Page 157 of Love Thy Brother
I think.
Or maybe it was the hospital. For what felt like a lifetime on a runaway waltzer, I had no concept of time.
I had no concept of anything except spinning and missing Rubi.
Nausea.
Loving him.
Of being afraid that I was dying and I’d let him down.
“Fuck’s sake. Can’t I get a week without a Rebel King ruining my day?”
I opened my heavy eyes.
Skylar glared down at me, his ferocious annoyance only tempered by him holding my hand. “River? You with me?”
I licked my dry lips. “Rubi—”
“He’s in the corridor, wearing a hole in the floor. He can’t come in unless you’re dying, and that’s not a fucking challenge, you hear me?”
“Cam?”
“Haven’t told him yet. Hoping we won’t have to until you’re a little less dead.”
“Your bedside manner’s shit.”
Skylar grinned a little. “Woke you up, didn’t it?”
I had no idea. And if this was what it felt like to be awake, I was happy to go back to sleep.
Skylar had other ideas. He kept me talking.
Kept mebreathing.
“Slow and deep.” He squeezed my hand. “Let the oxygen fix you. And the IVs. I’m not going back out there and telling Rubi you’re not okay.”
“Tell him I’m fine.”
“That’s my plan.” Skylar almost smiled. “When it’s true. So do as you’re fucking told.”
Hours passed.
At least it felt that way. I hadn’t spent so much time with Skylar since I was a teenager and there was a reason for that. Everything about me, my family, the club... he hated it. To him, my face was a nightmare, but he stayed with me anyway. Held my hand. Cleaned me up when I puked over the side of the bed, and the parallels with how he’d helped Rubi too made my head spin. Like his compassion bookended something I couldn’t see, but I was too fucked up to figure it out.
I didn’t try. I just kept breathing and breathing and breathing until the sickening fog began to lift.
A doctor came to my bed. Handsome fucker with a nice voice. “I’m Dr Ramsey. You’re doing well, River. I’m really pleased with your blood tests and your oxygen levels. Keep it up and we might be able to shift you to a ward this afternoon.”
He said other things, but I was distracted by the curtain flying back and Rubi appearing like a distressed Roman god.
Red-eyed and pale, he surged forward and the doctor melted away, taking Skylar with him. “You fucker.” He swept me into his shaking arms. “I thought I’d lost you. I fucking—shit, I can’t lose you, Riv. I can’t.”
He held me tight, his whole body trembling.
I hugged him back, every bastard muscle screaming in pain, but I didn’t give a shit. His pain hurt me worse. “You didn’t lose me. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
