“How much pain medication did they give you?”
I was leaning on Alex as he led me through the double doors into my apartment building, and by the time we reached the third-floor landing, he was carrying me, my head was lolled back like a rag doll, and I thought I was flying.
“Did you—did you kill her?” I heard Nina ask.
I heard someone sniff heavily at the air. “No, she’s definitely not dead. But she smells like she’s on the verge.”
I rolled my eyes to the back of my head and saw Vlad, upside down, hands on hips.
“Where’s your cape?” I mumbled.
“She’s been drugged,” Alex explained. “Painkillers. I think I’ll just put her to bed.”
“No!” I sat up in Alex’s arms and all the blood that had rushed to my head drained to my feet while my plush bunny ears flopped against my cheeks. I blinked at the symphony of electric spots that danced in the living room. “Shower first. Must remove layers of dusty crap from skin. Hey, Nina, when’d you get here?”
Alex positioned me on the couch and Nina held out a hand for me. “I can take it from here.”
I don’t know why—or how, exactly—but I lurched forward, throwing my arms around Alex’s leg. “I can’t let you go,” I warbled into his kneecap. “I have to make things right.”
“Sophie.” I felt Nina’s ice-cold fingertips on my shoulder, working to loosen my vise-like grip on Alex’s leg. I wouldn’t let him go.
“Don’t leave,” I said, pressing my cheek against his rock-solid thigh and trying to talk to him over his crotch. “Please.”
I saw the alarm in Alex’s eyes—but there was a twinge of sympathy in there, too. “I’ll stay.” He looked at Nina. “I feel partly responsible for this anyway. I should have been protecting her.”
Nina pulled her hand out of mine and put her hands on hips. “Yeah, you should have. What happened? Where were you when—what the hell is on your hat?”
“Somebunny loves me,” I cooed.
“It was the only hat in the place,” Alex murmured.
“I love it so much,” I said, stroking one of the ears, my eyes starting to mist again. “This man is a prince.”
Nina furrowed her brow.
“He tried to save me, Neens, honest. But he was pinned by one-armed Care Bears and Cool Whip containers.” I mimicked Mort’s stack falling, pinning my hero Alex in the library. “And I saved us with an owl.”
“How many painkillers did they give her?” Vlad asked.
Nina dragged me into the tub, where I blubbered into the water and tried to explain away my new haircut. I guess I wasn’t making much sense because before long she plucked me from the bath, rolled me in a bathrobe, and dumped me on my bed. I think I heard her mumble, “She’s all yours,” to Alex as I wrestled myself into a pair of underwear and my Giants nightshirt.
Alex knocked on my open door frame. “Are you decent?”
I felt my grin spread to my earlobes. “You’re so gentlemanly.”
With his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulder pressed up against the door frame, he looked like an Abercrombie model, or one of the headless guys from a romance novel cover.
My whole body was weighted with the far-reaching ooze of the painkillers, but my mind seemed clear enough and I was desperate not to be alone.
“Can you come in here, please?” With enormous effort, I snaked a single arm free from my blankets and patted the mattress next to me. “Sit with me.”
Alex looked uncertain, but he came into the room and stood beside me.
“Sit.” I patted the mattress again.
“I don’t think—I mean, you and Will . . .”
I tried to sit up, tried to get my eyes to widen and focus on Alex’s drawn face. “No me and Will,” I finally said, though my lips felt like flapping bananas. “No me and Will.”
Alex’s sweet lips pushed up into a half smile and he sat. “You don’t have any idea what you’re saying, Lawson, do you?”
His voice was soothing and melodic, the tone making my eyelids heavy.
“I know what I’m saying,” I mumbled. “Will, me . . . not serious. It was—it was . . .” My tongue felt immovable. “It was you.”
I felt Alex’s palm on my forehead. A shiver shot through me as he gently brushed my hair away, his fingers playing through the long strands. I closed my eyes, letting the feeling flow through me.
“It was always you,” I said.
“Shh, Lawson. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do,” I said, certain I was nodding my head emphatically. “It’s not Will. Will is my Guardian. You’re my angel. My angel Alex.”