Darren didn’t look awake. His eyes were closed, his face slack, one arm still strapped to his chest and the other limp under Scott’s hand. He still looked shockingly white, but his hair was fluffier, like it had been washed, and the awful monitors were gone.
“Darren?” Jayden coaxed, going around to the other side of the bed and pulling up the spare chair.
His voice prompted a stir, or an almost stir—a shift of faint movement so tiny it was almost under the skin entirely, and then it rippled into his face, those brilliant green eyes glittering through tiny slits before he opened them properly, and oh…
Jayden felt the tears rushing up, and one escaped before he catch it. He scrubbed furiously with one hand, the other gently reaching out to tuck a curl behind Darren’s ear. “Oh, my God, you’re here,” he whispered, and his throat closed up with painfully sharp relief.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Scott murmured and passed Darren’s hand over like a talisman. “He gets a bit loopy if you let go of him,” he said by way of explanation, and Jayden squeezed the limp fingers.
“Okay. Thanks,” he murmured. The moment the curtain closed behind Scott, he was up and bending over the bed to kiss Darren’s cheek, devastatingly gentle and terrified of hurting him, but unable to resist. “You’re here. You’re finally here.”
Darren’s pupils were pinpricks under the light and the drugs, and his fingers kept twitching and flexing almost randomly in Jayden’s hand, and he looked as those he was understanding every fourth word at best—but then he smiled, a wide, gentle, peaceful smile, and all of Jayden’s raw nerves were soothed. “Hey,” Darren whispered breathily, and Jayden kissed him without thinking about it, pushing a light, chaste touch onto his mouth.
“I love you,” he whispered, and shifted to kiss the papery, still-too-warm skin of Darren’s forehead. “God, I love you, I love you…”
He slipped into the visitor’s chair, tangling his other hand in Darren’s hair and smiling through definite tears now when Darren weakly turned his face into the touch. He was fading again, the momentary wakefulness ebbing, and Jayden squeezed his hand when he frowned.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Sleep if you like.”
He was gone before Jayden had finished talking, his hand curled up in Jayden’s fingers, his face still turned towards him, and Jayden contented himself with watching and stroking his curls with his fingertips. He felt calmed. All his stress and anxiety about the exams and the scholarship and having outed Darren to his parents—and his inevitable reaction to that, oh God—and the deep, haunting, aching fear of losing Darren altogether because of some stupid fucking druggie in a stupid fucking park…
None of it mattered anymore, pushed aside under seeing those eyes again, even if they were foggy and dull and Darren probably wouldn’t remember a thing about this once he’d recovered properly. Maybe that was for the best; Darren wasn’t so hot at emotional outpourings, and Jayden had the feeling that that was all he was going to be capable of for a little while.
“I love you,” he whispered again, and Darren’s fingers twitched. He wasn’t quite asleep, but he wasn’t awake either. Jayden couldn’t tell if he was tired, or in pain, or simply so drugged he was beyond anything more strenuous than basic understanding, but he didn’t really care either. Darren had come back.
And he was going to get better.
Chapter 31
Jayden had to stay away from the hospital for the next few days. On the one hand, he didn’t mind: Darren was awake now, and it had calmed a lot of Jayden’s fear. On the other hand, he still didn’t know exactly what was going on, and twitched every time his phone went off in case it was Scott with news.
On Friday morning, Darren had another surgery—Jayden wasn’t told what for—and Scott slipped him the valuable information of the visiting times on Sundays, and that Darren was only getting family until one o’clock. Then hes all urs! Scott had added on the end of the text, and Jayden had clung to it. One o’clock.
So just after one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, he slipped into the farthest bay and peeked through the curtains—to see that Darren already had visitors.
“Oh,” he said and slipped in to join them.
Paul and Ethan had beaten him there, sitting on opposite sides of the bed about halfway down in the plastic orange chairs. Jayden felt slightly shy around them, but when Darren offered him a relaxed, understated smile, he forgot about the pair of them and stepped around Paul to lean down and kiss the corner of Darren’s mouth. His hair was fluffy and sticking up in every direction; he had managed to shower, somehow.
