63. Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Three
Kat
Isat there.
I sat there and watched the flatbed deliver the car.
Watched the mechanics roll it back into the garage.
Watched them actually smiling, because wings can be easily replaced. Tires, same.
The side of the car? Not horrible overall.
The underside, they wouldn’t know until they looked.
But I wasn’t smiling. Because Henry’s heart rate was still over 140. O2 levels at the lower end of the concerning range. Far from ideal. Far from reassuring. Same with his too high respiratory rate. All of it. Not coming down. Not resolving after the crash.
Because he was in pain. Horrible pain. I had heard it in his voice, and now it was still there. It wasn’t going away, even as he was obviously treated by the medical team.
I didn’t look up as my door clicked open. I couldn’t look away from my screen. A team kit slid into the chair next to me, but I knew it wasn’t the one I wanted to see. Because that one was still in the middle of a medical crisis.
I didn’t look up.
“Gatita?” he asked softly, sounding tentative.
“Mhm?” I asked, not nonchalantly. He leaned forward to slide his face between mine and the computer. I leaned to the side to see around his massive, computer-covering noggin. Something about the wildly curly hair made it obnoxiously worse.
“You could go see him. I know he’d want to see you,” he offered. I shook my head. Still staring. Hoping my sensors were broken, because the numbers hadn’t changed. I hadn’t muted the beeping. I couldn’t.
“You don’t understand,” I started. I could FEEL his indignation at that one.
“I work with the team. That can’t be. It can’t be like that,” I murmured, staring so hard the screen started to blur. Even though that might’ve been the tears. He switched to Spanish.
“So, what? You’re some dirty secret? I KNOW he doesn’t want that,” he insisted. I shook my head again. My breathing was getting faster and faster as the tears fell one at a time. I kept shaking my head.
“No, Milo. I’m not a dirty secret. I’m nothing.”
My knees hit the tile in a familiar if exhausting beginning to our usual dance. I was heaving and heaving and I couldn’t stop. I was breathing too fast, faster and faster, as if I was somehow trying to breathe for us both.
I leaned back against the wall, tears flowing down my cheeks as I groaned. I really, really wanted this to stop happening. But it really just wouldn’t. I thought maybe I was stuck like this forever.
Awesome.
Because that’s really what brings all the boys to the yard. Who the hell wants a milkshake when you can have a vomiting mess?
I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking it might help me calm down.
That was a mistake.
Way too many things to flash there when it was getting no continual input. I opened them again. And just sat there, breathing. I needed to calm down. Quickly. Because I had no concept of how he was doing while I was in here. And that was unacceptable.
I exited the bathroom, quietly slipping out when no one was nearby and scooting back into my room. I practically dove at my computer, finding some improvements.
His heart rate and blood pressure had come down, but his O2 was still low and respiratory rate still too high. Odds were he wasn’t breathing deeply. Couldn’t. Breathe deeply.
I wanted to go see him so, so badly.
I thought I could maybe help him.
I KNEW I could help him.
But Milo was wrong. Because I knew he wouldn’t want to see me. After all, he hadn’t asked for me.
I popped my head out into the garage, catching Andy’s attention.
“Hey, let me know when you guys are ready for me to replace the broken sensors,” I said in a perfectly professional voice. He nodded, and I could see that he wanted to say something. I shook my head, pleading with my eyes for him to just… not.
“It’ll be a few hours at least, Grace. It’s doable, but a late night. If you wanted to go take out a certain driver on a certain other team, I’m SURE we’d all be positive you were here all night,” he joked. If only.
That fire that lived banked in my chest at all times certainly liked that idea.
But instead, I just wandered back into my conference room to pretend to work. To pretend to work… and wait. As time went on, I… didn’t stop my stalker-esque tendencies.
And his O2 didn’t get better.
And I thought about when I was in the medical center.
And he’d brought me tea and a blanket and clothes and he STAYED.
But this was different. Everyone knew he was there. Everyone would see if I was there, too. And that would be detrimental. To my career. To his.
And. He hadn’t asked for me. So that was telling enough.
But I couldn’t just… sit. I stood and ducked out of my conference room, heading for the break room. I had figured something out that I could do, and give me a tiny bit of a cover to go see him.
Was I insane? Absolutely.
Had I just decided for the millionth time that being near me was detrimental to him? Absolutely.
But did I need to know he was okay, more? Also, yes.
So, I filled the kettle with it carefully balanced on my cast, and put it on the stove. Only Brits would have a goddamn stove in their break room so they could make a proper cuppa.
Which led me to… squint. Hard. At the mugs I’d collected, the tea bags and sugar and milk.
I… was trying to remember the right way to make it.
The way he liked it.