He could hear the tears before he even heard her sniffle. No. He didn’t want her to be sad. The darkness was comfortable. Calm. Except for the beeping. The beeping was starting to irritate him.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay there again. I know that makes me weak, but I just can’t. Not with the way we left things… not with the way things are right now. The thought of trying to eat or sleep there another time… without you… ”
What did that mean? The way they’d left things?
“Oh my god, don’t worry, though.”Her hand slid over his, the pressure feather light and warm.“I packed all our… toys…. up so your mom wouldn’t find them. And that little outfit I wore for you a few weeks ago. The one with the ruffles. Can you imagine your mom coming across that in the laundry?”
She laughed, and the beeping sound in the background picked up. What the hell was that?
“Sully, I swear to god, if me talking about sex toys in the Intensive Care Unit is the thing that gets you to actually wake up…”
Yes! Keep talking! For the first time, Stone could feel the edge of the darkness pull away.
“Please, come back to me… I don’t…”Mae groaned, the warmth wrapped around his hand disappearing as her voice grew distant.“God, I don’t feel good. I should have eaten something.”
Pressure hit by his hip. Her head. She was laying her head on the bed. Stone tried to pull free from the foggy tendrils that were starting to call him back into the darkness.
“I’m okay. It’s going to be okay,”she groaned.“I’m staying tonight, Sully. But I need… I need a break. I told Sebastian I’d be starting to work a few hours each day. Everything has been shut down trying to figure out who did this to you, and I don’t want to be away, but for my mental health, I just need to spend some time at the office. I’m sorry I’m not stronger. I’ll come back with Rhett and Sara, but I… God, I just need something to feel normal again.”
Fuck. He needed to move his hand. To stroke her hair. Tohold her in his arms again. To feel the weight of her body against his. To kiss her…
But the darkness was powerful. It was sticky. And tight. And no matter how much his mind fought against the chains pulling him under, Stone was no match for it.
Six
“What are you doing here?” Gunner’s voice boomed across the gym. Mae slowed the treadmill down to walking speed, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs painfully. Her eyes bounced from the grumpy man standing against the far pillar to her treadmill’s stats screen. Shit. She’d been running for over an hour. It wasn’t part of her plan to push herself so hard for so long.
Mae reached for her water bottle, the icy water immediately soothing the burning heat of her empty stomach.
“Needed to get rid of some energy before I hop behind the desk.”
“No.”
Her arms went up over her head as she stretched out one particularly stubborn stitch in her side. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t need you here.”
Mae bit down on her cheek before blowing out her breath. “Wow. Thanks?”
Gunner’s hand went up to his face, scratching along his jaw as he sighed. “You know what I mean. We’re closed until further notice. The guys and I have the rotationfigured out for the training we weren’t able to reschedule at The Trident. There is no reason for you to be here.”
“I asked Sebastian to have me on the schedule for this morning. I just need… I need a morning of normalcy. It’s been ten days, Gunner.” She hated to admit it, but the days were passing by with no change in Stone’s condition, and it was draining everything in her. His body was healing, but his mind just wasn’t waking up. And the doctors couldn’t give her answers. It was horrific and frustrating, and she just needed some time to be numb to it all.
Gunner nodded, still staring right at her.
“That’s all it is? Just some normalcy?”
“What else would it be?” Mae jumped to the side track of the treadmill, stopping the belt from moving before she got down and walked over to him. “What? Tell me what you think this all means?”
“You’re not staying at Stone’s place.”
Mae’s eyes narrowed. “You know that’s where his family is staying. You want me to force his mother or his pregnant sister-in-law to sleep on the couch?”
The sigh that came out of Gunner’s mouth had Mae fighting not to roll her eyes.
“We both know that’s not why you aren’t staying there. You don’t think he’d want you there?”
“We broke up. It was messy, and heartbreaking, and I’m still sick to my stomach over it. What do you want me to say? That it’s not awkward as hell trying to figure out if he would even want me to be at his bedside? If he would even care that I’ve been there for days at a time when I’m not anything besides a coworker to him now?”
