“No.”
“Maybe you should. You got hurt on the job; that’s got to be bad for business, and for him, if he has a heart.”
“Uh-huh.”
He doesn’t want to talk about this, so I take the snippet of information he’s let fly and stash it away. I don’t know much about much, but surviving, somehow, without the capacity to hold down a regular job is something I excel at.
For long minutes, Aidan watches The Weather Channel while I watch him and try to find the answer to his problem. My brain is a jumble of incomplete theories and aborted thoughts. Sifting through them takes time, and I’mtired. I slump in my chair. Aidan notices and lowers his bed rail. “Lean on the bed if you want. I mean, if it’s more comfortable for you.”
He knows... knows that leaning backwards sometimes makes me feel as though I’m falling, and I don’t like it. I’ve never spent time with another person without having to explain my every nuance. Maybe with Aidan it’s because he doesn’t care, that he enjoys my company merely because without it he’d be alone twenty-four seven, but I make the executive decision that it doesn’t matter and dump my arms on his bed.
I rest my head on my good arm and fight to keep thinking as I realise my face is a few centimetres from Aidan’s bicep. He has amazing muscle tone, lean and strong, but still soft enough for me to wish my cheek could be pressed against his skin instead of my own. I close my eyes. My brain quiets to a dull roar and I’m almost asleep when a sharp voice drags me back to the real world.
“Ludo, get back to your own bed. Sorry, Mr Drummond. He does know not to bother the other patients.”
“He’s not bothering me,” Aidan snaps as I raise my head. “Leave him alone.”
The nurse glares. “He’s not supposed—”
“To what? Talk to his friends? Piss off.”
“Aidan—”
He silences me with a furious scowl and turns back to the nurse. “He’s fine, honestly. I asked him to sit with me.”
The nurse glances between us, clearly unconvinced, but whatever she sees in Aidan persuades her to back off.
She vanishes without another word, leaving me to stare at Aidan with my stomach in my throat. “You didn’t have to do that. They’re always chasing me back to my bed.”
“Yeah well, they’re not very good at it if they’ve never caught you with me before.”
True. But I doubt it’s occurred to anyone that Aidan would want to talk to me. He doesn’t talk to anyone else. I’ve heard the nurses calling him Mr Moody, and after tonight I reckon he’s probably cemented that.
He’s not moody with me though. And he called me his friend, in a roundabout way, which makes me smile.
Aidan cocks his head sideways. “What’re you grinning at?”
“Dunno. I’m loopy when I’m tired.”
“You should probably go back to sleep then.” He points at the exact spot my head was before and turns back to the TV as if it makes perfect sense.
Lacking any better ideas, I lay my head back down, and my eyes fall closed like weighted shutters. Iamtired, and something—everything—about Aidan’s silent company makes me feel safer than I have in a long time.
After a little while, he drapes his arm over my shoulders, solid warmth tying me down to the world.
Itdoesn’tmake perfect sense. It doesn’t make sense at all.
But I like it.
Seven
Ludo
I wake too late to see Aidan again before he’s taken away for his surgery. As I lie on my bed counting my heartbeats in the hope of slowing them down, I dimly remember a nurse hustling me away from him at some point in the night, but I don’t recall what she said to me. How can I when all I can think of is Aidan’s arm around me and whether he put it there on purpose?
I think he did. But then, I’ve thought things before and been horribly wrong.
Maybe it’s best not to think.
