With Tanner’s help, I steer Kai to a waiting ambulance. They strip his shirt and find the gash on his shoulder that’s leaking claret all over the place.
“You need sutures,” the paramedic says.
Kai opens his mouth to protest, but she’s a take-no-shit kind of woman and points her pen at Tanner and me. “Take your buddy to the hospital.”
She gets no argument from us.
Tanner drives. He stays with us until they take the bandages off, then I wave him away.
I watch the doctor stitch Kai up, tracking the needle as she weaves her sorcery. By some blessed twist of fate, Kai has no other serious injuries. A few bumps and scrapes. Eyes that are somehow wide and hooded at the same time.
The doctor makes him stay a few hours. She wants him to rest, but I know him. He’s wired, and I know why.
“You want me to check on that complete stranger you risked your life for?”
Of course he does. Kai licks his dry lips. “Please.”
I don’t know my way around American hospitals. But the nurses take pity on me. They can’t tell me shit about the man Kai rescued. Just that he’s alive and he’s likely to stay that way. I hope it’s enough.
Kai nods when I tell him. Nothing else. I wrap my arms around him and kiss his temple. “Wanna go home?”
“Can we go to Winooski?”
“To your place?”
He tightens his death grip on my forearms and nods.
I kiss him again. “Course we can. Tanner left me his car.”
Kai still hates Tanner’s car. He scowls with his hand on the roof, but I’m not in the mood for this bollocks right now.
“Get in.” I open the door. “We’re safe, I promise.”
I have no idea what he’s thinking. His expression is distant, and it’s a dark and strange night as we head out of Burlington. I want to tell him I love him. That everything we were afraid of doesn’t need to be our reality, but I’m not sure he’ll hear me.
Despite Kai’s hatred of the old Jeep, it’s an easy car to drive on the quiet Vermont roads.
I steal glances at Kai’s profile. He’s staring ahead, focused and yet unseeing. I drop a hand on his thigh. He covers it with his own and smiles, but it’s absent.
He’sabsent.
His creekside shack can’t come soon enough.
I pull up outside. Kill the engine and lights and jump out, at Kai’s door before he can unclip his belt.
He startles.
I rest my hands on his shoulders, ignoring the thick bandage around his left bicep. “It’s me. We’re home.”
Home. It’s a different place to where we’ve slept together so many times, but it doesn’t feel wrong to say it.
To feel it.
I help Kai out of the car. He’s walking fine, but he’s zoned out as I guide him to the door and dig the keys from his pocket.
He doesn’t even notice the grocery bag from the all-night store on the tiny porch. Just steps over it like it’s always been there.
I let him go and scoop up the bag. There’s a note on top.
