Chapter 34
The Care
Nate
The construction on Hamby Road is a disaster. Winter wasn’t that snowy, spring wasn’t that rainy, and summer isn’t that hot. So there’s no fucking reason why, in mid-August, we’re finalizing tasks that should’ve been done in early July.
Before I have a chance to close the door to my truck, Mickey comes up to me. “Mr. Nate,” he says breathlessly. “I was wondering, since you’ve been mentoring me and all—”
I look at Mickey, but he doesn’t keep going. “Yeah?” I urge.
“I’ve been thinking about going back to school.” He swallows. “I was hoping you’d write a recommendation letter.”
I smile. “That’s awesome.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Of course, I will.”
“I wouldn’t have realized I could if not for you, mister.”
“Send me the details,” I say. “Now I have to go talk to your boss, yeah?”
He nods and jogs away.
I glance at Derek in his hard hat. As a foreman, he shouldn’t be chilling in the back, standing there with his hands on his hips watching the parade he’s made of this work site. He should be watching everyone like a hawk, pitching in when needed. Like now, nobody’s working with urgency.
“Derek,” I call out. “Did you sign off on the lift schedule this morning?”
He turns defensive before I even finish the sentence. “I was just—”
The crane groans, and the second I see it, I know exactly why. The angle’s off—mast tilted too far back, weight stacked high without enough counterbalance. The pallet isn’t properly secured or loaded. It should be squared, and it isn’t. It’s tilting hard to one side.
“Hold it!” I shout. “Everyone clear the west side. Now!”
Too late.
The load sways, and it doesn’t snap or explode, just drifts—wrong. The straps are intact, but they’re pulling unevenly, so tension and gravity in the two by fours biting harder on one corner than the others. The pallet starts sliding from its highest setting, right above a group of four workers.
“Move!” I yell sharper, waving people back as I run toward them.
A board slides loose. Then another. It’s raining wood as I shove people out of the way. Someone shouts my name.
I move without thinking, boots skidding in the mud as I lunge toward the edge to get clear—and my foot sinks deeper than it should. I don’t get out in time.
I feel the impact more than I hear it. A violent crack against the side of my head that jars straight through my skull, knocking my hard hat loose.
Something clips the other side of my head hard enough to jerk my neck sideways.
I stagger at the second hit, falling to my knees, then knocking my shoulder against the ground as I fall forward.
Luckily, I manage to roll in time to see the rest of the pallet drop a few feet away.
It’s almost as if the pallet crushing detonates floodlights behind my eyes—white and blinding.
Sound drains out, replaced by a high, thin ringing that won’t settle.
Hands grab my arms, my shoulders, hauling me back before I can try to stand. I taste copper immediately, thick and unmistakable. Something warm is sliding down the side of my face, dripping into my ear.
“Imm fffnne.”
Derek’s voice cuts through, sharp and frantic, barking orders he should’ve given ten minutes ago. Someone presses a hand against my head, and I hiss, the pain finally blooming on my left side—deep, pulsing, nauseating.
The scaffolding above me starts to warp, and the straight lines of the property bend. I try to focus on one thing on the gravel, but my vision doubles then smears. The last thing I register is someone saying my name again, closer this time. Then everything blacks out.
I blink against the harsh hospital lights, my head pounding in slow pulses.
Everything tastes faintly metallic. My vision blurs at the edges, as if I’m looking at everything around me hovering over a fire.
There’s something warm and solid beside me, but I can’t quite tell which hand to lift to reach for it.
“Hey.” Robyn’s voice cuts cleanly through the fog. Calm. Controlled. “You’re awake.” She gazes down at me. “Good.”
She’s leaning close, adjusting the sheet over my chest. Her hands are steady, but her eyes wrinkle at the corners when she realizes I’m really looking at her.
When I speak, the words come out thick. “What … happened?”
Her hands smooth the fabric once more, ritualistically. “You’ve got a mild concussion and a scalp laceration. They stitched you up. Your CT is clean—no skull fracture, no bleeding.” A pause. “And yes, there was definitely a brain in there.”
