Chapter 16
REID
I woke before the alarm with Noah wrapped around me.
His right leg lay across mine.
His forehead rested beneath my chin.
One hand was tucked inside the hem of my shirt, palm warm against my stomach.
The brace on his left arm pressed awkwardly between us, but he had found a position that kept the injured limb supported.
For a moment, I forgot everything.
Not the accident.
Not the amnesia.
Only the rules I had built around touch.
My body recognized him before restraint returned.
Heat gathered low and immediate.
I lay still, staring at the ceiling, acutely aware that I had not awakened beside him this way in weeks.
Noah breathed against my neck.
His fingers shifted over my skin.
My arousal became impossible to ignore.
I closed my eyes.
Wanting him was not wrong.
Doing anything with that want while he slept would be.
I carefully lifted his hand from beneath my shirt and placed it over the blanket. His brow tightened, but he did not wake.
His leg was harder.
I slid my palm beneath his knee and moved it slowly from mine, protecting the healing hip.
Noah made a small sound and turned toward my pillow.
I escaped the bed.
The cold floor helped.
Not enough.
In the bathroom, I locked the door out of habit, then unlocked it because Noah might need me.
Steam filled the shower.
I stood beneath the water and tried to think about the day.
Orthopedic imaging.
Brace removal, if the bone had healed enough.
Outpatient rehabilitation assessment.
Neurology with Dr. Whitcomb.
Financial discussion.
Insurance.
None of it changed the state of my body.
Weeks of fear had buried desire without destroying it. Now Noah was home. He had kissed me. He had asked me into our bed. He had curled around me with the unconscious trust of our old life.
My body wanted to treat that as permission.
My mind knew better.
I braced one hand against the tile and took myself in the other.
There was no romance in it.
Only pressure released privately before it could become something Noah had to notice or manage.
Even then, memory intruded.
His mouth opening beneath mine.
The shy challenge in his face when he called me Cal.
The warm weight of his palm over my heart.
I finished quickly, forehead against the cool tile, breath unsteady.
Afterward, guilt tried to arrive.
I refused it.
Desire did not make me dangerous.
Ignoring Noah’s boundaries would.
I showered, dressed, and went to the kitchen.
The sky beyond the windows was pale and clear. Yesterday’s rain had scrubbed the harbor clean. Masts caught the first light. A ferry moved across the channel, leaving a white wake behind it.
I started coffee and made oatmeal because it required little thought and could be eaten slowly.
At seven, Noah entered in the powered chair.
His hair stood up on one side.
His expression suggested morning had personally offended him.
“Good morning.”
He stared at me.
I handed him coffee.
He took it without speaking.
“There you are.”
No response.
“You used to need two cups before language.”
He drank.
“Still do.”
The words were rough.
I smiled.
Noah narrowed his eye.
“What?”
“I missed this.”
“Me being miserable?”
“You being yourself before sunrise.”
He drank again.
“Was I always this charming?”
“Worse.”
His gaze moved over me.
“You left.”
“Shower.”
“You promised not to leave before I woke.”
I stopped.
“I was in the bathroom.”
“That counts.”
The hurt in his voice was small but real.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at his coffee.
“I woke and the bed was empty.”
“I should have told you I might get up first.”
“You couldn’t tell me while I was asleep.”
“I could have left a note on the pillow.”
“That would have been ridiculous.”
“It would have prevented this.”
His shoulders lowered.
“I knew where you were after a second.”
“A second can be long now.”
“Yes.”
I crossed the kitchen and crouched beside his chair.
“May I?”
He nodded.
I placed my hand at the back of his neck.
His eye closed briefly.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Stop apologizing.”
“I am allowed when I make a mistake.”
“You didn’t.”
“I made you feel abandoned.”
“For a second.”
“That matters.”
His right hand touched my wrist.
“Next time, leave the bathroom light on.”
“I will.”
He opened his eye.
“There will be a next time?”
“If you ask me to sleep there.”
Color rose at his throat.
“Good.”
I stood.
“Oatmeal.”
“Punishment?”
“Breakfast.”
He drove to the table.
By the time he finished coffee, he became more human. By the time he ate half the oatmeal, he had enough energy to complain about the raisins.
“I don’t like these.”
“You did yesterday.”
“No, I tolerated them.”
“Important distinction.”
“Where’s the honey?”
I gave it to him.
The sight of him pouring far too much into the bowl felt so familiar that my chest ached.
He looked up.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Face.”
“What face?”
“The memory face.”
I sat opposite him.
“You always drowned oatmeal in honey.”
“That is not a meaningful memory.”
“It is to me.”
He considered.
“Then keep it.”
The answer settled warmly.
