Page 34 of If I See You Again

David

W atching Malcolm sit there in that hospital bed, anxiety flooding his frame after he’d gotten off the phone, all I wanted to do was take him away. Make him realize that if he were with me, he had nothing to worry about.

Angela didn’t hang out that much longer, and they moved us to a quieter room for the night. It was still in the ER, but the new space at least had walls instead of curtains. The doctor said that as long as Malcolm’s labs checked out in the morning that he would be all right to go home.

Neither of us slept very well. Even with the added barrier from the chaos outside the room, we could still hear a lot of it.

It was Chicago after all, and to think that any night in a hospital would be calm would be fooling yourself.

There’d been several big emergencies, from a few more car accidents to a couple of gunshot wounds.

When the doctor finally came in to tell us that Malcolm was in the clear, but to come back if he noticed any blood in his urine or unexplained back pain, we got out of there as fast as we could.

I’d taken a rideshare to the hospital, and with Malcolm’s car now out of commission, it was our only option for getting back to his place.

As we stood there on the curb and I fiddled with my phone, a thought hit me.

“Do you want to go home? Or do you want to come back to the hotel?”

He sagged a little as he looked up and down the road. “What’s closer?”

That was something I could understand. We were both exhausted after the night before. I wasn’t as familiar with the area, but if I had to guess, the hotel was a lot closer.

Another thing was nagging at the back of my mind, and I handed over my phone to Malcolm. He eyed me warily for a moment before I shrugged. “It seemed like a big deal that you didn’t call your boss yesterday. “

I waited for him to make the call, which happened quickly and without as much fanfare as it had the day before.

He cringed a little when he explained he would probably be out for a few days.

Honestly, maybe I needed to look into the legality of some of that.

It didn’t seem right for his boss to pressure his employees to return to work so soon.

I’d hire Malcolm full time if I needed to.

When he handed me my phone back, I pulled up the rideshare app and ordered a car to take us to the hotel.

Malcolm was swaying on his feet by that point, so I hooked my arm around his waist and pulled him into my side.

He leaned all his weight into me as we continued to stand there and wait.

It took the car a good twenty minutes to get to us, and at that point, Malcolm was lightly dozing against my shoulder.

I’d never seen someone fall asleep standing up before, but I guess if you were tired enough, you could do it.

He didn’t stir the entire way to the hotel, just rested his head against the passenger window while I watched the city zoom by.

Malcolm was still groggy as I led him through the hotel lobby to the elevators. I sort of felt bad that all he had was his messed-up suit from the day before. Not that he needed to really wear anything while he was with me. He was just going to be resting, anyway.

The second we entered the room, he disentangled himself from me, loosening the buttons of his shirt before pushing it off.

If this had been any other situation, I would’ve been aroused at the sight.

But I was only worried about him, especially now that I could see all the bruising on his body.

I’m sure our driver had thought we’d looked suspicious as hell already with the two black eyes Malcolm already sported, but he had a dark bruise that stretched across his shoulder from where his seatbelt had tightened.

As bad as it all looked, all those things had been what saved his life.

Malcolm collapsed onto the bed, rolling to face me. I wanted to crawl in with him and wrap myself around him to keep him safe from anything bad like that happening again.

“The doctor gave me your prescriptions. Do you want to take something for pain before going to sleep?” I asked, shaking the little paper bag.

Malcolm huffed, sitting up on his elbow and wincing a little at the motion and strain that it put on his body. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I hate that crap. It always makes me feel out of control, but I know if I don’t, I’ll be in a world of hurt later.”

I took the pill bottles out, reading the instructions carefully before pulling out two tablets and getting a glass of water from the sink.

When I reached the bed, Malcolm took them from me and tossed back the meds like he wasn’t the least bit worried about them.

Then again, he’d probably realized just how much he was hurting.

He lay back down and struggled a few times to undo and remove his slacks until I knocked his hands out of the way and did it for him, sliding the material over his hips and thighs. It was hard not to admire the man, even when he was in such an awful state.

“Did you want to take a shower or anything before those meds kick in?”

Malcolm ran a hand down his face, groaning when he realized that was a bad idea as well. “I should. Hospitals always leave me feeling so grimy.”

As carefully as I could, I helped him up from the bed.

