I blinked. “What?”
“I said, your friend will be back soon. He stepped out to make a call while I checked your vitals. Are you in any pain? The doctor prescribed some pain relief if you need it.”
More shit that would fuck with my equilibrium. I wanted to refuse, but recovery from a seizure bad enough to land me in hospital was brutal. My head was spinning, and held together by tape. I threw up in a nearby cardboard basin and accepted an injection that killed any chance of staying upright.
I was halfway asleep when I remembered the nurse had said someone was with me. It had to be Rae. According to the nurse, I’d been in hospital all night, and I wasn’t close enough to anyone else for them to stay with me that long.I need to call Shaqueela. We had contingency plans for shit like this, and I fought to stay awake long enough to ask Rae for help.
Warm fingers closed around mine. My brain jumped awake, but it took my eyelids a moment to catch up. I blinked. Isha stared back at me, and I figured myself still asleep.Huh. That was a first. Anti-seizure drugs usually gave me nightmares.
“Jude? You awake?”
Nope. Definitely not.
But I was. Awareness crept into my senses. Isha’s touch thrummed in my veins, and his gorgeous, worried face solidified. “It’s you,” I slurred stupidly.
He smiled a little. “It is. You okay with me being here? I can get Rae back if you want—”
“No. I want you.”
It was all I had for a little while, but Isha didn’t seem to mind. He held my hand and stroked my face. Played with my hair and drew patterns on my forearm until I was coherent enough to string a sentence together. “I don’t understand.”
“Which part?”
“What?”
Isha leaned closer. “What do you need to know? Do you remember how you got here?”
“No. Pretty sure this ain’t Stoke Mandeville, though.”
“You’re in London.”
“With Rae?”
“For a while. He went home to get some sleep, then he’s going to the shop, unless you need him here.”
“What about you?”
“Me? You mean am I staying?”
I nodded, and instantly regretted it as the migraine throbbing in my skull surged to life.
Isha cupped my face with his warm palm. “I’m staying, Jude. As long as you need me.”
I needed him forever, and I was struggling to remember why that wasn’t possible. Isha was different. It could’ve been the grungy hoodie that looked spectacularly good on him, but it felt deeper than that. Maybe it was the drugs, but the way he was gazing at me seemed brand new, but at the same time so familiar I couldn’t imagine him not being with me, wherever I was, even the madhouse A&E that was closer to a lunatic asylum than a hospital.
The drugs won. Isha faded away, and the next time I woke, he was dozing in the chair next to the bed, still clutching my hand.
I pushed myself upright.
Isha jumped awake. “What is it? Do you feel sick again?”
I winced. “Please tell me I didn’t hurl on you?”
“You didn’t hurl on me.”
“Are you lying?”
“Never. You were sick a few times earlier, but I wasn’t here then.”