After breakfast, he showered while I packed medication, the journal, water, snacks, appointment letters, a change of clothes, and enough emergency supplies to cross a desert.
Noah emerged wearing a loose navy shirt and dark pants.
He looked at the bag.
“Are we moving?”
“It is a long day.”
“We are going to a hospital, not the moon.”
“The moon has fewer forms.”
I carried the powered chair down using the service elevator while Noah used the stair lift. He complained about the noise until we reached the bottom.
Caleb waited near the office with a travel mug.
“You look thrilled,” he told Noah.
“Medical tourism.”
“Bring me a souvenir.”
“I’ll steal a tongue depressor.”
Owen came from the main bay.
“Brace coming off?”
“That is the plan.”
“Good. We need someone with two hands to fix Caleb’s labels.”
Caleb objected.
Noah smiled.
The ride to the hospital took twenty minutes.
Traffic was light. Noah watched the road, his right hand resting near the center console.
When a delivery truck passed in the opposite lane, his body tightened.
I slowed.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
He watched the truck disappear in the mirror.
“Keep going.”
I did.
The hospital entrance brought a different reaction.
Noah stared up at the glass facade.
His jaw tightened.
“I don’t want to go inside.”
“We can sit here.”
“I have appointments.”
“They can wait ten minutes.”
His fingers flexed.
“I know too much about that building.”
“Not all of it is bad.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“That part wasn’t bad.”
I reached across the console.
He gave me his hand.
We sat until his breathing eased.
Then I unloaded the chair.
The orthopedic clinic discontinued the brace after new imaging showed sufficient healing.
Noah insisted I remain beside him.
I watched the technician unfasten the supports and lift the molded shell away.
His left arm looked thinner than the right. The skin was pale where sunlight had not reached it. A long healing incision crossed his upper arm.
Noah stared.
“It doesn’t look like mine.”
“It is.”
“Smaller.”
“Temporary muscle loss,” the clinician said. “That will improve.”
He touched the skin carefully.
Then scratched.
A groan of relief escaped him.
The clinician laughed.
“That is everyone’s first priority.”
“I’ve been trying to fit a ruler under there for days.”
I looked at him.
“You did not tell me that.”
“You would have confiscated the ruler.”
“Correct.”
He was fitted with a light sling for crowded places and told to leave the arm free at home. No lifting. No sudden extension. No reaching above shoulder height.
Noah listened to half of it.
The clinician handed me the printed restrictions.
He noticed.
“I heard.”
“Repeat them.”
“No lifting.”
“And?”
“No competitive fencing.”
“No reaching overhead.”
“That too.”
The next appointment was with Joel, the outpatient rehabilitation therapist.
His office overlooked a courtyard rather than the ward, which seemed to help. Noah transferred into a standard chair and placed the powered one beside the wall.
Joel introduced himself, reviewed the surgical reports, and asked what Noah wanted most from therapy.
“To walk to the bathroom without planning a military operation.”
Joel smiled.
“Good. Specific and achievable.”
“And work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Marine electrical systems.”
“Fine motor control, strength, balance, endurance, divided attention.”
Noah looked displeased.
“That sounds like a list of things I don’t have.”
“It is a list of things we train.”
Joel asked me to wait outside during part of the assessment.
Noah’s hand found mine.
“He stays.”
Joel paused.
“I usually prefer to observe patients independently at first.”
“I know.”
Noah’s voice remained calm.
“He doesn’t answer for me. He stays anyway.”
The statement carried more confidence than he had shown at any appointment.
Joel nodded.
“All right.”
Noah released my hand only after I sat beside him.
The assessment lasted nearly an hour.
Grip strength.
Arm movement.
Standing balance.
Walking with a forearm support.
Following two-step instructions while moving.
Identifying objects placed out of view.
The physical tasks frustrated him.
The combined tasks exhausted him.
Joel asked him to walk six paces, stop, name three tools used in his work, turn, and return to the chair.
Noah made it four paces.
“Multimeter,” he said.
Another step.
“Crimper.”
He stopped.
His face tightened.
The third word would not come.
His left hand flexed uselessly.
“Take your time,” Joel said.
Noah looked at me.
I gave him nothing.
Not because I did not know.
Because the task belonged to him.
“Stripper,” he said finally. “Wire stripper.”
Then he turned too fast.
The room shifted.
I was beside him before Joel reached him.
Noah caught my forearm.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re pale.”
“I know.”
We waited until the floor steadied.
He completed the walk.
No one praised him.
Joel recorded the result.
At the end, he gave us a shorter exercise program than Noah expected.
“That’s it?”
“That is enough.”
“I can do more.”
“You probably can. The goal is to stop before you spend the rest of the day unable to speak clearly.”
Noah looked away.