“Quarter past,” Paul said, looking at his watch before snapping his fingers at Ethan. “Pay up, loser.”
“You made a bet on when I’d get here?” Jayden asked.
“Yeah,” Paul said and snatched a battered fiver out of Ethan’s hands. “Score! There you go, Darren, happy birthday,” he added, pressing the note into Darren’s right hand, lying limp on the sheets. The other arm was still tightly bound to his chest.
“It’s…what?” Jayden fumbled.
“The walking wounded here…”
“Lying wounded,” Paul corrected.
“…turned sixteen today,” Ethan continued blithely, “only we couldn’t find a wheelchair that had cool racing stripes. So we figured we could start a cripple fund for him!”
Darren grinned. His eyes were glazed, hopefully just with drugs, and his voice was slow and slurred when he mumbled, “S’not m’leg he busted, f’ckwit…”
“Wait, back up.” Jayden brushed the other two off, crouching awkwardly by the bed to peer at Darren’s face. “It’s your birthday?” he clarified.
“Mm,” Darren murmured, turning his head. He was half sat up, a blue T-shirt on instead of the ugly hospital gown, and at close range, he smelled of cheap store-brand soap and fake apples.
“And…you’re sixteen? You just turned sixteen? I mean…”
A tiny line formed between Darren’s eyebrows, and Paul interjected, unusually gently, “He’s really out of it. Talk slow or don’t bother. And yeah. He’s sixteen today.”
Jayden was floored, both by the number and the fact he hadn’t known. He’d always assumed…
“Oh, my God,” he cried, “I slept with a fifteen-year-old!”
Ethan cracked up, bending over the bed and howling into the sheets, muffling his laughter against Darren’s leg. Paul snorted like he was trying coke for the first time, schooled his expression, snorted again, then gave in and similarly collapsed. Jayden felt his face flame red, but—but really. Darren had been fifteen? Fifteen! It had never occurred to Jayden that Darren was younger than him, never mind that he’d been fifteen!
Darren distracted him from the mental stutter when his fingers curled into Jayden’s shoulder, grasping at the edge of his shirt. Jayden caught the hand, swallowing down the urge to demand some kind of explanation for, well, not knowing that, and squeezed the fingers.
“What?” he asked.
Darren was frowning. “S’shakin’.”
“What?” Jayden frowned, and Darren pushed his hand back to Jayden’s shoulder. After a second, his brain caught up, and he winced. “Oh. Oh Jesus, no, you’re not…it’s just the drugs. Okay? It’s the drugs, there’s nothing happening.”
He eased his hip onto the bed gingerly, sliding down until they were level and he could slide an arm behind Darren’s waist in a half-hug. He wanted to hug him properly, but the heavy bandaging and strapped arm prevented it; Darren’s good arm, caught between them, shifted restlessly until he could tangle the fingers back into the fabric of Jayden’s shirt and let them go limp again.
“Knock it off,” Paul managed, still snickering, but he straightened up and shoved Ethan away from the bed as well. “He’s getting weirded out.”
“I’ll say!”
“I meant the pincushion.”
“I still say knife block is more appropriate,” Ethan argued. Jayden rolled his eyes; Darren had dropped his head against
his shoulder and seemed to be watching them with exhausted eyes. He had calmed the moment Jayden could hold him, and Jayden only hoped the nurses would let him stay like that. Or dial down all the stupid drugs so Darren wasn’t so dizzy and easily freaked all the time.
“You should have told me,” Jayden told the top of Darren’s head, and Darren plucked at his T-shirt absently. “Has he said much?”
“Nah,” Paul said.
“Mute,” Ethan offered.
“Not quite.”
“He is.”
“He told you to shut the fuck up when you started rambling about Taylor Swift, that’s not mute.”
“No, but it’s pretty retarded.”
“You’re pretty retarded.”
Jayden twisted to glance at Darren’s face as they argued. He was half-smiling, half-drifting. Honestly, he looked stoned. “Is it really your birthday?” he asked lowly.
Darren blinked at him, frowned, and licked his lips. “Twenty-eighth’f April,” he mumbled after a moment. Today—but then Jayden didn’t imagine he had a calendar or anything here. Or the concentration to read one.
