Once I was done emptying my stomach for what felt like the hundredth time, I flushed and just leaned onto the cool ceramic of the tub. The entire room was cool. I undid the straps of my sandals and threw them aside, undid the button on my jeans, and shed those as well.
By the time Nash came in to check on me, I was in a tank top and underwear and didn’t even care. What I really wanted to do was take a shower, but I had to work up to it. I had to store up some energy.
“I’m going down the hall to get ice and a ginger ale. I’ll be right back,” he said.
I just nodded. So tired. Every muscle in my stomach and back was throbbing from the number of times I’d used them in such a short span. The hotel door shut with a bang. I struggled to sit up, taking off my remaining clothes. It took everything I had to get into the shower, letting the pressure of the water soothe me. I grabbed the soap, cleaning every part of me I could, and then sank to the bottom of the tub, hugging my knees, and just letting the water pour over me.
The noise of the shower must have covered the noise of his return because the curtain jerked sideways, startling me and my stomach. It lurched, but it wasn’t enough to send me to the toilet again.
Nash was eyeing me, concern spelled out on his face in a way I wasn’t used to. I wanted to hate that it was him seeing me like this―weak, yet again―but I was too fatigued, too sore, too drained to work up enough energy to actually hate.
He shut off the water and brought a towel over.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
I nodded, eyes shutting, but didn’t move.
“Don’t fall asleep there,” he said.
I was already halfway to sleep. He pulled me up by my arms, and my body was bare to him once more, showing all the pieces of me, including some from the inside I was wearing like a cloak at the moment.
I steadied myself on his shoulders while he ran the towel over every part of me, gently, carefully. When he stood back up, he swallowed hard.
“Can you get my pajamas from my suitcase?” I asked.
“It’s in your room. I’ll get it for you later. Let me get you one of my T-shirts for now. Will you be okay if I let you go?”
But as soon as his arms left my waist, I wobbled. So tired.
He scooped me up again, carrying me out to the single queen-sized bed in the hotel room. He swept back the covers and set me down. I curled up. I heard him unzipping the military duffel I’d seen him with, and he came back, but my eyes were already shut. I was already drifting off.
“Sit up, Athena, so we can get this on you.” I didn’t budge. I certainly didn’t feel like Athena. And that was the last thought in my head as I fell asleep.
Nash
DREAM
“And all these sorrows I have seen,
They lead me to believe,
That everything's a mess.”
Performed by Imagine Dragons
Written by Grant / Reynolds / Sermon / Mckee / Platzman
She’d fallen asleep without a stitch of clothing, but I wasn’t going to be an ass and wake her up. Not after everything she’d just gone through in the last ninety minutes. Instead, I pulled the sheet up over her, tucking it in around her, and then sat in the chair at the desk, watching her sleep. Watching her breath as it went in and out.
She’d been embarrassed. There was no reason. Hell, I’d been as sick as her out both ends so many times from alcohol that I probably couldn’t count them. We’d worked hard, played hard, and partied hard in Silver Squadron. It took a hell of a lot to get me to the throwing up stage now as my body was used to it in a way my liver probably wouldn’t like someday. Dani getting sick because she’d gotten food poisoning or had a stomach bug or whatever was nothing to be ashamed of.
If the food had been the cause, I wanted every damn person at the restaurant to feel as miserable as they’d made her feel. I knew this wasn’t a normal reaction. I hadn’t had this strong of a reaction to anyone in my entire life. Dani did it to me. She pulled my trajectory until I couldn’t find up or down or out. Someone easily could have taken me out several times today when my head had been full of her. My head and my heart. The damn charcoaled muscle, which barely could beat for the people I considered family, had been beating for weeks at her siren call.
I watched over her for several hours while she slept as the late morning shifted into late afternoon. Sitting still wasn’t an issue for me. I’d spent hours in the same position, waiting for a target to come into view on multiple occasions. I’d been places where I hadn’t been able to move more than a toe or finger without giving my cover away. Watching Dani breathe was like a gift compared to those times. A moment I would never have again. So I took it with both hands, memorizing the parts of her visible over the sheet as well as the curves underneath it.
The room had started to shift into the autumn afternoon shadows by the time she shifted back to life. The only light we’d turned on was the one in the bathroom, and it barely shed its beam into the room as Dani’s eyes slowly opened, meeting mine.
“Have you been sitting there the whole time?” Her voice was dry, throaty.
I took the ginger ale out of the ice bucket, poured some in a glass, and put it on the table
