It made him human.
Painfully.
Terribly.
Human.
I looked toward the nurses’ station.
The ICU nurse on duty was charting. She knew me. We had survived night shifts together. She glanced up, saw my badge, saw my face, and understood enough not to ask questions right away.
“Five minutes,” she said quietly.
I nodded.
Five minutes.
A lifetime.
A theft.
A mercy.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room was dim except for the glow of machines and the muted light above the bed. The air was cool. Mechanical. Every sound meant something. Every beep, every hiss, every soft click of fluid moving through tubing.
I stood at the foot of the bed for several seconds because my feet refused to carry me closer.
Then I saw his hand.
Resting on top of the blanket.
Bruised around the knuckles.
Scarred.
Big.
Warm once.
I had thought about Dylan’s hands more than I ever admitted. His hands washing red paint from mine. His hands pulling me from panic without making me feel trapped. His hands stopping when other men might have taken. His hands giving me the mother-of-pearl cuff like it was nothing, when it had never been nothing to me.
Now one of those hands lay open and still.
That broke me.
Not all the way.
Just enough to move.
I crossed the room and sat in the chair beside his bed.
The chair that did not belong to me.
The thought hit so hard I almost stood back up.
Georgia’s chair.
