I figure it’ll be a bit before they call me back, so I’m bringing the first bite of some yummy-smelling pasta stuff to my mouth when a nurse calls me back to recovery. I box the food up in a millisecond and sling all the bags I have over my shoulders. I can’t get down that white hallway fast enough.
My heart is racing as I step into the recovery room, and more so when I see that it’s partitioned by the same curtains that I think freaked him out before. But when the nurse ushers me into his space, Ezra’s still sleeping. He looks like Sleeping Beau on the bed, his head tipped back slightly with a towel rolled under his neck. His leg is propped on pillows, wrapped in what looks like a mile of ACE bandages. I notice he’s still got the oxygen tubing on. His body—all except that leg—is wrapped up in white blankets.
“We brought you back before he’s fully awake, so I’ll be monitoring him as you wait here,” the nurse tells me.
I’m so grateful my throat closes up, and it takes me a second to thank her for letting me back early.
I ask a few questions about the surgery, which apparently went well, and then Ezra’s muscles start to twitch and his eyelids start to flutter.
The nurse lets me get right by him, ease my arm through the rail so I can rub his shoulder and whisper to him as he wakes up. I’m prepared for the worst, but he just seems confused and sleepy. I tell him a few times that he had a surgery and it went fine, and I’m not going to leave him. At one point, he smirks and slurs, “Are you my husband?”
That makes me laugh. “Yeah, angel. I’m whatever you want.”
The surgeon comes in while Ez is dozing, giving me a full report on what he did to Ezra’s leg and telling me he’ll set up followup care in Alabama. He says we have to stay here overnight, but we can probably leave tomorrow. Then our nurse starts actively trying to wake Ez up. She hands me a cherry-flavored slush to feed him with a plastic spoon, and he blinks at me with his glassy eyes as he swallows the cool slush. After that, he’s more awake, and he’s peering around the room. I tell him again what happened, and he shuts his eyes, whispering something nonsensical about bubble gum.
“I’d love some bubble gum,” I whisper back, just to keep things conversational.
He rasps, “Can you hold me, Josh?”
His dazed eyes lift open, and he looks somehow both pained and high off his ass. I’d do anything he asked at this point—okay, really at any point—so I convince the nurse to let me lower the bed’s rail on his unhurt side. I think Ez is sleeping when we do it, but his eyelids tremble open, and he tries to hold his arm out for me.
“You’re okay…I’ve gotcha, angel.”
I scoot my chair right up to the bed’s side, wrap an arm over his upper chest, and press my face against his shoulder. Ezra’s hand comes up to wrap around my forearm and, again, he does this sweet thing where he leans his head toward me—like he wants to snuggle up to me and can’t, but he’s still trying.
It strains my back and shoulder to hold this pose, hugging him from the side, but I don’t mind it. I guess he’s still waking up, because a few times, he shudders, or he’ll startle awake. Each time, when he feels me wrapped around him, he drifts back to sleep.
And…that’s it. That’s how it goes. I don’t know what I thought it would be like, but after an hour in recovery, a nurse wheels his bed to the room where we’ll be overnight. When his eyes lift open, I make sure I’m in his line of sight, and he smiles, looking high as hell, and pale, but not unhappy.
In his private room, I eat a little of the yummy food that Luke and Vance had delivered. Then I fire off a few more texts—including to Luke and Vance, who are going to drop by with my luggage—and wrap an arm around my angel’s chest.
He wakes up once with what I think is pain—he’s too out of it for me to know for sure—and I call for a nurse, who gives more pain meds. The next time I see his pretty lake eyes is almost two hours later. He startles awake, mumbling something about Paul, and all my hairs stand on end. But I lean over him and stroke his neck and his warm cheeks. I tell him I’m here and I love him, and he won the Rose Bowl, and he drifts back off.
He has another nightmare a few minutes later. I lean over him and kiss his cheek and reassure him. He’s less sedated now, and wraps an arm around me. “Get in bed,” he mumbles, his voice raspy. I don’t, but I hug him pretty solidly, and he’s back into dreamland.