“Well,” he said. “Happy birthday.” Darren’s fingers flicked the neck of his T-shirt. “I’ll take you out when you get out of here, as a late present or something, okay?”
“Okay,” Darren murmured and frowned lightly. “I feel floaty.”
“Well,” Jayden squeezed his waist, “I’ll stop you floating away. All right?”
Darren hummed, picking at his T-shirt, and frowned down the bed at Paul and Ethan, who were throwing sweet wrappers at each other. “I think they’re crazy,” he mumbled.
Jayden grinned. “I think you’re right.” It was both kind of adorable to see Darren so fuzzy and slow, and painful. It wasn’t him.
“Well, I think you’re high,” Ethan returned.
“Drugged,” Paul supplied.
“He’s a fruit loop,” Ethan prodded Darren’s leg; Darren shifted and scowled.
“He’s a fruit all right,” Paul agreed.
The curtain slid back, and Jayden sniggered when Paul jumped like he’d been electrocuted. The nurse glowered at him and marched in to put down a tray on the side table unnecessarily hard. “Off!” She swatted at Jayden. “Right, I can’t have all three of you in here at lunchtime. You’ll distract him. It’s hard enough getting this one to eat as it is!”
Ethan opened his mouth; Paul grabbed his sleeve and shook his head. “We’ll go grab lunch ourselves,” he offered. “You coming, Jayden?”
Jayden shook his head, snatching at the opportunity to have Darren to himself, even for only half an hour. Maybe he was still a little shaken up. He slid off the bed and took up Paul’s abandoned chair as they crowded up to hug Darren goodbye.
“Big manly gay hug!” Paul announced cheerfully and pulled Darren into it sideways. Ethan delicately joined in from the other side, arching his back to avoid touching the strapped shoulder. Darren looked faintly startled, but his hand twisted into Paul’s T-shirt comfortably enough. “We get it, man,” Paul said suddenly, low and almost whispering. Jayden stared. “You’re a bit messed up in the head sometimes and you go and do stupid things like nearly getting yourself killed, but we love you, man. In the not-gay, totally platonic way.”
Jayden felt a lump rising in his throat. The nurse’s glare softened. Darren’s hand clenched into a fist and he took a breath that was audibly shaky.
“Now you’ve done it,” Ethan proclaimed. “Gay people cry when you get mushy with them!”
Jayden laughed a little shakily; Darren huffed into Paul’s T-shirt, where he’d buried his face.
“See, they’re both going to go!”
“Shut up, Summerskill. You cried at Bambi.”
“That’s legit, everyone cries at Bambi.”
“You cried at Ruby’s wedding.”
“So did you!”
“Yeah, but she’s my sister!”
The banter gave Darren the moment he appeared to need; when they let go with one final squeeze and disappeared through the curtains at the nurse’s insistence, Darren looked calm, but he clutched at Jayden’s hand tightly when Jayden slid the chair closer.
“Okay?” Jayden asked gently.
“Mm.” Darren squeezed his hand and blinked at the tray that the nurse set over his lap.
“If he doesn’t eat that, you’re out,” the nurse told Jayden before sweeping out again, and Jayden laughed, letting go of Darren’s hand.
“You heard her. Want some help?”
Darren hummed again, poking the sandwich suspiciously. “S’in it?”
Jayden peeled up a corner. “Egg mayo.”
Jayden saw what the nurse meant about eating. Darren was easily distracted by the plastic pot of pink jelly, and peeled the crusts off the sandwich clumsily until Jayden agreed to shell it just to get him to eat the rest of it. He figured the nurse couldn’t get too mad about some dumped crusts, right? But for all his reluctance, Darren attacked the orange juice, and scowled when it was done.
“No bits,” he explained groggily when Jayden asked what the matter was. “Not enough,” he added lowly.
“I can ask for more if you want it.”
Darren latched on to his hand instead and pushed the devastated tray away; Jayden removed it to the side table again and wriggled into the side of the bed to let Darren drop his head onto his shoulder with a heavy sigh.
