Ollie said something to someone nearby—Corina, maybe? Shay didn’t much care—and then hauled him away to the dressing room. He deposited Shay on the couch and vanished briefly, only to reappear with Shay’s medical bag.
He crouched down, his hands on Shay’s knees. “What do you need?”
A giggle bubbled in Shay’s chest. He tried to swallow it down, but it escaped anyway. “Sorry. Hypos make me silly sometimes.”
“Uh-huh. The question still stands. What do you need?”
Despite lacking the desire to puke, faint, or fall into a coma in front of Ollie, focusing was hard. Shay’s diminished senses were compounded by Ollie touching him, and he was struggling to form a coherent thought.
Ollie unzipped the bag. He retrieved the glucose monitor and held it up. “Do we do this first? Or do you need medication or food straight away?”
“We?”
“Figure of speech, dickhead.”
Shay liked it when Ollie forgot himself and bantered with him like they were friends. It made the ethereal glow of the two crazy-hot kisses they’d shared seem almost normal. Manageable. Yeah, that was a better word—there was nothing normal about the way Ollie kissed him.
“Shay.”
Fuck. Shay made an effort to pull himself together. “I need to check my levels before I know what I need. I think it’s low. It feels like a low.”
“Okay. Hold out your hand.”
“You’re going to do it?”
“Corina showed me how last night. In case this ever happened when we were alone. She worries about you.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It’s precious. Hold out your hand.”
Shay held out his hand, oddly fascinated by Ollie’s earnest frown, even though he’d seen it a hundred times before, and grateful that Corina had possessed the foresight to prep Ollie on his tendency to flake after a show. Perhaps he could’ve stuck his own finger, but he didn’t want to. He wanted Ollie to do it.
Ollie pricked Shay’s finger with far more care than anyone else, Shay included, ever had. He squeezed the tiny drop of blood into the monitor, then wiped Shay’s finger clean. “You’ll have to tell me what the numbers mean. I haven’t googled it yet.”
Shay cringed. “Don’t google it. I don’t want you to know what a wreck I can be.”
“You’re joking, right?”
Shay wasn’t, but he took Ollie’s point. They’d hardly seen each other since their stroll in the park had turned magical, but the shift between them since that day was palpable. They weren’t friends, and they weren’t lovers, but they were something.
The glucose monitor beeped. Shay squinted at the numbers and forced himself to make sense of them. “I need a Lucozade. And then maybe a sandwich? One of those horrible brown ones that taste like doormats?”
“Okay, mate.” Ollie chuckled and got to his feet.
He disappeared again. Shay counted his footsteps and tried to stay awake. It wasn’t a dramatic low—just a blip—but it would be oh-so easy to lie down and go to sleep, let the hypo take him wherever it wanted. Not because he wanted to die or anything, but simply because he was tired.
“Shay, come on.” Ollie helped Shay sit up and held a bottle of Lucozade to his lips. “Drink up. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I know that,” Shay grumbled, but he let Ollie pour the sickly sweet drink into his mouth until he was stable enough to hold it himself.
He drained the bottle. It would take fifteen minutes or so to fully kick in, but he felt better already. He reached for Ollie. Found his hands. “Thank you.”
“No worries. I’m working on that sandwich, okay? Just sit tight.”
Shay curled up on the couch and watched Ollie tap out messages on his phone until Jumbo appeared with a hessian sandwich. “Last one in the petrol station. Think they reckoned I was a stoner.”
“You are.” Shay sat up. “Thanks, though.”
