Free Ride Free by Evelyn Glass Page B

food,” she said, awkwardly thrusting the bag toward him even though she was still standing in the doorway.
     
    “Thank God, I thought I was gonna have to eat the Jell-O.” He grinned and she walked toward the chair at the edge of his bed where Pitbull had been sitting. “Cristina called you?”
     
    She swallowed and nodded. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I was teaching and I hadn’t listened to my messages.” Oh, the way he’s looking at me. Like he’s grateful I’m here. Like I’m the only one he wants to see right now.
     
    “It’s just some scrapes and a concussion.” He shrugged. “Honestly, Ali, I’ve had worse football injuries.”
     
    “Cristina said it was a severe concussion. And you were shot.”
     
    “Shot at ,” he corrected. “Bullet grazed my arm. It’s bandaged. I’ll be fine. I’m out of here as soon as they give me the go-ahead.” She was silent and he pressed on. “Really, I’m okay. You should see the other guy.”
     
    “Did you—Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, but he knew where she was going with it.
     
    “No.” He shook his head. “Not me. Not this time.”
     
    “But… Have you? Before?”
     
    He avoided her eyes and said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. “If I absolutely have to.”
     
    She didn’t ask the questions she so desperately wanted to ask: How many? And why?
     
    “I’m an outlaw, Ali, not a serial killer,” he reminded her. “There’s no joy in it, but sometimes it’s gotta be done.”
     
    “I know, it’s just—”
     
    “And I’m not asking you to be okay with it. Your conscience is your own.”
     
    She nodded and reached for him. “I’m sorry. It’s just such a hard thing to wrap my mind around.”
     
    “I get that.” He cradled her hand in his own.
     
    “Can I see?” she gestured to the bandages peeking from underneath his hospital gown.
     
    “Well, it’s all—” He waved his free hand vaguely around his torso. “It’s no big deal, really.”
     
    Ali pressed her lips to his battered knuckles and he sighed. She longed to crawl into the hospital bed with him, kiss away every scrape and bruise, keep him up so he didn’t slip into a coma. Instead she turned his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek until he cupped it on his own.
     
    “Ali,” he murmured.
     
    “I don’t want to leave you again,” she whispered, the words spilling from her heart right out her mouth. “Can I take you home with me when they let you go?”
     
    “I’d like that.” He swallowed and closed his eyes.
     
    It killed her to see him so vulnerable, this strong, capable man flat on his back in a hospital bed. It touched something inside her, a memory that hadn’t been made yet, of caring for him at an elemental level. Of anticipating his needs. Her hand trembled as she stroked the unharmed side of his face, and he nuzzled into her palm.
     
    “I’m sorry I was so stupid,” she choked, her eyes filling with tears.
     
    He didn’t open his eyes, just rubbed his lips across her hand. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
     
    “I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
     
    “Baby.” He sighed and looked at her then, his eyes grave and pained despite the smile on his face. “That makes two of us.”
     

 
    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
    It had taken forever, but the hospital finally released Alejandro, and Ali had driven him home with her. Their moment of intimacy at the hospital had passed without either of them pursuing it. Ali didn’t know how to initiate that conversation again and wasn’t sure she wanted to when it was late and they were both exhausted. She didn’t know what she might say to make him see that she just wanted to be with him, in whatever way and for however long she could have him, the rest be damned.
     
    In her dimly lit living room she handed him a glass of tea and went to prep the downstairs guest room. Her heart pounded as she made up the bed.