“I wasn’t.” Ollie handed Shay a plate of cheese on toast. “The only reason I’d be relieved that it’s not always like this is for your sake.”
Shay sighed. “It’s the tour, I think. At home, I can have days when I forget I even have diabetes, I mean apart from the tests. I can go weeks sometimes without a low, and I never get highs unless I’m super stressed and run down.”
“Are you super stressed?”
“Not anymore.”
Ollie made an executive decision not to pull at that thread. It was five o’clock in the morning and he was done with the heavy. He brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He’d put the heating on, but the air still held a chill. Putting his T-shirt back on was the obvious answer, but after so long fighting to keep himself hidden, something inside him wouldn’t let him do it. He didn’t feel set free, but he felt… something.
It helped that Shay hadn’t mentioned it. That he seemed able to casually touch Ollie’s skin without truly looking at it.I can do this.
Shay finished eating. Ollie took the plate and passed him his medical bag. When he got back from the kitchen, Shay was lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, legs half under the covers.
Ollie slid into bed beside him. “You wanna sleep?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.”
It was such a complete echo of Ollie’s own mind that he laughed. Shay blinked and then laughed too, though his bemusement was clear.
Ollie drew the duvet up and over them, then lay back against the pillows and lifted his good arm. “How about I stick the TV on, eh? We can watch some shit and see what happens.”
In answer, Shay wriggled across the bed and slid his long slender body against Ollie, threw his leg over Ollie’s thighs, and dropped his head on Ollie’s chest. It was more perfect than terrifying, and Ollie buried a hand in Shay’s still-damp hair. He pressed his lips to the crown of Shay’s head and rubbed the back of his neck.
Shay was asleep in moments.
Chapter Twenty
Waking upin unfamiliar places was Shay’s normal, but on the bus, no matter where they ended up, the bed—narrow and short—was always the same.
Ollie’s bed was different. Soft and warm, and finally a pillow that smelled like him. A redundant pillow, as it turned out, because Ollie wasright there.
Ignoring his lingering gut ache, Shay slowly sat up to gaze at his sleeping bedmate.Wow. Ollie’s handsome looks had always knocked Shay for six, even when he’d tried so hard to hide from Shay, and like this, dead asleep in his own bed, he took Shay’s breath away.
Unbidden, Shay’s eyes drifted to the mass of scars that covered Ollie’s left side. The shock he’d expected to hit him last night—or this morning… whenever Ollie had lost his shit and flung his T-shirt away—was still absent, perhaps because Ollie had spent every moment since he’d revealed to Shay that the scars existed convincing Shay he’d never see them. Or maybe it was another insulin crisis clouding Shay’s brain.
Or maybe Shay just wasn’t shocked. Maybe the sadness in his heart was enough. Not because Ollie’s perfect body was no longer perfect, but because he’d been hurt. Was still hurting. Even though the scars were long healed.
Shay’s fingers itched to touch Ollie. To trace the raised flesh and commit it to memory before Ollie pushed him away again. But Shay didn’t touch Ollie. He tore his gaze away from the scars and instead lost himself in Ollie’s strong chest and subtly ripped abs. Because Ollie’s bodywasperfect. More than that. Ollie was beautiful, and that he didn’t know it broke Shay’s heart.
Ollie shifted in his sleep. He rolled over, reaching for something. Shay offered his hand. Ollie took it and stilled, his face as peaceful as Shay had ever seen it.
Careful not to jostle him, Shay plucked his medical bag from the bedside table and managed a one-handed blood test, a skill he’d perfected years ago when he’d refused to put his harmonica down long enough to use both hands. His levels had tipped high again. He shot some insulin, then lay back down. He’d need to eat soon, but right now, there was nothing on earth that would make him leave this bed.Just five more minutes.
* * *
“Shay.”
“Hmm? Wha—” Shay opened his eyes. Somehow he’d dozed off again and wound up with his head dumped on Ollie’s abdomen.Shit.“Sorry.”
He started to sit up.
Ollie eased him back down. “It’s okay. I was wondering if you needed anything. You told me not to let you sleep all day.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah. You don’t remember?”
Shay let out an unintelligible sound. “I feel like I’ve had twenty pints every night for the last year.”
