“He went home to take care of the girls. He’ll be back tonight. We’re going to switch,” April said, sipping her coffee.
“You don’t need to,” Ryder said in a loud voice, his eyes still closed.
“Or we could leave the girls with the neighbors again . . . “ she trailed off, thinking.
“Or you could just leave, seeing as I have enough babysitters already,” Ryder said again, but everyone continued to ignore him.
“Well, you need babysitters,” Lucah said, picking up the guitar and plucking a string that let out a sound of dissonance. “When was the last time you tuned this thing?” He fiddled with the strings and kept tuning.
“This is hell. I must be dead, because this is hell,” Ryder said. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Sloane. She pretended to be watching Lucah, but I could tell she was paying attention.
“Or maybe not,” he said so softly I almost didn’t hear it. Uh huh.
“Why don’t you guys head home for a while? Get a shower in and so forth. Sloane and I can handle things here,” April said and Sloane nodded. It would be nice to have a shower. Maybe Lucah and I could share it and I could give him a little TLC.
“How about it?” I said to Lucah.
“Okay, okay. You’re all going to pressure me into it anyway.” He put the guitar down and got up, putting his arm around me.
“Don’t you dare do anything while I’m gone. I have all the nurses watching you,” Lucah said to Ryder, who didn’t open his eyes.
Ryder remained silent as Lucah and I gathered all of our things. Lucah took my hand as we walked toward the elevator.
“How are you holding up? Did you get any sleep?”
He pushed the button to go down as if it took a lot out of him. Now that we weren’t in the room with Ryder anymore, Lucah was wilting by the second.
“A little bit, but not much. I think I’m too tired to sleep at this point.” I knew what he meant.
“Well, we’ll go home and take a shower and you can take a nap and I’ll make you something to eat. How does that sound?”
“Perfection,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “What did I do before you, Sunshine? I can’t remember and I don’t want to.”
“You survived somehow, I guess. And you didn’t do a bad job of it.” He leaned on me and I thought he was going to fall asleep standing up, but the elevator reached the first floor and his eyes flew open.
“Let’s get you home,” I said, dragging him out of the elevator.
16
We only meant to spend about an hour at home, but after Lucah fell asleep in the shower, I dragged him out and tipped him onto the bed, where he continued to sleep.
I did a quick clean of the apartment, emptied the dishwasher and blow dried my hair before pulling a frozen pizza out of the freezer and putting it in the oven. Sloane wasn’t conveniently around to make me an elaborate four-course meal. My cooking skills had been crippled by having too many good cooks in my life.
While the pizza cooked, I sat on the couch and closed my eyes for a moment. I thought about climbing in bed next to Lucah, but I figured I’d let him have the bed to himself.
The next time I opened my eyes, the timer was going off and the smell of pizza filled the house. I got up, and stumbled to turn the oven off, but didn’t take the pizza out. I wanted to wait until Lucah was awake.
I went in to check on him and decided not to wake him yet. His wet hair was all over the place, and he was sleeping on his back, which he almost never did unless he was exhausted. I stood beside the bed and pushed some of his hair out of his eyes. He was going to have a hell of a cowlick when he woke up. I had to stop watching him because it made my heart feel like it was going to burst, and I wanted to cry.
I backed out of the room and shut the door, moving back to the couch and turning on the television for a little while.
Two hours later, I heard noises in the bedroom and Lucah emerged, his eyes still squinty with sleep and his hair something else entirely.
“Good morning, my love.” He groped his way toward the couch and collapsed down next to me. He was naked when he’d gone to bed, but he’d put some boxers on before he came out.
“What time is it?”
“Uh, nearly nine.”
“Shit, we should get back.” He tried to get up, but didn’t quite make it.
“It’s okay. Sloane and April and Tate have it. I’ve been texting them.” He nodded.
“Are you hungry? There’s pizza. I didn’t do anything fancy with it, but I’ve been keeping it warm in the oven for you.” His stomach growled as if it had been listening to me.
“Be right back.” I went and got the pizza, cut slices and put them on paper towels because I was too lazy for plates.
“Dinner is served. Do you want something to drink?” He nodded.
“Thank you, this is great.” I grabbed two bottles of water and sat back down with him while we each inhaled our first slice, and then went back for seconds and thirds. I’d never eaten that much pizza in my life. Between the two of us, we finished the entire thing in less than ten minutes.
“That was the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Lucah said, folding his hands on his stomach and leaning back.
“Food always tastes better when you’re really hungry,” I said, trying to figure out if I could get up from the couch.
“Yes it does. But still. We should probably get back.” He actually made it to his feet this time.
“Um, you might want to put some pants on first. And maybe a shirt,” I said as he pulled me up as well. I’d just thrown a robe on when I got out of the shower, so I had to actually get dressed.
What seemed like hours later, but was only a few minutes, we were dressed and heading back to the hospital.
“Will you stay the entire night again?” I said.
“I think I should, at least until they release him, which will probably be tomorrow. And speaking of that, I need to ask you something. I’ve been thinking about it all day, but I wanted to ask you before we make any final arrangements.” I waited as we rode down the elevator to the first floor.
“And what is that?”
His eyes watched the numbers go down instead of looking at my face. “I, uh, want Ryder to move in with us.”
My jaw hit the floor. Or at least close to it.
“I just don’t think we should send him back where he was, wherever that was. The people he was living with haven’t even bothered to call, or check in on him even though they knew that he was in the hospital. Plus, they’re part of the problem. We talked today, and he told me that he’s been trying to get off drugs for a while now, but they were always high, so it wasn’t the best environment for him to quit in. And I feel partially responsible for what happened. For not being there for him.” I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but I didn’t think that was going to get me anywhere. I got over my initial shock pretty damn fast.