Page 108 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

He shakes his head, even as he rubs his dark-rimmed eyes. “I need to be here when she wakes up.”

My heart aches for him. Whatever is going on with them is breaking him. I know exactly what that's like. “And you will be. Just down the hall. I'll call you the second she asks for you.”

“But—”

“Rhys. I promise.”

He looks at her for a long moment, then finally relents. He leans over her sleeping form, brushes his knuckles along her cheek, and says something to her too low for me to catch. Then he goes, without another word, past me and out the door.

I strip down to a pair of pyjama pants and slide into the bed beside her. She stirs, eyes fluttering half open.

“Hey, Zachary,” she says with a smile so sweet I almost forget the worry still coursing through my body. “Where's Rhys?”

“I told him to go get some rest. I can call him back if you want him.”

“No.” Her voice is thick with sleep, but there's no hesitation in it. “I tried to tell him to get some sleep whenever I woke up. But I think he stayed with me all night.”

“He did.” I settle in next to her, careful of the bruising along her hip. “He was out of his mind worried about you. We all were.”

There's a little cheeky sparkle in her eye that sends a cool wave of relief through me. She's coming back to herself. “Really? You as well? Worried over little ol' me. I thought you were done with me.”

I let out a short laugh, more breath than sound. It doesn't cover the regret in my chest for the things I said to her. “Lex. I nearly took a paramedic's head off for making me wait three minutes to see you. Worried doesn't cover it.”

“I like that.” A tiny yawn.

“Yeah? Why's that?”

She shrugs and burrows down into the pillow, a hand by her face. “I like that you care about me.”

“You didn't really doubt that though, did you?”

She doesn't answer.

I lay my hand on top of hers, and she lets me. “You can not possibly comprehend how much I care about you. There is no value high enough to express what you mean to me.” We talk for a while, low and quiet, just catching up on what's happened over the last twenty-four hours. It's easy, like it's always been. Just her and me. At one point she smiles and looks up at me, eyes sleepy, and then I'm leaning in to kiss her. Soft and slow, sweet and secretive, something just between us. Her hand comes up to rest against my jaw, pressing a cool palm against my skin but burning forever into my DNA.

When we break apart I stroke a hand over her hair. “Get some more sleep. I'll be here when you wake up.”

She nods once and is out again within seconds.

I don't know how much later it is when something shifts the mattress and pulls me half out of sleep. I crack an eye open and find Marcus climbing onto the bed on her other side, careful not to jostle her.

Neither of us says anything. There's nothing to say. We just look at each other over the top of her head for a second, and then it's understood — the same wordless understanding that's made the four of us such good friends and business partners all these years.

I don't sleep, just enjoying the feel of her body shifting with her breath under my hand on her hip.

She wakes a while after that, blinking up at Marcus first.

“Hey... how are you?” she mutters.

“How am I?” He huffs out a little incredulous laugh. “How are you?”

She scoffs. “I'm fine. You lot are making way too big a fuss.”

“There's no such thing as too big a fuss.” He runs a thumb along her cheek, careful of the cut and bruise near her hairline, and leans down to kiss her, natural, like they've been doing it for years. When he pulls back his voice has gone rough. “Just glad to see you smiling, Lexi-Lou.”

I'm not entirely sure what to do with the sight of it, watching him with her like that, some knot in my chest tightening. I pull her back gently into me instead, and Marcus rolls his eyes but doesn't fight it, just shifts closer instead of away.

“You look beautiful, baby,” he tells her.