▬ ☼ ▬
ADAM
I’m standing beside the bed when Nick’s eyes flutter open. It’s an hour after I found him sitting at the bottom of my front steps, shivering and bleeding and confused. He’d dozed off while I was getting the first aid kit, so I’d maintained a silent vigil to see if he’d awaken on his own or if I would need to gently nudge him so I could tend to the minor cuts and abrasions on his elbows and face.
“Hey there, handsome,” I say quietly. “How are you?”
His mouth lifts into a shy smile. “I’m not sure. Pretty much lost at the moment.”
When I first spotted him after turning the corner earlier, I was instantly furious. Since I’m more or less an easy walk from a handful of bars and restaurants, my stoop often hosts drunken revelers who get stranded midway between the last beer and the first light of day.
I figured Nick was another intoxicated stranger, but as soon as I saw his face and the red abrasions and the glazed eyes, I went to work. I carefully helped him to his feet and guided him up the stairs. I kept one arm around his waist while I unlocked and opened the door. We inched forward into the entryway and then the living room, where I lowered him onto the sofa as he groaned against the pain. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he’d mumbled. “Somebody hurt me.” We sat and talked for a few minutes before I gingerly helped him stand and led him upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms. He’d mumbled something about me trying to get a look at him naked, but I’d dismissed that joke with a stern reminder that I’d already seen him undressed twice before.
“Do you remember what happened?” I ask.
His mouth squirms. “Yeah, some of it. There was a guy, and he…no, wait. There were two of them. And the taller one had roses.”
“Roses?”
Nick nods. “On his jacket.”
Fuck. My hunch was right.
“What kind of jacket?” I ask.
“They took things,” Nick says, skimming past my question. “Did you tell them to?”
I’d noticed the missing paintings and framed prints when we’d first entered the house, but knew that was something I could deal with later. There was no sign of forced entry, so my gut told me instantly that it wasn’t a random break-in.
“Let’s not worry about that right now,” I tell Nick, sitting beside him on the bed. “You need to get some rest, sexy boy. But first, I want to finish cleaning up those cuts, okay?”
“Cleaning what?” he asks, sounding fuzzy again.
“Someone clocked your left cheek,” I answer. “There’s a small cut, and I want to get some antibiotic ointment on it.”
He raises one arm and goes for the first aid kit on the bedside table, but I catch his hand in midair. “Whoa, hold on. I’ll take care of everything. You just need to keep still.”
I douse a cotton ball with alcohol and begin gently swabbing the scrapes on his cheek.
“Why did he hit me?” Nick asks in a hoarse whisper.
“I’d like to know the same thing,” I tell him. “I ran out to buy some wine from a shop around the corner. You were sprawled on the front steps when I—”
He recoils from the sting of the disinfectant. “Fuck, that really hurts. Are the scratches deep?”
“Not terribly,” I reassure him, patting his chest. “Either the guy was a bad shot or you turned away before he landed the punch.”
Nick shrugs. “Don’t really remember. It’s all kind of…” He pauses to swallow. “Sorry about that. My throat is kind of dry.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you apologize too much?”
“Oh, um…” A frail smile brightens his face. “Possibly. I guess that I tend to say sorry a lot.”
I touch the tip of his nose with one finger. “Bingo. We need to work on that.”
He narrows his gaze. “We?”
“You and me,” I say. “I was like that myself when I was a few years younger than you are now. It’s easy to diminish your worth when life deals you some bad luck when you’re a kid.”
He smiles again, bigger and brighter. “My friend Dede says stuff like that all the time.”
“Ah, the renowned pizza maven,” I say. “I actually spoke to her a few minutes ago.”
“You did?”
“After I got you settled in here,” I tell him, “I figured we should let her know that you’re not missing in action. She was pretty freaked out at first, but I assured her that I would keep you safe until you’re steady enough to head home.”
“What about deliveries?” he asks, biting his lower lip. “I just left her high and dry.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Dede told me that business has been slow and one of the other employees would be able to deliver any orders that come in.”
He makes a face. “God, I hope she’s not talking about Rita. Her sense of direction is nonexistent. She gets lost even with GPS on her phone.”
I can’t help but laugh at the wisecrack and his comical expression. As he begins a story about Rita’s penchant for losing her way in the Village, I study Nick’s face and the gleam in his baby blues. Despite the upsetting incident in front of my house, he’s bouncing back nicely. His voice sounds stronger and calmer than it did earlier. I’m so distracted by his handsome features that it takes me a few seconds to realize that he’s calling my name and jabbing one finger into my thigh.
“Are you?” he’s saying when I blink away the daydream.
“Am I what?” I ask.
He offers a sheepish grin. “Glad to see me?”
I take a breath. “Well, I’m really sorry about the circumstances,” I tell him, “but seeing you again is the best thing that’s happened since the last time I saw you.”