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I fumble, feeling my way around my hair, tucking loose strands behind my ears.

But then he turns, and everything settles. I fall into his moss-green gaze. He looks stressed, but just as put together as he usually is.

“How are you feeling?” His voice is soft, as if he doesn’t want to disturb the air with the question.

I begin to respond, but he shifts, and I zero in on the spasm in his jaw.

“Were you hurt?” I counter.

His face turns unreadable.

“Oh, god, youwerehurt!”

His eyes shift to my left before flicking back to my face. “He got me in the side with a switchblade, but it was only a surface nick. It’s just a little sore.”

I cover my mouth. “Oh, god. I can’t believe this happened, Storm.” Those tears I was able to successfully stave off come back to the surface. “Can I see?”

As soon as the question is out of my mouth, I want to claw it back.

“You want to see my stab wound?” he asks, and when he gives me that smirk I didn’t know I missed so much, I find myself nodding.

With refined slowness, Storm covers the few steps needed to reach the side of my bed. Then, he takes the space Dr.Swanson vacated just a few minutes before.

I want to curl up close to him like a cat and bathe in the cologne clinging to his shirt, which is peak unhinged behavior.

I don’t know what to think. I want to come up with something to say, but I also want to withdraw.

Because this is a dangerous tightrope I’m on, and I know this can only end with me falling.

All my thoughts crash into the other when he begins to lift the side of his shirt, leaning away to showcase the long white bandage that goes from his armpit down to his hip.

I gasp again, and it’s an instinctual movement when I reach out to touch it.

“Oh, my god,” I say. I trace two fingers down the length of the injury. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

I’ve been staring at the bandage, but I snap my head up to look at his face when he makes a sound deep in his chest.

I freeze.Everythingfreezes. Because the look he’s giving me….

Stop. He’s not interested. He has a girlfriend.

I pull my hand back, and with snake-like quickness, he grabs my wrist. The action startles me, but then he gentles his hold. His thumb rubs back and forth on the delicate skin right above my pulse point.

“I’m not in any pain at all at the moment,” he murmurs.

I swallow.

We sit like that for a while, just breathing and staring at each other, when what to say next comes to me.

“Thank you.” I pull all my strength to deliver the words. Besides the slight spread of a small smile, he doesn’t change what he’s doing.

“Can you tell me what happened? I don’t…I don’t remember anything,” I whisper, and it’s like the words break the spell we’re under. He pulls back, and the grin falls from his face.

“You were in a cab, but we saw each other through the window when you were at a stoplight. I was at Noir,” he says. I nod along, but the statement doesn’t settle right in my brain. I saw him at Velour moments before I left. So how was he at Noir a few blocks down the road only minutes later?

“I asked you to leave the cab so I could drive you home,” he says.

“Why?” I respond. He’s silent for a moment.