He holds me tighter. “You, Julian, Emerald,everyone. You’re… very missed.”
When we finally pull apart, I study his face. “You look kind of awful.”
He gives a sad smile and chucks me under the chin with a fingertip. “I reckon so.” Nodding sideways toward the hospital, he says, “Couldn’t let you do this alone, however you may feel about me. And I’m terribly worried for Julian. How is he?”
“I don’t know yet.” As we start toward the entrance, I reflexively take Alexander’s hand, then drop it. “Sorry,” I mutter.
The knot of journalists catch sight of us, and Alexander drapes an arm protectively around my shoulders. As all three of them crowd me, blurting out questions, Alexander shoves away the extended arm of one who gets his phone too close to my face.
“Off you fuck, then,” he tells the man in an efficient tone. “There’s a good lad.”
In seconds, we’re past and inside, where I practically run to the reception desk, pulling free of Alexander. As we get into the elevator, two other people are about to step in with us. Alexander again puts an arm out, warding them off and earning an indignant sputter from the two older ladies. I smile, looking down at my feet as the doors close, remembering us in Melbourne when I told that old couple to take the next elevator because Alexander and I were going to have sex in that one.
I try for a weak joke to break the silence. “We’re, uh, not gonna fuck in here this time.”
“More’s the pity.” He leans against the wall. “Though we didn’t that time either. Not until hours later.”
We watch each other as the elevator hums upward.
“How are you?” he asks quietly.
“Oh, great,great. Thanks, yep.” I do a slow nod. “I mean, my brother might be—fuck, I don’t even know—like, in a coma? And my last four races were varying degrees of garbage, and… oh! I also got my heart broken. So it’s been a gas. And you? How’s tricks?”
I want to sink into the floor and disappear, because I wasn’t going for “rant”; I was hoping for wry and irreverent. But my voice got louder with each sentence and cracked like a twelve-year-old boy’s, and my eyes are stinging and I wantso badto throw myself into Alexander’s arms. The fact that he rushed here to be with me is a little swoony.
His eyebrows lift and it draws my attention to that tender white scar and I want to cry.
“Well,” he says, sounding tired, “Badrick got married, so that’s lovely. As for me, I turned into, erm…” He waves a vague hand at himself.
I scowl. “Are you eating? Your cheeks are hollow, though the beard covers it a little. You’re a cross between eighties goth-band skinny and pale and… uh, Grizzly Adams.”
He smiles cautiously. “I’ve no clue who that is. This?” He touches his profusion of facial hair, and I can almost feel my hand there too.
“Mmm-hmm. Hokey TV show about a mountain man with a pet bear. My mom liked it.”
The elevator chimes and I squeeze out the barely open door. I race-walk down the corridor with Alexander at my heels, and as I zero in on the room, my stomach is trembling like it’s full of ice—I’m so scared of what I’m going to see. Will Jules be all limp and gray with tubes sticking out? Beeping machines and a hysterical Priya draped over his legs?
As I round the corner, I stop so quickly that Alexander runs into my back, then grasps my shoulders to steady me.
Jules is sitting up in bed, Priya in a chair beside him, and they’re both looking at their phones.
“Got it in three,” Jules says with a teasing smugness. He turns his phone screen to show Priya, andhe’s playing Wordle, for fuck’s sake. “In your face,” he adds.
She snorts. “More likeyourface,” she returns. “Which of us has another black eye, hmm? And I guessed it in four.” She leans to look at his phone. “Tsk!You just got lucky.”
“Um, hello?” I say.
They swivel to look, and Priya jumps up and hurries to me,yanking me into an embrace. Once she lets me go, I make eye contact with Jules, who offers a nervous fingertip-wave.
“Hey, Sage,” he says, voice tentative.
“Hey, fuckwit.” A wave of sorrow and relief and just plain love crashes over me and the next thing I know I’m on the edge of the bed, holding him hard. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. Do you hear me?Never… again.”
A shiver passes through him like he’s trying not to cry. “I really fucked up. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t have it planned or anything, and—”
“I know,” I breathe against his cotton-gown-clad shoulder.
“And I’m not asking you to trust me, because I haven’t earned it.”
