Leah scouted the room for the pills, spotting them eventually on the floor between the nightstand and the bed. She was opening the bottle when Jackson groaned, the color leaching from his skin. Grabbing the bowl, she pushed it into his hands as he rolled to the side of the bed and retched. When he’d finally finished throwing up, he collapsed onto his back again, gray-faced and clammy.
She returned from the bathroom with a clean bowl and a facecloth soaked in warm water. Jackson shivered, fine tremors quivering the damp hairs at his temple. When Leah perched gently on the edge of the bed, he slowly opened his eyes. And even in the low light, the blue of his irises, barely visible through narrow slits, was startling. Like an unexpected dip into an ice bath. He didn’t speak, just looked at her.
Handing him the cloth, Leah reached for the painkillers and the glass of water. “One or two?”
“One.”
Leah tipped the bottle and dropped the pill into his hand. Wiping his face and lifting himself shakily up onto an elbow, Jackson pushed it between his lips. The water slopped dangerouslyas he swallowed a mouthful before he lay back on his pillow, sweaty and drained, eyes drifting shut. Goosebumps raised the fine hair on his arms and Leah tugged the comforter up to cover his chest.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Not wanting to leave him, she crossed to the other side of the bed, taking the clean bowl and the facecloth with her, and slid carefully onto the mattress. Leah propped one of the spare pillows against the headboard, moving as smoothly as possible so he wasn’t shaken or bumped, placing the bowl down by her side.
“What are you doing?” He turned his head in slow motion to squint at her.
“Someone stole Crabby Jackson and left me with you. I’m keeping watch in case they take you, too.”
Something in his expression eased a little and his eyes fluttered shut.
She watched his chest rise and fall, the pulse beating in the side of his throat. A couple of quiet minutes ticked by but she suspected he was still awake. “What does it feel like?” she asked quietly.
“Like someone opened a nightclub in my head. Strobe lights and all.”
“No one’s raving in this room on my watch,” she whispered. “They can all fuck off.”
Jackson huffed what might have been the shadow of a laugh but didn’t answer.
He threw up multiple times throughout the morning, retching and sweating, wet hair slicked to his temples. Each time he apologized. Each time he told her she didn’t need to stay, but Leah hated the idea of him struggling alone.
Twice, she encouraged him to peel off his soaked t-shirt and found him a fresh one. The first time was a learning curve of awe and restraint. As the inches of tanned skin and smattering of hairwere revealed, she forced herself to turn away and give him privacy, ignoring the warmth blooming in her own stomach.
Eventually the nausea seemed to slow a little and, around mid-afternoon, after a bout of heaving when Jackson had nothing more to bring up, he tumbled into sleep. Leah left the room only to grab a sandwich and gather her phone, notepad, and Kindle, before taking her place on the bed again. Angling the screen away from him, she settled down to fact-check gunshot wounds, blood loss, and recovery times.
After an hour or more, Jackson twisted toward her in his sleep. His breathing low and even, his cheekbone pressed against her thigh. Leah edged her notepad away and laid down her phone. She examined his face; his color looked a little better. His hair, still moist, was rumpled. There were strands sticking to his forehead and she reached down to brush them back without thinking. That frown between his eyebrows hadn’t shifted and Leah’s thumb moved toward it, smoothing out the lines with a couple of light sweeps. Then her fingers drifted to his temple, hesitantly teasing the hair away from his face with a delicate touch.
Jackson exhaled jaggedly, his wide chest rising and falling with a soundless sigh. Leah froze and drew back her hand, guilty heat spreading at the base of her throat. “Don’t stop,” he murmured, eyes still closed. “Please.”
Of their own accord, her fingertips resumed their journey, stroking from his frown to his temple, through his hair and back again. Slowly, rhythmically, over and over. Outside, Leah could hear a mourning dove on the roof, the tip of a tree branch brushing against the gutter. Inside the bedroom, it was silent, but her heart upped its beat at the raw intimacy of the moment.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered.
“Better, thank you.” But he didn’t move or open his eyes.
“There’s no place for lies in the Bed of Truth.”
Jackson’s lips twitched. “The Bed of Truth?”
“You’re breaking the code. If you persist, there will be consequences.”
“Heaven forbid.” One blue eye squinted up at her. “In that case, I feel pretty crappy.”
“I thought as much.”
The dove outside cooed again beyond curtains shutting out an overcast afternoon. And the strands of Jackson’s hair passed between her fingers, rich brown and naturally bronzed at the ends, their length a surprising anomaly.
“That feels so good.” Weary and gruff, eyes drifting closed once more, he lay as still as a sculpted effigy beneath the covers.
“How often do you get migraines?”
