“Wonderful.”
“I’ll pretend that’s a good exclamation.”
I maneuvered myself in bed with him, staying above the covers. He wrapped his arm around me, leaning his head against my shoulder. And as I cracked open the textbook, I gave him the condensed version of chapter four. I talked him through the biggest points and told him I’d get him a copy of my notes. Then I turned to chapter five and began reading.
I read for a few pages before he sat up, groaning as he moved.
“Can you give me a second?”
I nodded. “Of course. Take your time. Do you need water?”
He sighed. “I just need a minute. The head hurts.”
I leaned ba
ck in bed with him, watching as he closed his eyes. I took his hand, feeling him squeeze it as he breathed through whatever he was experiencing. I kissed his cheek and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. The book soon fell to the floor, plopping open and crinkling the pages as he relaxed against me.
And five minutes later, the first snore erupted from his face.
Yikes.
I lay there with him for a little bit, staring at his face. His snores grew to exponential proportions, so I reached over and started finagling with some of the switches on his electronic bed. I finally got him going down, hitting that sweet spot where his snoring stopped.
And after I slowly inched away from him, I picked up the book off the floor.
“I’ll just make some notes for him to go over.”
A quick notation summary of Chapters Five and Six turned into me doing the worksheets for him. Quick answers that sounded like Clint before I moved onto his math homework. I intentionally got a few wrong, trying to make it look like I wasn’t actually doing his work for him. And an hour later, I moved on to my own homework.
I stayed in that hospital room for almost three hours before Nurse Nina finally poked her head in.
“I hate to do this to you, honey. But, visiting hours wrapped up a few minutes ago.”
I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll get my things together.”
“I can buy you maybe fifteen more minutes. But that’s when the doctor comes back from his break.”
I smiled, whispering, “I really appreciate it.”
She crept in and took a quick look at Clint’s vitals, then rushed back out. I quickly gathered my things, shoving our homework into my bag before I made my way back to his side. I took his hand, gazing into his sleeping face. The bruising from his broken nose was spreading. But the swelling had gone down a great deal. I smiled softly to myself, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. I let my lips linger, feeling him mindlessly press into my warmth before hunkering down further in bed.
And queuing up that damn snoring.
How did I ever sleep beside that?
“I’ll see you soon,” I murmured against his skin.
Then I picked up my things, threw the backpack strap across my back, and slowly made my way out of his room.
Wishing the entire time I could stay the night with him.
16
Clinton
“Guess what day it is? Guess what. Day. It. Is.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Are you doing a parody of those commercials?”