“Okay?”
“Tired.”
“So go to sleep.” Jayden folded up his hand to stroke the back of one finger against Darren’s jaw. He wasn’t so warm anymore. Not hot, like he had been when he first woke up. Jayden kissed his forehead and closed his eyes. That little he’s still here, he’s okay loop in his head still hadn’t quite quieted.
“No,” Darren insisted, and tangled his fingers in the neck of Jayden’s T-shirt again. “How’re you?”
“Me? I’m fine, it’s you who’s…”
Darren twisted his fingers. “No. You’re not.”
Jayden sighed heavily. “I am. I will be. I was just…I was so scared, when you were hurt and sick and…nobody would tell me anything because I wasn’t family, but…you’re okay now. You’re getting better, and you’re sitting up and you’re talking to me and…you’re going to be okay. So I’m fine. I promise.”
Darren twisted to watch him. His gaze was a little sharper, lunch having woken him up a little.
“I promise,” Jayden insisted.
Darren hummed. He wouldn’t stop watching, even when the nurse peeked back around the curtain and swept in for the tray. “Good,” she said briskly and eyed them. Her demeanour softened a touch. “Do you want anything else, Darren? You could do with some more energy, you know.”
Jayden frowned.
“Orange juice?” Darren said hopefully. “And,” he added when she nodded, “is there like a list of people allowed to see me?”
“It’s family only in the mornings,” she said.
“He counts.” Darren wiggled his fingers at Jayden’s neck; Jayden flushed. “Mother’ll say he doesn’t, but he does.”
The nurse raised her eyebrows. “And he is…?”
“Jayden Phillips,” Jayden supplied.
“I’ll make a note of it, dear, but your mother isn’t to come complaining to me if you have another argument,” she said sternly, and Darren nodded.
“You had a row with your mum?” Jayden asked.
Darren grimaced as the nurse disappeared and the curtains settled. “I don’t know,” he said and rubbed at his forehead. “I think so. They were shouting a lot, and the doctor told them to go away, and then it was just me and Scott. I think I…I don’t know.”
Jayden squeezed the hand that tugged at his T-shirt, rubbing the creased palm lightly. “It’s okay if you’re a bit all over the place,” he soothed. “I mean, they must have you on loads of drugs, because…you were really hurt, Darren, and you’d still be in loads of pain, and you only had surgery Friday.”
Darren frowned
at him. “It’s my birthday.”
“Yes,” Jayden said slowly. A bit all over the place, fine, but maybe not that much.
“Where’s my birthday kiss?”
Jayden blinked, then laughed, feeling a little bit like he shouldn’t be laughing in a hospital, for God’s sake, but he couldn’t help it. And then Darren was openly scowling at him, and it was too much to resist.
“Okay, okay,” he said, cupping Darren’s cheek to stop him from trying to lift his head or turn off the pillow. If he hurt his shoulder, that nurse would throw Jayden out the window, never mind the ward.
It felt like the first time—the spark, the tingle, the dizzy feeling. The chasteness of it, but still with the sharp tang of the juice on his lips. The amount of want that was behind it, and the reluctance with which Jayden pulled back, just an inch or two, and smiled.
“You taste like oranges,” he murmured.
“Mm,” Darren agreed, then pushed his face forward despite Jayden’s hand and kissed him again.
Even Paul and Ethan bursting back in a moment later and jeering couldn’t ruin it: Darren was getting better, and he tasted of oranges.
It was going to be all right.
Chapter 32
The moment he walked in the door, Jayden felt calmer. The curtains were open. The half-hour monitoring chart was gone. There was an empty crisp packet on the bedside table. Darren was sitting up—half, not quite fully upright yet, but it was still up—and one knee was bent, supporting a book. He was awake. Properly, really, one hundred percent awake.
“Hey,” Jayden said, sticking his hands in his pockets. His smile hurt. He wanted to fling himself across the bed and hug Darren until he couldn’t breathe, and he clenched his hands into fists in his blazer to stop himself from doing it.
“That’s it?” Darren blinked and pushed the book aside. “I don’t get a hug or anything?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jayden blurted out.
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