I want to laugh, but everything moves like it’s underwater.
“I’ve asked them to keep you for observation. With head injuries, there’s always a risk of delayed swelling or bleeding. I want eyes on you for a few hours.”
I swallow. “I’m … glad to see you, but—why are you here?”
Her fingers hesitate for a fraction of a second before she answers. “I’m still your emergency contact.”
“Oh.” Guilt floods in, slow and heavy. “I didn’t … update the insurance. Forgot to change—”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” I try again, weaker now. “For the trouble.”
Her jaw tightens a little. “Nate, you’re hurt. This isn’t trouble.” Her voice dips. “You scared me.”
She slides her hand under the sheet until she finds mine and laces our fingers together. I cling to the pressure when my head throbs harder, and try to sit up, but the room tilts.
“No.” Her hand is suddenly on my shoulder, firm. “Don’t move. You’re not cleared yet. Deep breaths.”
She leans closer, her chest brushing mine, and I let her hold me there.
“Mom?” I manage.
“We’ll call her,” she says, glancing to the monitor before returning to me. “Later. Right now, I need you awake and not pushing yourself.”
I groan, letting my head fall back.
“Stay with me,” she murmurs. “I’ve got you. And yes, I’m coming home with you. Don’t argue.”
“Robyn—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Her voice cracks, just barely. “I thought you were seriously hurt.”
I nod. Or try to. “Swe—Okay.”
Her fingers never leave mine. Not once.
Robyn’s in my apartment. She’s taken off a week to care for me, and I’m getting at least another week off work.
Potentially the-foreman-didn’t-do-his-job-properly-and-you-got-hurt, money.
First thing she did was confiscate my bike helmet, car keys, and TV remote with a look that said don’t test me.
I’m standing in my bedroom trying to take my T-shirt off so I can shower when she sighs and steps in.
“Let me,” she says.
“I can undress and shower myself.”
“Nate, you got a concussion two days ago.” She folds her arms, one hip cocked.
“Which is why I’ve waited two days. Don’t worry, Robyn. I know where everything goes.”
She reaches for the hem of the shirt anyway. Her fingers are careful, professional, as her knuckles brush the hair on my abdomen.
I pull back. “I said I can do this.”
Her brow arches, chin lifting. “You’re being stubborn.” She exhales, incredulous. “I’m a doctor.”
I shrug. “Doctor or not, naked is naked.”
She stares for a beat. “Did you get another surprise piercing you don’t want me to see?”
I sputter air through my pursed lips. “Of course not.” We stare into each other’s gaze.
“So how did you get”—she tips her chin at my chest—“that one?”
I let out a deep sigh. “Julian …” Warmth gathers on my cheeks. “Kept going on about pierced dicks and how they enhance sex.”
“You talked about piercing your penis with Julian?”
I wince. “There may have been some diagramming involved. He swore if I pierced my dick and showed you, I’d get you back.”
She crosses her arms tighter, biting her lip.
“I was … drunk off my ass. We compromised.”
“On your nipple.”
“Yeah.” I nod once. “Once I saw the needle … no chance that thing was getting anywhere near my cock.”
She presses her lips together, shoulders shaking despite herself.
I scrub a hand over my face. “I don’t drink vodka or tequila anymore.”
She gestures vaguely at my chest. “You know you could just let it close.”
“I could.” I pause. “I kind of like it.” More blood rushes to my face when I realize she’s looking at my chest, her cheeks also flushed.
“I can help you shower. I can be professional.”
“Uh-uh. If you so much as glance at my bare chest with that face, I’m going to embarrass myself.”
She waves it off quickly and steps forward again, but I cross my arms over my chest so she doesn’t take the shirt off.
She clears her throat and steps back, professional mask snapping into place with visible effort. “All right. Then you go shower. On your own.”
I smile. She turns away but pauses in the doorway, glancing back over her shoulder.
