“You can stay, if you want. It’s completely up to you. Don’t feel as if you’re intruding.” This was the first time Sloane was actually cautious about overstepping boundaries, which showed me, again, how much she liked Ryder.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s okay. Have a good night.” She hugged both of us. And then there were two.
“Hey, how are you holding up?” I reached across the table for Lucah’s hands. I felt like I needed constant contact with him, to show him I was here, and I loved him.
“I’m doing okay. Sorry about earlier. I kind of lost it, I guess.” His face went a little red.
“You can lose it any time you want, Lucah Blythe. I lose it on you just about every day. In fact, I think I’ve filled my yearly quota of losing it. So never apologize for that.” My words made him smile, so we were getting somewhere.
“Do you want to stay all night? Or go home?”
“You can go home. I think I’m going to stay. Sleep isn’t really going to happen, and I can always crash in the chair in Ryder’s room if I have to. Oh, shit what about work?”
I held up my hand. “First of all, don’t worry about work. I have connections and I can get you out of it, second, I won’t be able to sleep if you’re here and I’m at home. So whatever you do, that’s what I’m doing.”
He nodded because he knew there was no point in arguing with me on this.
“They’re probably going to try and kick us out. I’m pretty sure visiting hours end in a little while,” he said as we dumped our trays and went to take the elevator back up to Ryder’s room.
“We could always bribe the nurses. What do you think they’d want?” I leaned against Lucah. I was exhausted, but not the kind of exhausted where I wanted to sleep. No, I knew sleep was far away, in a place I couldn’t reach.
“I could offer sexual favors,” he said, sticking out his tongue. There was his sense of humor.
“Yeah, I’m sure they would love that, but I’m not good at sharing.”
Ryder was awake when we got back to his room, and flipping through the channels on the small television mounted on the wall. He’d also propped his bed up and had pushed the sleeves of his hospital gown up so everyone would have full view of his tattoos.
“Feeling better?” Lucah said, and Ryder nodded.
“You here to watch me?” Ryder said, his voice still ragged.
Lucah opened his mouth, probably to say something about him needing to be watched, but then he changed his mind.
“Do you need watching?”
Ryder lifted one shoulder.
“You tell me.”
They weren’t going to get anywhere like that.
“I’m not playing this game with you, Ryder. We don’t have to talk about it right now. But we will talk, understand? There will be lots and lots of talking and you won’t be able to avoid it. We’re going to talk so much we’ll probably lose our voices and then we’ll talk some more.” Ryder was silent after Lucah’s speech.
I half expected him to throw a tantrum like a child, but he just turned his attention back to the television and kept flipping the channels.
Lucah found an extra chair and brought it into the room so there was one for each of us and then got out his phone.
“Visiting hours end at nine,” Ryder said after several minutes of complete silence.
“Good to know,” Lucah responded, looking up from his phone. I’d been reading a book on mine.
“Which means you will have to leave.”
“I’m not a visitor. I’m family. And I’m not leaving,” Lucah said, giving Ryder a smug smile.
“They’re going to kick you out.”
“No, I don’t think they will.” He said it without looking up from his phone. I didn’t know how strict the policy was, but if anyone could get the nurses to bend it, it would be Lucah.