His mother stepped up to the bed, bending down to hug him. “>”
Kyle winced at the time frame, eyes darting over to Jamie. No wonder Jamie had reacted how he did. “Me, too, Mama. But a week?”
“I had you in stasis,” Gracie said from her spot in the doorway. “And seeing that you are more awake now, I’m going to have to ask everyone to clear the room. I need to run some checkups.”
She was polite but firm in her request, and everyone knew better than to disobey. Kyle got a round of hugs from everyone, but two from Phaedra, who darted back for another one.
“>” she said in halting Russian, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
Kyle smiled at her, tweaking one of her Senegalese twists with gentle fingers. “Your Russian is getting better.”
She smiled widely at him. “Been practicing.”
“I can see that. Go with Mama and Papa. I’ll see you later, okay?”
Phaedra waved goodbye at him before hurrying out into the hallway with the rest of the family. Jamie hooked a foot around the nearest chair and dragged it closer to sit in it. He reached for Kyle’s hand and took hold of it again. Kyle had to fight back the instinctive reaction to pull away and keep his distance in order to hide his feelings.
“Does everyone on base know about us now?” Kyle asked.
“Yes,” Jamie said.
Kyle sighed. “How fucked are we?”
Jamie shrugged, unconcerned. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Jamie—”
“Kyle? It doesn’t matter. I’m not willing to hide our relationship anymore.” Jamie’s mouth twitched at the corners, a shade of a smile curving his lips. “Besides, my mother wants to meet you.”
“She’s already met me.”
“Not as my fiancé.”
Kyle tightened his grip on Jamie’s hand. “Okay.”
It’s not that he hadn’t thought about the day he would be formally introduced to Jamie’s parents as their son’s future husband, but he never thought it would happen like this.
Light flickered above him and Kyle’s attention shifted to the scans populating the holoscreens above his biobed. Gracie spread them out, expanding some and shifting others to the side. Kyle tried to make sense of it all, but medical jargon was like a foreign language.
“How did you bring me back?” he asked quietly.
Gracie left the holoscreens alone and settled one hand on the side of the biobed, the other on Kyle’s left wrist. Her touch was warm, and he let Gracie get her own read on him through her power.
“When Tessa teleported you to Medical, you had no heartbeat and had suffered significant blood loss. Some of the blood loss I believe happened prior to getting shot in the chest, most likely at the condo. There was evidence of a gut wound that had closed, but hadn’t healed.”
Jamie’s grip became almost painfully tight. Kyle turned his head to look at him. “You don’t have to stay for this.”
“I lived through it,” Jamie got out through gritted teeth. “And you almost didn’t.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to relive it.”
Jamie laughed hollowly, shaking his head. “You think I haven’t been? Every time I close my eyes, all I see is the way you looked when I shot you.”
Kyle flexed his fingers, getting Jamie to ease his grip a little. He wasn’t going to argue with Jamie—truthfully, he didn’t want Jamie out of his sight right now—but someday soon Kyle wanted to know what he couldn’t remember.
“Not going anywhere,” Kyle murmured.
Gracie tapped her fingers against his pulse a few times before removing her hand. “The bullet damaged the right atrium of your heart before exiting your body. Your heart wasn’t beating by the time I got my hands on you and it took some work to bring you back. Once I had a pulse, I made the decision to put you into stasis and work a regen treatment on you while you were under.”