I come back from the shower with my hair still damp, brain medicated and fuzzy in the way Robyn keeps assuring me is normal. She eyes my chest, and I can’t help but chuckle. She’s portioning lasagna—freezer to oven is as far as her cooking skills go.
The lasagna’s top is blistered and crisp in all the right places. I plate it at the counter, placing the crunchiest corner onto her plate and the softer middle onto mine. I don’t even think about it until she goes very still behind me.
She clears her throat. “You remembered.”
I glance back. “You like the edges. The crunch.”
Her eyes linger a beat too long on the portion I’ve set aside for her before she nods once.
We eat at the coffee table with our backs against the couch, sitting close enough that our thighs touch.
The room fills with the quiet scrape of forks against ceramic.
Halfway through the meal, she nudges my ankle with her foot.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. “Not just for today. But every time you did that. Without asking. I don’t think I ever said.”
I blink and swallow. She used to say it and then she stopped. And my brain thought it meant she was on her way out.
“You good?” she asks.
“Alive. Upright.” I rotate one shoulder. “A medical miracle.”
Her mouth twitches, but she isn’t satisfied enough to let it go.
“I’m enjoying taking care of you.” The words are careful, as if she’s confirming the truth in them.
“I’m appreciating now why you’re such a caretaker.
There’s this warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that I’m keeping you well.
” A pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t honor that before.
That it was your way of showing love. Of feeling loved.
I should have caught on and brought you coffee or lunch.
At least show you how much everything you did kept me sane. ”
I swallow around the nudge in my throat. “We should have talked more. I should have told you I was getting worried you’d leave me. That I didn’t feel important to you.”
Her fingers curl slightly around my knee, grounding. “Yes, but I should have also pushed more. Keeping our relationship healthy wasn’t just on you.”
“Maybe. And I still fucked up.”
I turn to her and find her gaze already on me. “Well, you totally should have kept your lips for me.” I study her face for any trace of anger or resentment, but all I find is the corner of her mouth twitching in amusement.
I smile, but add to it, wanting to make this crystal clear. “You shouldn’t have had to make yourself smaller for me,” I add. “Or anything other than what you were and are.” I grab her ankle, thumb brushing over her bare instep. “I didn’t know how to be with someone I admired that much.”
She squeezes my knee, grounding and warm, her thumb pressing once. Then she leans in. I catch the orange blossom. Her forehead nearly touches mine, close enough that our noses brush when I inhale.
“You’re not fucking up now,” she murmurs, low and sultry.
The words reach into the hollow of my chest, this empty space that belongs only to her, and work as if she were kissing it better.
My mouth parts on instinct. Her gaze flicks to my lips, making the space between us hum with unbearable desire.
Our breaths tangle, warm and shallow, waiting for someone to move—neither of us does.
My phone buzzes, I catch the name on the screen—Mom. Fuck. Robyn smiles.
“Go answer,” she says. “There’ll be time for that.”
There better be.
It’s a short conversation with Mom; she just wants to make sure I’m not dumber now than I was before the concussion. It takes her no time to decide I’m fine and hang up, promising she’ll visit soon.
When I step back into my living room, Robyn’s curled up on one end of the couch, flipping through the channels.
She tucks her legs tighter and pats her thigh.
I hesitate only a second before stretching out, laying my head on her lap.
It feels indecently good, the weight of me settled there, her fingers threading into my hair like they’ve been waiting for this moment as much as I have.
She settles on a show. Some competition where impossibly calm people sculpt entire skylines out of cake. I squint up at the screen for about thirty seconds before her palm covers my eyes.
“You’re not cleared for screen time.”
I scoff.
She laughs, the sound vibrating through her leg. “It’s okay. I’ll narrate.”
She describes spires and cantilevers and sugar glass facades with the same precision she uses in the lab, her hand drifting from my hair to trace idle patterns along my neck or arms. I close my eyes and let myself be held there, listening to her voice and the rhythm of her breath.
I fall asleep on her thighs to the cadence of her voice and the care of her touch.