I woke up at seven o’clock, said goodbye to the Bonanno family and left the hospital to go home for a quick change of clothes before heading to school.
When I walked through the automatic glass doors to the parking lot, King was there, standing against his bike with his arms crossed and his eyes shut. I stopped mid-step, staring at his beautiful face, creased like bed sheets from a sleepless night tangled up in them.
Feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and right into them.
My breath left my body in a long whoosh and then I was sprinting across the driveway. He caught me without effort, braced and ready for my full body impact into his arms. I wrapped my arms and legs around him immediately, tighter than vines and just as unyielding. My face planted in his neck, in that fragrant spot just behind his ear where I could soothe myself with the scent of his hair, scented with fresh sea salted air, and the familiar warm laundry aroma of his clothes.
“Got you, Queenie,” he murmured, his hand diving under my hair to enclose the back of my neck in his hold. “Got you.”
I just clung to him, incapable of speech after the long night without sleep, after the long hours worrying about Benny. It was impossible in that moment to care if anyone we knew could see us embracing in the middle of the hospital parking lot.
All that mattered was being in King’s arms. I needed that feeling more than I needed my next breath of air. There were limits to the human body, five days without food, three without water. I’d just learned that mine was twenty-four hours without King.
“Let’s get you home, babe,” he murmured, gently peeling me off him so he could settle me in the ‘bitch seat’ on his bike.
As soon as he was situated, I slumped against him pressed groin to cheek on his back and wrapped myself around him again, even my legs, which I hitched up and over his thighs. It was a precarious position. I was entirely reliant on King to balance the weight of the back and keep me from tipping over but I didn’t care and apparently, neither did he.
When we reached Shamble Wood Cottage, it was obvious to me that he’d spent the night there even though I’d stayed at the hospital. The dishes we’d left in the sink the morning before were put away and there was a giant bouquet of flowers on the dining room that King told me were from Maja and Buck. There were fresh sheets on my bed, pale pink instead of cream, and it was made with all the little pillows I only bother with if I had company over.
King steered me into the bathroom, turned the shower to scalding and shucked off my clothes. I was numb to everything but his touch, which seared me each time it landed. I was tired of feeling so I shied away from it and was grateful when he shoved me into the shower but didn’t join me.
When I emerged there was pretty white polka dot red dress with a cream cardigan on the basin. The sound of King murmuring to someone on the phone in the other room filtered under the crack of the door but I ignored it and focused on pulling myself together.
I wore more makeup than usual, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do to feel pretty, especially on the bad days.
King stared at me long and hard when I finally left the bathroom, assessing my mindset, probably.
“I’m ready to go,” I told him, surprised by how hollow my voice sounded.
He strode forward, grabbed my hair hard in a fist and jerked my head back as he pressed himself hard against me. I gasped, instantly and inappropriately turned on by the gesture when I should be grieving.
“Know you’re hurting, my Queen,” he said softly despite his intractable expression and dominant stance. “But Benny is alive and gettin’ better in the hospital. You’ve got nothing to grieve for, you hear me? He’s alive. And that’s probably because you and me were foolin’ around in detention and overheard him. That asshole Carson didn’t have a fuckin’ clue what to do. You and me, babe, we helped Benny. That’s somethin’ you need to hold on to right now, not the bad stuff that happened last night, but the fact he’s okay and you helped see to that, yeah?”
King’s words coated my skin, sat on the surface of me for a long minute while I fought their meaning, tried to stay helplessly lost in overwhelming exhaustion and an overindulgence of empathy. When my eyes started to slide through him, he pulled harder on my hair and, when that didn’t work fast enough, he kissed me.