat at the table in loose gray sweatpants and one of my old thermal shirts. The dark fabric hung from his thinner frame, and the sleeves covered half his right hand. His hair stood up at the back. He was squinting against the low light, the skin beneath his right eye colorless with fatigue.
“How bad is your head?”
He glanced up. “Good morning to you too.”
“That was not an answer.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “It hurts.”
I opened the medication organizer and removed the correct tablets.
Noah watched me line them up beside a glass of water.
“I can manage that.”
“Normally, yes.”
“I know how the box works.”
“You also appear to be negotiating with your own eyelid.”
“I know which compartment says Saturday.”
“It’s Sunday.”
The irritation vanished from his face.
For one second, fear took its place.
I lowered my voice. “That’s why I’m handling it this morning. Nothing more.”
His jaw tightened, but he swallowed the tablets without arguing.
I put bread in the toaster and started the coffee. The machine burbled too loudly in the quiet room.
“How much did you sleep?”
“Some.”
“Nightmares?”
He traced the grain of the table with one finger.
I turned from the counter.
“Noah?”
“The room was different.”
“The room in the dream?”
He nodded.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I waited.
He rubbed the top of his right shoulder. “That was what made it worse.”
I sat across from him.
In the gray light, his face looked younger and more exhausted than it had the day before.
“I kept waking up,” he said. “Every time I opened my eye, I thought someone was supposed to be beside me.”
The confession came quietly enough that I might have mistaken it for an observation.
I kept both hands on the table.
“Marlowe slept with you.”
“I know.”
“But that wasn’t what you meant.”
His mouth tightened with annoyance, though I could not tell whether it was directed at me or at himself.
“He isn’t you.”
Pain tightened beneath my ribs.
Noah looked down.
“I don’t remember sharing a bed with you. I don’t remember wanting you there. But every time I woke, something felt wrong.”
“The bedroom may still feel unfamiliar.”
“It wasn’t the room.”
He pressed his fingertips to his temple and shut his eye.
“I kept reaching across the mattress.”
I struggled to draw breath without making the effort visible.
“For the lamp?” I asked, offering him an escape.
His eye opened.
“For you.”
The toaster sprang up with a sharp metallic snap.
Noah flinched so hard the table shook.
I crossed the kitchen, silenced the coffee machine before its timer could beep, and dimmed the overhead fixture. When I returned, his shoulders had risen almost to his ears.
“Can I help?”
His gaze dropped to my hands. “How?”
“Your neck.”
“What about it?”
“You’re holding it as though you expect the ceiling to fall.”
He considered, then nodded.
I moved behind him slowly, leaving him time to reconsider. My fingertips settled at the base of his skull, carefully avoiding the healing scar.
The muscles beneath his skin were rigid.
“You’ve been braced like this for hours.”
“I know.”
I worked my thumbs along the right side of his neck, using steady pressure rather than the deep strokes he had preferred before the accident.
Noah’s head bowed.
A low sound escaped him.
Not pain.
Relief.
The sound struck me with dangerous intimacy.
“Too much?”
“Don’t talk.”
A smile threatened despite everything.
I moved lower, kneading the corded muscle between his shoulder and spine. The thermal shirt was soft beneath my palms, warm from his body. I knew the garment. I had owned it for years.
The body inside it felt both achingly familiar and newly unknown.
He had lost weight. The broad strength I remembered had thinned. His posture guarded the healing side of his body even when he was not conscious of doing so.
But the way he yielded under my hands was unmistakably Noah.
His breathing deepened.
His right hand relaxed against the table.
“More pressure,” he murmured.
I obeyed.
He groaned.
Heat tightened low in my body before shame cut through it.
This was care.
He was in pain. He trusted me enough to let me ease it.
I forced my touch into something clinical and controlled.
Noah lifted his head a fraction. “Why did you stop?”
“I didn’t.”
“You pulled away.”
“I’m working lower.”
“You went tense.”
“My own neck hurts.”
“Terrible lie.”
