“New Friend Dave is cool.” Patrick’s voice is weak, and he has a big, kind of alarming bandage around his head.
“He is very cool,” I agree as I rub my eyes.
We both get quiet.
Fuck.
This is all so bad, and neither of us knows what to say.
“I know. I don’t look great,” he admits.
“I think you look alive. Just with fancy head dressings.”
Patrick loosely waves a hand. “Fucking pickles, of all things.”
“You’re gonna be okay.”
“Agreed. No way a pickle truck is gonna take me out.” He clears his throat. “I don’t even goddamn like pickles.”
I’m on board. Sort of. “That would be an impossibly stupid way to die. Offensive even. I prohibit it. I’ll never eat another—”
Patrick shakes the phone and laughs. “Ugh, you liar girl! No, I don’t care if you still want to fucking eat pickles.”
“Even all the—” I start to ask tentatively while I give him a little smile.
“Yes, even all the things I hate. Jalapeños, kimchi, olives, and whatnot. Those pepperoncini things you put on every sandwich.”
“Then I will think of you fondly every time I enjoy a pickle-y item.”
He starts to react, then puts a hand to his bandage. “Don’t make me laugh. I have me just a wee bit of a head wound,” he says with an accent. Even in his state, he’s still all about his Irish roots.
And then we stop talking and look at each other, silent for a few moments, and I know both of us are awash with relief now that the worst is over.
“I love you, Patrick.”
He clutches his head, but still nods. “Love you back, Diana. And don’t fucking cry because then I’ll cry, and that will hurt my poor smashed-up brain.”
And so, for his sake, I do not let any happy tears fall. At least until after we hang up.
After a good, relieved cry in the hotel bathroom, I douse my face in freezing water to help the eye swelling that’s sure to show up tomorrow, and I emerge. Drained but happy.
David has made the bed and even sharply folded down a corner; it looks as though housekeeping came by. I’m surprised there’s not a chocolate on my pillow. There’s no way that he didn’t hear me bawling my eyes out just now, and I have no idea why this guy I just met has not run.
Not only has he not run, but he has waited me out, and now he’s ushering me into bed and turning off the lights when I am clearly so wrecked and so drained.
“Let me scoop you,” he says as we both get under the covers.
“Let you what me?” It’s hard to believe I’m actually laughing right now.
“Scoop you.” His voice is so cute, so silly, and he’s so clearly trying to comfort me as he cutely wrestles me in under the covers. “Like, the big-spoon, little-spoon thing the kids talk about.”
I roll onto my side and back up against him for a cuddle. “Like this?”
Dave touches my shoulder, then slowly moves his hand down my arm, then over my waist. He pulls me in closer. “Yes. A scoop.”
It takes more than a few minutes, but I relax my back into his chest and sigh into Dave’s hold. “I’m liking being scooped.”
I’m liking how I fall asleep without nightmares and how I wake up rested.
