“Nope. Tell me.”
“I need to sleep.” His eyes close again.
I sigh, curling into a ball next to him.
Five days of sleeping—if it can be called that—in the hospital’s plastic chairs hit me in a wave. The two days here at the homestead on my own have been just as bad. I sink into the space Cord makes for me, matching my breaths to his longer ones.
“I missed you,” I murmur, enjoying the sensation of being close to him again, free of beeping machines.
“I was aware. Sometimes,” Cord says softly.
I raise my head.
He stares at the ceiling, lines deepening across his brow as he stares at something I can’t see.
“In the hospital?” I frown.
“When I first went in, I think. I could see the doctor, and the nurses, either just after I went in or while I recovered, but before I woke properly. I saw you, too,” he adds.
“Okay.” I blink, trying to piece together what he’s saying. “You had moments of lucidity?”
“I saw them, looked straight at them. But they didn’t see me. The same as last time.”
I watch him. Anyone else might think he’d hallucinated, but something in his tone says otherwise.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I traced the lines of his stomach under his shirt.
Cord shifts, inhaling deeper breaths and letting them out as he seems to find a more comfortable position on the bed. Then he lets out a hiss and catches my hand. “That tickles. I didn’t tell anyone because even my bank balance won’t save me from becoming a pincushion in a pretty, expensive cage.”
I hiccup a laugh, stretching out next to him.
He hauls me onto his chest.
“You’re not supposed to?—”
“I’ve imagined you in my arms for a week, Lanie.”
“Mmm,” I murmur. “What’s it like?”
“Being out?” Cord falls silent.
I bite my tongue, the sharp pain pushing away the guilt of asking, prying.I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Time passes. Not like here. When you wake after rest, you can tell you’ve had a good night’s sleep, or a bad one, that it’s five in the morning, and you need to haul yourself out of bed.”
“But?” I prompt gently.
“Waking up from that is like emerging from being very deep underwater. There’s a sort of pressure and a nothingness.” He jerks his head, once, and presses his hand to it. “I can’t explain.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
“Is it prying to try to understand what someone you—what someone is going through? It’s okay, Lanie.” He strokes my hair.
“I love you, Cord.” The words tumble out, but they’re true, and I told him when he wasn’t awake, so I don’t bother trying to stop them.
Cord’s fingers still in my hair and then resume their stroking. “It’s good to hear you say it.”
I smile into his chest. “My rear, however, hates me. Those plastic chairs have permanently reshaped me.”
