I nodded and he guided me to sit on the couch in the living room where he’d been sitting. I could feel the warmth that his body had left and instead of being annoyed because I was already burning up, I sank into that warmth. There was an ache at the back of my throat, a prickling behind my eyes. I sucked in a shivery sigh. Emotions clashed inside me, chaotic, striking sparks off one another like atoms locked in a chemical reaction.
He returned with the ice-cold bottle and handed it to me. I pulled my knees up under me on the couch and he sat beside me, watching me closely. “You feeling okay?”
“Oh, peachy,” I rasped between desperate gulps. “I can see why the chemo defeats cancer… it’s so miserable and shitty that even I don’t want to be inside my own body anymore. I’m sure that’s why cancer decides to take a hike.”
He smiled half-heartedly, as if laughing at my joke would be too much—maybe even disrespectful. I rubbed at my hands. They felt swollen and yet they weren’t.
“Your hand hurts?” he asked.
“Everything hurts. I think I even have a migraine headache.”
His eyebrows twitched together. “I’m sorry. I at least know how much those suck.”
I shook my head. “Seriously, I can’t believe you deal with this shit all the time,” I said, pressing my hand to the throbbing ache in my forehead.
“You learn to live with it,” he said, watching me closely. “You’ve been sleeping a lot. Like, for days straight.”
I continued to rub my brow, the only part of my face I could still stand to touch. “Yeah, what day is it, anyway?”
“Sunday night.”
Two days. I’d lost two days. I blew out a breath. “Fuck.”
“You need to eat something.”
I shuddered and shook my head.
“Please. I can get you anything. Even if it’s a dry piece of bread.”
I cocked a brow at him.
“Or…not, I guess.”
My eyelids felt heavy over my eyes and my head was still pounding but I didn’t want to go back into the dark and be all alone again. I’m sure that after two days in bed I reeked. It was a good thing I couldn’t smell myself.
“What were you doing out here?”
He shrugged. “Just playing around on my tablet.”
“You’re not bored out of your skull sitting here all weekend?”
He fixed me with his dark gaze. “Nope. Why? Trying to get rid of me?”
“I think it would probably take several sticks of dynamite and a couple anvils to get rid of you.”
He smiled. “So I’m like that coyote in the cartoons?”
“Yeah, only Road Runner can’t run very fast these days.” My head sank to his shoulder.
“She looks pretty exhausted, I have to admit. Guess I won’t need my Acme motorized skateboard to chase after her…” He shifted, pulling me against him. I closed my eyes.
It felt good, even through the plethora of suckitude going on inside my body. I swallowed. “Maybe she stopped running because she doesn’t want to be chased anymore.”
“So when is she going to move in with the coyote so he can take care of her?”
I frowned through my brain haze. In truth I was a little surprised that he hadn’t brought the subject up again before this. “Meep. Meep,” I breathed with a light laugh, hoping he’d let me evade the subject with a little grace.
He didn’t reply, running a light hand over my back. “What do you need? Do you want to sit and watch a movie or…?”
My eyelids grew heavier by the second. “This feels good…right here…” My words were stumbling over each other, my tongue suddenly feeling thick.
His head shifted and he kissed my hair. “Okay. We can just sit like this, then.”
I fell asleep to the sound of his voice coming from inside his thick chest, relishing the feel of it vibrating against my cheek.
Chapter Ten
Adam
I leaned back against the couch and listened to her sleep. I knew I should have carried her to her room then. She’d hardly get the rest she needed leaning up against me. But I kept telling myself, “Just five more minutes.” I turned my head and smelled her hair. It smelled like her—straight and undiluted, not masked by hair products. I closed my eyes, that tight feeling pulling in my chest again. The sense of smell was a gatekeeper to vivid memories. I savored the ones that arose from this small sniff—the first time I’d kissed her in the hallway of her tiny studio apartment, the first time I’d really touched her in Amsterdam in that gorgeous, glittering black dress. The feel of her healthy, glowing skin under my hands.