I resumed the massage before he could look at me.
His lips curved even though his eyes stayed closed.
“When did you learn to do this?”
“You used to come home with headaches after crawling through engine compartments all day.”
“And you did this for me?”
“Often.”
“Did it work?”
“You generally fell asleep before I finished.”
“I could do that now.”
“After you eat.”
The medication needed food. More importantly, Noah had lost too much weight during his hospitalization to skip meals whenever his appetite disappeared.
I put toast on a plate and sat down again.
He took one reluctant bite.
“You really slept in there?”
“Yes.”
“Was it as miserable as it looks?”
“Yes.”
He blinked at my honesty. “You could have spared my feelings.”
“You asked me not to lie.”
“I meant about important things.”
“The couch was designed by someone with a personal grievance against the human spine.”
His gaze dropped to my coffee mug.
“You should sleep in the bed tonight.”
My hand stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Noah.”
“I’m not suggesting sex.”
“I know.”
“I’m not promising touching either.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop looking like I proposed something dangerous.”
I set the mug down carefully.
“You don’t have to invite me because I slept badly.”
“I’m not.”
“Or because you think I expect—”
“You are making both of us miserable over a fear I never said I had.”
I studied him.
“What are you afraid of?”
He answered without hesitation.
“Waking up alone.”
There was nothing I could argue with in that truth.
“We can try tonight,” I said.
His shoulders lowered.
“You stay on your side.”
“Yes.”
“No reaching for me in your sleep.”
“I will keep my hands to myself.”
“If I decide I can’t do it?”
“I leave.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes.”
He lifted his coffee and drank.
“Fine.”
Relief rose so strongly it nearly became a smile. I suppressed it.
Noah noticed.
“You’re making that expression again.”
“What expression?”
“The one where your mouth goes rigid because you don’t want me to see that you’re pleased.”
“I’m not pleased you had a bad night.”
“You’re pleased I asked you back.”
There was no point denying it.
“Yes.”
His mouth curved over the rim of the mug.
“You’re allowed.”
After breakfast, the visiting nurse arrived.
Maeve Carter had cropped silver hair, sensible shoes, and a manner brisk enough to discourage self-pity without ever becoming unkind. More importantly, she addressed Noah directly rather than speaking about him as though he were a defective appliance.
She checked his blood pressure, surgical sites, balance, pain level, hydration, and medication log.
“How was the first night at home?” she asked.
“Bad.”
I stood near the kitchen cabinet, rearranging mugs that did not need rearranging.
“Pain?”
“Headache. Nightmares.”
“Confusion when you woke?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it take to recognize the room?”
Noah looked at me before answering. “A minute. Maybe less.”
“What helped?”
“He came in.”
Maeve followed his gaze toward me. “Did you call him?”
“No.”
“I heard the chair moving,” I said.
Noah frowned. “You were awake?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come out?”
“You were in the bathroom. You told me you wanted to handle that alone.”
His expression tightened.
Maeve removed the blood-pressure cuff and folded it neatly.
“This is exactly the sort of thing the two of you need to negotiate,” she said. “Privacy still matters. So does communication.”
“I didn’t know he was listening,” Noah said.
“Reid cannot predict what you need unless you tell him.”
“He makes an impressive attempt.”
Maeve smiled. “Then help him fail less often. What would you like him to do if he hears you awake during the night?”
Noah considered.
“Ask.”
“From the hall?”
“Yes.”
“What should he ask?”
“Whether I need him.”
Maeve turned to me. “Can you do that without entering unless you’re invited?”
“Yes.”
She looked back at Noah. “If you say no?”
“He stays out.”
“If you don’t answer?”
“I check on him,” I said.
Noah nodded.
Maeve wrote the arrangement in her notes with the gravity of drafting an international treaty.
She spent another twenty minutes reviewing hydration targets, sleep patterns, safe transfers, neurological warning signs, and the difference between expected fatigue and symptoms that justified an emergency call.
Then she asked to speak with Noah privately.