“I—what?”
“You never heard a dad joke before?”
My brows pinch and his grin grows.
“That’s not … I don’t …” I huff out a breath and turn back to the ceiling. “You lied to your friends at the firehouse.”
He shifts beside me in what I think is another shrug, but I can’t look at him. I feel too vulnerable.
Holy fuck, did I really just come out to him?
“It’s not up to me who knows your sexuality. You didn’t even have to tell me just now.”
“But we’re about to sleep in the same bed.”
“If it’s contagious, pretty sure I already caught it from Hat a long time ago.”
The snort that tickles my throat is automatic and startles me. I clear it away and sink into the mattress as Tristen’s eyes fall closed once again. It smells like sage and soap.
Just like he does.
Chapter 18
Tristen
Pins and needles takeover my leg and I groan.
Fuck, my whole body hurts.
It feels likeIwas the one that went on a bender and spent half the night throwing my guts up instead of taking care of the one person I wasn’t supposed to do that for.
There’s something about being so close to it, knowing what it can do to you, that seems somehow different when I’m in the rig. Responding to a call where someone is in the same state I found Hatley in. It’s just not the same. I’d swim through the vomit all night long.
Watching Hatley suffer through it?
Knowing it could just as easily have been me?
I swallow back the thickness in my throat and crack open my eyes to look at the way his ribs slowly rise and fall. How the light hits his back and makes his hair look greasy.
He’s gonna be so fucking upset.
I’ll have to be the strong one this time. And that’s okay. I can do that for him … I think.
Fuck, my leg is killing me.
I go to move it; to readjust so I can stay in bed a little longer except it feels stuck. Weighted and prickling.
I know I fell, but damn.
Shifting so that I can look, I curse at the bony thigh laying across mine, right over the goddamn artery, and I go to push it off.
But instead, I freeze.
Hand hovering over the sweatpants-clad knee.
Heart rate kicking up, my chest clenches so painfully, it feels like I’m heading straight for another panic attack.
I hold my breath.