He draped an arm over my shoulder as I wrapped one around his waist and steered him to the bathroom.

I had him sit on the toilet lid as I warmed the shower, but there was no way I was leaving him to handle this on his own.

Malcolm had been in a major accident, was overly tired, and now had pain meds on board.

While the water continued to warm, I stripped off the rest of my clothes. It obviously wasn’t bothering Malcolm, who only sat and watched me through heavy lids.

I helped him to his feet and removed his boxer briefs before pulling us both into the shower spray. Malcolm leaned into me, his back to my front as the water cascaded over us. There was something so simple about this, and it meant even more now than the few heated times in the past.

At first, we just stood there. As much as I wanted to stand there to continue savoring the feel of his hard body pressed to mine, I knew what he’d taken, knew that the hospital had also given him some. Malcolm wouldn’t be up to standing for too much longer.

Carefully, I reached for the rag that was hanging on the shelf and the bar of soap.

I lathered up before running the cloth over Malcolm’s chest and down his arms. He sighed and sank into me more.

I chuckled because I knew I needed to hurry.

As much as I wanted to enjoy showering with him, we needed to be quick and efficient.

I ran the rag over my own body before shifting us beneath the showerhead to remove the soap suds. It didn’t take Malcolm long to be basically dead weight. I turned off the water and retrieved two towels, doing my best to keep Malcolm from falling over.

As soon as he was dry enough, I led him to the bed, pulling back the sheets and tucking him in, not bothering with getting him dressed. Once he was all snuggled in, I sat next to him and watched as his eyes fluttered.

Once I was sure he was asleep, I picked up his phone.

The screen was completely destroyed. It was probably overstepping, but I pulled up the store on my phone to place an order for a new one before calling the front desk at the hotel to send someone to pick it up.

If all else failed, he had a new phone when he woke up and didn’t need to rely on other people to make phone calls for him.

I was more surprised he hadn’t said something or had Mr. Thomas say something about him calling from my phone this morning.

A little over an hour later, a soft knock came from the door.

I greeted the attendant, who handed off the bag with the new phone, and I went about getting it all set up, moving the SIM card from Malcolm’s old phone.

Navigating to get all his other information transferred was a little trickier, and I ended up with a small slice on the inside of one of my pointer fingers.

By the time everything was done, Malcolm had been asleep for almost two hours. There wasn’t any point in waking him up, but I still ordered us lunch using room service. I got him a sandwich and some fresh fruit, so it wasn’t anything overly heavy, but it would hold over if he kept sleeping.

Eventually, someone would need to let his parents know what happened. It would probably be better coming from him than me, no matter how much I wanted to reach out. They’d already lost one son, so they didn’t need the news that their other son had been in an accident coming from someone else.

Malcolm had been out for a solid four hours by the time he woke up.

It was good for him, and his body needed it to heal properly.

In reality, the pain meds were probably wearing off.

It wasn’t a smart idea to keep him in a cycle of only being awake long enough to medicate and go back to sleep.

We’d see how he was doing and gauge things from there.

He was groggy as he sat up in bed, wincing and grabbing at his stomach. The motion had me shooting up from where I’d been sitting and working on my computer.

“Are you all right?”

Malcolm huffed. “If you mean, do I feel like I wasn’t run over by a truck? The answer is no.”

I snorted a small laugh. It wasn’t something to joke about because any sort of impact like that could be catastrophic for Malcolm. Instead of letting him continue to struggle, I helped him to sit up the rest of the way, propping a few extra pillows around him.

An awkwardness fell between us, but I quickly tried to fix it, bringing over the tray that held the food I’d ordered for him earlier.

“I don’t know if you’re hungry or not, but I got this for you.”

He smiled at me as he picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “Starving, actually. I can’t even remember if they fed me anything other than some crappy saltines at the hospital.”

Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember if they had given him anything substantial either.

Things had been such a blur, so it was great that he was getting something now.

All those medications on an empty stomach weren’t a good combination, either.

It also explained why they’d hit him so quickly in the shower earlier.

There was nothing there to dull the impact.

As he ate, I got up and pulled out the new phone I’d gotten him. I held onto it for a moment before turning to face him. Malcolm didn’t seem to notice me, too engrossed in his food, and I was happy I’d gotten it.