feel more tired than usual for the foreseeable future. Rest a lot, which shouldn’t be a problem for you since the collarbone injury will prevent a lot of movement.”
“So it’s like a blessing in disguise,” Noah joked weakly.
“We’ll see about that.” The doctor smiled as she continued listing all the dos and don’ts of Noah’s injuries.
After the doctor had finished her lecture, she left. It took another hour or so to sign all the necessary forms and for them to finally be ready to leave. Noah slept through all the preparations.
Alex didn’t have a car, but he called Hannah, who’d gone home sometime last night, and she hurried to pick them up. The whole time, Noah’s mother stood in the hospital room, not saying a word. Alex wanted to hate her. She carried a lot of responsibility for how Noah had been living his life for all these years. But at the same time, she was so clearly distraught and broken at the sight of her son in the hospital bed that Alex almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
Getting Noah dressed and into the car posed a whole new set of challenges. Alex would have given anything to take Noah’s pain onto himself. It was torture watching Noah grit his teeth even from the slightest and gentlest movements. He’d been given a fuckton of painkillers, but even being drugged up to the gills didn’t take the pain away, so Alex couldn’t even start to imagine how awful the injuries must have actually felt.
Alex ignored Helen as he helped Noah get dressed and signed out. He still wasn’t sure how to feel about her. She looked terrified and worried to death, but at the same time, Alex didn’t trust her not to step in and demand Noah leave with her. It was easier to ignore her.
Alex helped Noah sit into a wheelchair and followed the orderly who wheeled Noah to Hannah’s car. It took a bit of time to get Noah into the back seat of the car, where he slumped against the seat, eyes closed, sweat dotting his forehead, breathing harshly.
“I’ll meet you at the apartment,” Helen said, and for the first time, she met Alex’s gaze. “If that’s all right?” she added softly.
Alex glanced at Noah, who had already dozed off. He turned back to Helen and nodded. Helen turned around and walked away from them, going to her car, which was just a few parking spots away from Hannah’s.
Hannah and Alex looked after her as she drove away. Hannah frowned. “Is this the first time the two of you have met?”
Alex shook his head. “No. We’ve seen each other before. She’s not a fan.”
Hannah frowned. “Really? That doesn’t sound like the Helen I know. I mean, she’s a bit overprotective of Noah, has been ever since I met him, but she’s always been nice to me.”
Alex rubbed his palms over his face. “It’s complicated.” He didn’t really feel like going into his and Noah’s past. They’d brushed over the most intimate details when they’d told the story of how they met to Hannah and Sean that day when they went to dinner together. Had it really only been a week ago? It felt like it had happened in another lifetime. Alex looked through the window at the sleeping Noah.
“We should get going.”
Hannah nodded and slid behind the wheel. Alex thought about sitting in the front for a second, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it entered his mind. Instead, he went to the back seat and climbed in next to Noah. He moved Noah’s head to his shoulder as gently as he could. Noah didn’t even seem to notice, the painkillers making him too drowsy to do much of anything other than nod off.
Alex spent the drive wishing they could already be at home. Somehow it felt like Noah’s apartment, which had been their oasis for so long, a paradise where the outside world with its numerous complications disappeared, would make everything better. They could hide away again like they had for that very first week after running into each other and discovering that their feelings ran just as deep as they had once upon a time.
The ride home didn’t take very long. The morning traffic had already cleared, so it was just the usual, moderately irritating traffic that remained. Alex nudged Noah very carefully to rouse him from his slumber.
“We’re here,” he murmured softly into Noah’s ear. Helen’s car was nowhere to be seen, and