Chapter 88
“I know it hurts, ssh,” Eli whispered gently, as a nurse appeared. “He’s in pain, I think,” he told her.
She started fussing with the drip.
“D’n’t…D’nny, where’s D’nny…”
“Danny’s gone home to get some sleep and a shower,” Eli said. “He’s alright.”
“‘N’ you?”
“I’m alright, too—everyone’s fine. Everyone’s fine, babe, you’re the only one who got hurt. I’m fine, Danny’s fine, Jen’s fine…”
The more he talked, the calmer Rob seemed to get—or maybe that was the nurse dialling up his drugs. Either way, awake and making sense was more than Eli had hoped for, so he petted and murmured until the anxious twist to Rob’s expression began to fade. When Eli took his hand, those thick fingers closed like a trap, strong in spite of the weakness in the rest of him.
“I’m here,” Eli crooned. “I’m here, savage.”
Rob cracked a tiny smile at the pet name, and turned his face into the kisses Eli was lavishing over his eyebrow and forehead. His pupils were blown wide with the drugs, and he seemed to have difficulty focusing, but Eli simply smiled and offered more kisses.
“You ‘n’ Jen…”
“We’re fine,” Eli repeated softly as heavy boots sounded in the ward and the nurse slipped out again. “You wanna wake up a bit more? I could ask if you can have any breakfast, or a drink or something?”
The curtains rippled and Danny’s tall form materialised. A smile did, too, his face switching from sombre to blindingly bright in a moment. “Bro!” he cheered and squeezed Rob’s wrist. “‘Bout fuckin’ time, me ‘n’ Eli were waiting all night for you!”
Rob rumbled something that might have been a ‘fuck off.’
Eli smiled, nuzzling Rob’s hair as Danny dragged up the chair and lightly shook Rob by a hand in the middle of the chest, like a man aggravating a small kitten. Not that Eli was stupid enough to voice the comparison.
“Y’okay?”
“Me? M’fine, man, you’re the only one dumb enough to get in the way of a knife,” Danny said cheerily, settling down and squeezing Rob’s wrist again. “You need to get better soon though, mate, the nurses in here are not the hot type.”
“Fuckin’ letch,” Rob mumbled.
“Like you ‘n’ Eli can fuckin’ talk, he’s been molesting you in your sleep the whole time.”
“I have not.”
“‘N’ I missed it…?”
“You did.”
“Fuck off, Danny.”
“Mate, it were disgusting! In a ward, too, you perv—”
“Fuck off!”
The banter seemed to settle Rob more than their mere presence, although he made the mistake of laughing once and groaned so deeply that Danny was half out of his chair to summon a nurse before Rob could tell him not to bother.
It settled Eli, too. He’d had visions in his head of serious injuries or brain damage from blood loss—could that happen?—or shock-induced amnesia or something, but Rob was normal, if sluggish and sleepy, and…
The curtain slid back. For a split second, Eli presumed it was a nurse, until Rob’s face twisted in a scowl and he mumbled, “What, m’I gettin’ arrested for not bitin’ it?”
Eli twisted; his father stared back, face split open in an expression of raw shock. Danny made a derisive noise and shifted noticeably closer to the bed.
“Dad?” Eli said, tightening his grip on Rob’s hand. “What’s up? Is it Jenny?”
“I—ah—yes,” Dad said, looking hugely uncomfortable. His hair was all over the place, his clothes crumpled in a way Eli couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “She’s, ah, had the baby. A boy. She’s, um…asking for you…you…you ought to come and meet your nephew, after all…”
His voice was drifting and vague; his eyes didn’t waver from Rob.
Eli swallowed and kissed Rob’s knuckles, deciding it would probably be best to separate them now, before any row could happen when Rob was still flat on his back in a hospital bed and drugged up to the eyeballs.
“You gonna be okay with Danny while I go see my new nephew?” Eli whispered.
“Mm.”
“G’wan,” Danny said, patting Rob’s elbow. “I’ll keep the fucker busy. Or steal his drugs, either or.”
“Text me if anything changes,” Eli ordered.
“M’still here,” Rob grumbled.
Eli snorted, kissing him on the forehead before standing up and not bothering to dignify his complaint with any acknowledgement.
“Rob,” Dad said quite suddenly. The name sounded funny. Eli realised with a jolt that he couldn’t remember his father ever saying Rob’s first name before. “I—thank you. For…for what you did for my family last night.”
There was a pregnant pause. Then Rob screwed up his face, visibly struggling, and said, “What?”
“Not now, Dad,” Eli said quietly, even as something tight and toxic unwound in his gut and disappeared. “He’s on a lot of morphine. Let’s go?”
He steered his father out of the cubicle—but threw a look over his shoulder to Danny that was returned in full force.