Neither of them spoke at first.
The waiting room TV played something cheerful, with the volume too low to hear properly, and the contrast felt crude.
Matty glanced at Sloan’s hands. “You okay?”
Sloan’s laugh was short and humourless. “No.”
Matty nodded, like that was the only honest answer either of them could give.
“She’s going to be fine,” Matty said, not because she knew it, but because Sloan needed to hear it.
Sloan’s eyes stayed on the corridor where they’d taken Gloria. “She’s going to use this,” she said quietly. “She’ll use it to prove she can’t be left. To prove I can’t have a life of my own.”
Matty’s throat tightened. She shifted slightly, and Sloan looked away.
“Maybe,” Matty said. “But maybe she’s also just scared.”
Sloan’s gaze flicked back to her, intense. “She’s not scared.”
Matty held it. “She was on the floor, soaked through, in pain. She was scared…and humiliated. She just doesn’t know how to be anything other than defensive.”
“Why do you always defend her?”
“I’m not defending her. I’m trying to understand her, so this all gets easier for you.”
Sloan’s jaw worked. For a second, the ice-queen mask slipped, and there was something underneath it that looked dangerously like grief.
Matty reached out slowly, giving Sloan time to pull away if she wanted. Her fingers settled over Sloan’s knuckles.
Sloan didn’t move.
She just let Matty hold her there, in the middle of a busy A&E waiting room, while the world carried on around them.
Chapter twenty-nine
Dosed up on painkillers and with a borrowed walking cane, Gloria was in her element in the front seat of the second taxi Sloan had booked that night—or was it morning by now? She’d lost all track of time hours ago.
Matty yawned, her head dropping onto Sloan’s shoulder. “What time is it?”
“Don’t know—gone two, though,” Sloan said.
The car turned a corner and Matty jolted, realising where they were. “My flat’s just around the corner, if you want to—”
“I don’t want to,” Sloan said. Then, a fraction softer, “But if you do...”
Matty lowered her voice, “No. I just didn’t want to assume.”
“I’d say if I’d changed my mind.” Sloan turned to face her, expression settled, gaze fixed on Matty.
Matty nodded.
“What are you two whispering about in the back?” Gloria said. She tipped her head towards the driver and added in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear, “They’re at it.”
“We are not...at it,” Sloan said.
“They are. That’s why the scruffy one is looking after me. They think I’m stupid.”
The taxi driver’s eyes flicked to the mirror, amusement plain on his face.
