I could make out Xander, I thanked her.
She gave a quick smile and headed for the door. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“I’ll be here.”
When she disappeared out into the hall, I turned my attention back to Xander. He was still dressed in his tuxedo, from what I could make out, his black pants molding to his legs and his jacket draped over his crossed arms. His tie was hanging loosely around his neck now, not in the perfect bow it’d been at the beginning of the night, and his top couple of buttons were undone.
His silver-streaked hair was sticking up all over the place, and he looked so disheveled, so unlike himself, that it made me smile. God, it was good to see him there, alive and in one piece. I’d heal soon enough. But if that motherfucker had gotten to Xander, if he’d hurt him in any way, I wasn’t sure how I would’ve dealt with it.
As if he could sense someone watching him, Xander shifted in his seat and opened his eyes. He blinked several times, and when he saw me, his eyes widened and he sat up in his seat.
That was when it happened. Xander’s jacket fell into his lap and his white dress shirt came into view—although it wasn’t white anymore.
A deep red stain covered nearly the entire bottom of the material, with blood spattered across the rest of it. His sleeves hadn’t fared much better, with patches of red soaked into the snowy-white shirt. As though he sensed where I was looking, Xander quickly rearranged the jacket to again cover as much of the blood as he could.
“When did you wake back up?”
Back up? I didn’t remember waking up before now. “A few minutes ago, when they came to get my blood.”
Xander slowly got to his feet, and when he went to take a step forward, swayed a little, then stopped and reached out to put a hand on the wall.
Jesus, he looked like he was about to keel over. Actually, now that I was really looking at him, I noticed how pale he was, how red his eyes were. Xander looked like he’d been to hell and back, and I automatically reached for my blankets, ready to shove them aside and go to him—IV and stitches be damned.
Xander looked up, and when he saw what I was about to do, he straightened and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You looked like you were about to fall—”
“So you were, what? Going to catch me?” He rushed to my side then reached out and wrapped his fingers around mine. “You already saved me once tonight,” he whispered, trying to blink away the tears welling in his eyes. “It’s time to start thinking about yourself now.”
I licked my dry lips, looked down at our joined hands, and squeezed. When Xander sucked in a breath, I returned my attention to his strained features.
He looked about as good as I felt. When he closed his eyes and said, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel you do that again,” I wondered just what kind of hell he’d been through tonight.
“Hey.” I waited for Xander’s eyes to open and then tried for a smile. “It’s over now. I’m right here.”
“I know, but— God, Sean. I’m so sorry.” He lowered his head and pressed his lips to the center of my palm, and his pain was so raw that my heart felt as though it were breaking in half.
“Xander, it’s okay,” I said, and reached for the side of his face, brushing away the tears. “I’m okay.”
“But you weren’t.” As he stared down at me, the fear and worry swirling in his eyes told me that whatever he’d been through tonight—whatever we’d been through—he was still experiencing it in high definition.
“You were as far from okay as I’ve ever seen you. I thought you were going to die tonight, Sean. I thought I was watching you die…”
As he swallowed in a gulp of air, I shook his hand to try to get him to focus on my face, get him to focus on something other than what he was obviously reliving.
“That all mine?” I asked, and nodded toward his shirt.
Xander looked down then quickly brought his jacket up in an attempt to cover it. “Yes. I didn’t want to leave, and—”
“Not even to get changed?” Something about that sacrifice, that devotion, struck at my very core. “Thank you.”
As Xander stroked his thumb over the back of my fingers, my eyes