into the oversized chair next to his bed and watched his chest rise and fall.
It seemed that every time he pushed me away, something pulled us back together. It was a roller coaster ride with him and right now he needed me, so with him was where I’d stay.
“Well hello there, sleepyhead,” I said with a smile, uncurling myself from the chair. I grabbed the bottle of water from the wine chiller I brought up to keep it cold and opened the cap.
When I handed it to him, he sat halfway up on one elbow and guzzled the contents. When he winced, I reached for his pain pills. It had been over ten hours since we left the hospital, so it was safe for him to have more. I shook out two into my palm.
“Just one. I hate feeling so fucking helpless,” he said in a sleep-deepened voice.
I gave him one and another bottle of water. After he finished it he lay back down with a deep sigh. I brushed the hair back from his face. He caught my hand and brought it down over his heart, hiding it there where I felt the beating under my fingertips.
“About those two men,” he said. “You should never have been involved in any of that.” He sounded truly sorry, his voice even breaking a little.
I wasn’t sure if it was the meds talking or not, but I gently climbed onto the bed next to him and settled against the side that was not hurt. I laid my head on his bare chest and ran my fingers up and over his shoulder.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “You could have died today.” I fought back the sick feeling and tried to focus on the fact that he was okay and lying next to me. Impulsively I pressed my lips to his chest. Madden tightened his hold on me and pulled me even closer.
“Who were they? Why did they call you Alex?” I finally asked.
He tensed under me and I wanted for him to tell me that it was none of my business. But then he exhaled and relaxed. He ran his fingers over my hair and the thumping in his chest sped up.
“Alex is the name I used to go by a long time ago.” I waited for him to go on and he was quiet for so long that I thought he might have fallen back asleep, but then his chest rumbled and he started talking again. “I’ve never told anyone about my past.”
I pulled the blankets up over us and rested my hand on his neck, softly stroking along his jaw. He seemed so vulnerable that I wanted to make sure he knew he was safe. That he could tell me anything.
After some more time passed, he continued speaking, his words growing more eloquent as he went on. “I grew up in LA. I didn’t know my father and my mother wasn’t really around much. Drugs were more important to her than a kid I guess. We moved around a lot and I didn’t have a lot of friends. When I was fourteen, I met this man who sort of took me in. Paulie Sciarrino. He became like a father to me,” a dark laugh barked from his chest, “as if I even knew what the fuck a father was supposed to be like. But he gave me delivery jobs and paid me more money than I’d ever seen in my life. It took awhile for me to realize that I was running drugs, but at that point I was taking care of myself and I wasn’t hungry or cold or getting my clothes at some second hand store.”
The bitterness in his voice made me hold him tighter. I knew what it was like to basically raise yourself, but at least I had someone in my life to care. My Gran was everything to me when my parents didn’t want to be.
“When I turned eighteen I decided that I wanted a different life,” Madden said. “I had this grand idea that I wanted to go to college except I never even graduated from high school. Paulie said he’d help me, that he’d make it happen. I just had to do one last favor for him.”
Madden’s body went tense and I could hear his heart thundering in his chest now. I leaned up and brushed my fingers over his rigid face. His eyes were closed but the hard lines of his face