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He said, “I’m glad to see you stayed. Last night is a bit of a blur for me. I think I got pretty out of it.”
I cleared my throat. “I think you were fighting a couple of big battles in your head, but don’t give it any thought. You calmed down pretty quickly.”
When I had stroked his head and told him he was okay, he’d been able to relax. He furrowed his brow, as if he tried to remember, but finally nodded. “I wasn’t sure if you would take off in the middle of the night. I know how you strain against having to follow instructions.”
I couldn’t help my smile. “I think of myself as a rule follower.”
He waved his hand. “Then you think of yourself wrongly. We need to talk about what’s next.”
Whatever he would have said was cut off because Tito, Michael’s man who had gone after Justin, rushed into the room. “Fuck yes, I found you. They weren’t going to let me in, so I entered through the second-floor window.”
“I don’t love that you could,” Michael said with a groan. “Where is Stephen? Have him secure all the windows. Why didn’t you call? I could’ve told them to let you inside.”
“I’vebeencalling.” Tito lowered his voice. “Your phone goes straight to voicemail. I think it’s off.”
“Oh!” I forgot I turned off his phone.Damn it. I grabbed it from the side table and turned it on before I passed it to him. “Here. That’s my fault. I’m sorry. I…”
Michael extended his hand and groaned as he sat up further in the bed. “You turned it off? Why would you do that?”
“Well, you weren’t exactly in any condition to be answering it, but no excuses. I screwed up. Sorry.” I sat back down, checking out the condition of my shoes.Leave it to me to finda way to make a difficult situation even harder. Sure, screw up the phone of the only guy who could successfully manage to keep the Russian mob away from me. Piss him off. At least it would make him feel better, since he’d dodged the bullet that was me.
“What happened to Justin?” Michael didn’t otherwise comment about his phone and instead addressed Tito. I lifted my head to see he also scanned through his phone. Okay, Michael was feeling better. If he could multitask, then he was fine.
Tito shook his head. “He got away from me. I was dodging bullets, and he took off like a bat out of hell. I lost him. I’m sorry.”
There really was no need to apologize when it came to Justin, but I didn’t interrupt to tell him so. He either wanted help out of his shit show life or he didn’t. My sympathy for him vanished, maybe never to be seen again. In the meantime, I’d stayed awake all night, and I’d already messed up by turning off Michael’s phone. I absolutely didn’t need to stick around to figure out what else I might have done wrong.
I assumed Roy would be waiting in the hall, and he was there. If Michael called out my name when I exited his room, I ignored it. He didn’t need me with him anymore, and I was too tired for the whole mess at the moment.
“Can we go somewhere?” I asked Roy, keeping my voice soft. “I need to go sleep in a bed. Surely, whatever Michael wants to do can be accomplished even if I get a few hours away from here?”
The door to the hospital room flung open behind me. Tito stood there. “Come back inside. He’s trying to take out his IV to get to you.”
Yes, he did that before, too. “Roy?” I turned to him. “Please?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “There’s a place connected to here.”
I knew the one, as I’d stayed there last time, when Hope was the one in the hospital.
Roy continued. “Go tell him you’re leaving. I don’t want him to take my head off or bleed to death trying to get to you.”
I sighed, resigned to not being able to escape without talking to Michael again. I steeled my back and walked past Tito. “Give me a minute, okay?”
“Sure.” He walked toward Roy. “We’re here. Can we get a beer?”
“Probably not.” Roy laughed.
The door closed behind me. Sure enough, Michael was half off the bed and glaring at me. “Where are you going?”
I sighed. “To a hotel. With Roy. I’ll be there when we’re ready to go wherever we’re going. You don’t need me here screwing things up. Turning off your phone. Touching you. Whatever.”
He shook his head. “Touching me?”
“Never mind. I just mess things up, so I’ll go with Roy. And you won’t get hurt anymore because of me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You didn’t screw anything up that can’t be fixed. Rather easily, usually. Why are you so hard on yourself? So much harder than anyone is on you?”
I couldn’t do this with him right then. Tiredness weighed my limbs and even my eyelids. “Michael…”
