Page 79 of Vital Signs
My hands slid from her waist up her back, pulling her closer until there was no space left between us, until I could feel her heartbeat against mine, steady where mine still stuttered.
I rested my forehead against hers again, my nose brushing hers, breath still uneven. “I’ll try,” I said quietly.
Her hand came back to my face, warm now, familiar, her thumbtracing slow, grounding lines along my cheek as if she were memorizing me. I turned into the touch without thinking, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm this time, lingering there longer than necessary.
She exhaled shakily, and when I leaned forward again, letting my weight rest more fully against her, she didn’t hesitate.
Chapter 45
Desmond
The days passed with a comfortable uncertainty. She’d never admit it, but Anya had moved most of her things into my house after I came home from the hospital. We never really discussed it, her moving in… it just sort of happened out of necessity and maybe a little bit of greed, on my part.
If I wasn’t seeing her every shift at the hospital, I wasn’t seeing her at all. And there was no part of me that was interested innotspending time with her.
The clock read 11:02 a.m., which meant she’d been asleep for three hours. The night shift clung to her even on her days off.
Her hair was everywhere. Across my pillow. Across my chest. Across the scar that still felt too new to touch without flinching. Her hand rested low on my stomach, fingers curled into the fabric of my T-shirt as if she’d fallen asleep holding on.
I stayed there longer than I needed to.
The accident had rewired something in me. Mornings felt less guaranteed now. Every quiet second felt borrowed.
The knock at the door was firm. Familiar yet impatient.
Getting up was still a process. I swung my leg over the side of thebed, careful not to jostle her. The prosthetic leaned against the nightstand where I’d left it before crawling back in at three a.m. when she’d finally gotten home from shift.
I stared at it for a second.
There was a version of me that would’ve rushed to put it on. Pride. Habit. Refusal to be seen unfinished.
Today, I grabbed the crutches instead.
They were just closer. Easier & honest.
The second rap landed just as I reached the living room, followed by, “If you’re dead in there, I’m not doing CPR. I’m off shift.”
“I’m alive,” I muttered, adjusting my balance.
The hardwood felt colder lately. Every step required attention. My body and I were still renegotiating terms. I made it down the hallway, slow but steady.
When I opened the door, Ezra Becker took one look at me and went quiet for half a second too long. He masked it fast. “You’re vertical. Huge win.”
The paramedic stood taller than me by a head, his thick rim glasses sitting pretty over his big blue eyes. He was a charmer, had been since our twenties, when I put out an advertisement looking for a roommate as I went through my residency.
I’d never been luckier that Ezra Becker was the one to respond. We’d been fast friends ever since. “Your support is overwhelming, Beck.”
“You look like hell, brother,” he said by way of greeting, stepping inside without invitation. “So that’s promising.”
“Good morning to you too, dickhead.”
He handed me a cup, then stopped mid-step. His eyes dropped. Pink chucks discarded by the door. He looked back up at me slowly, a grin unfurling on his lips. “…Interesting.”
“Don’t.”
He didn’t listen. Of course, he didn’t. There was a leather bag hanging on the hook by the entryway — small, structured, unmistakablynot mine. A silk scarf draped over the back of my couch. A hair tie on the coffee table.
Ezra took it all in like a crime scene investigator. “Lost your leg,” he said thoughtfully, “but not your game. I see you.”
