“Who are you calling an old man?” he muttered, grinned, and then his eyes closed again.
Everett laughed heartily, and I giggled into his chest. Even though his eyes were closed, Deacon’s chest rose and fell in light laughter. Everett leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes as he laughed.
“I guess he’s doing alright,” he said. “Damn man’s a tank, I swear.”
“He is,” I agreed.
“Do you want me to put on the TV?” Everett asked, reaching for the remote, but I shook my head.
“No, actually,” I said, and he paused. “The doctor said that flashing lights or screens of any kind would be a bad idea for a day or so. Apparently, that’s common concussion protocol.”
“Oh,” Everett said, then grinned and held up a finger. “I have an idea, then.”
I watched as Everett disappeared into the storage closet in the back hallway and then came back with a trunk. Curious, I leaned forward a little, and Deacon awoke, his sleepy, swimmy eyes floating over to his friend. Everett sat the trunk down on the floor and opened it up.
“Records?” I asked, confused. “You have old records?”
“I collect them. So does Deacon, but not quite to the level I do. We bonded over that when we met. We were both weirdos who liked old classical music records. That piece of ridiculous furniture over there is a record player.”
He pointed to a long desk along the wall that I thought was a small buffet table or something. When he pointed it out, it immediately became clear, and he walked over and opened the top to prove the point. Inside was a pristine, classic record player.
“I think a little Vivaldi would be good,” Everett said. “But the Beatles would be better.”
I grinned as Everett pulled out a vintage record and put it on the player, dropping the needle and turning the speakers on. As it crackled to life, I sank into Deacon’s chest and closed my eyes. They burned when shut, a testament to how tired I was and how long they had been open.
Deacon shifted, and I sat up so he could move his arm back down beside him. At first, I thought he didn’t want me lying on him and was prepared to move a bit further away and let him rest. Then his hand fell on mine and clenched, and I smiled. Our fingers interlaced again, and I bent down to kiss the back of his hand.
“I’m not hurting you lying on your chest, am I?” I asked.
“No,” he said, his voice weak and faraway, but not like it was strained. The medicine must have been working.
“Okay, good. If it does, just let me know.”
His head nodded once, then turned toward me, his eyes shut, and he exhaled through his nose as his whole body relaxed.
“I think I’m going to get some shut-eye,” Everett said. “Morning comes early, and I’ll need to go in to pick up slack now that we have gimpy here. Good night.”
“Good night,” I said.
I glanced at the clock on the tablet set up on the kitchen island. It said two in the morning. Poor Everett was going to have to be up in just a couple of hours. But the silent conversation there had been simple. He was going to go to work because I was going to stay with Deacon. And he was right. As I laid my head on his chest and we listened to music in the quiet of the night, I knew I wasn’t going to let go of him again, as long as he wanted me.
We didn’t talk again that night, but sometime before the music ended, we slipped off to sleep.
27
DEACON
DEACON
Concussion be damned, my body knew what time it was. As the sun began casting pale rays of light over the mountains, giving the sky a pinkish hue to join the dark blue of night, my eyes opened briefly. I looked around and then tried to move my head to get a better view, only to suddenly remember why moving around was a bad idea.
Pain shot in spikes down my neck, through my shoulder, and all the way down my left arm. It was enough to make me take a sharp breath and freeze, and then my eyes clenched shut as I leaned back and tried to force myself to relax.
My head was throbbing, a deep, rolling headache that started at the base of my skull and cast a net over the top of it. I clenched my eyes shut tighter and tried to focus on relaxing again. Anything to make the pressure go away.
It was then that I realized I wasn’t alone. The fingers on my right hand were linked with another’s. Rebecca was curled onto my stomach. Her serene face calm and peaceful as she slept, a pillow stuffed between our bodies, presumably for my comfort as well as hers.