Page 43 of Hollow State

She supposed she could start throwing things at the door. And she had a good set of lungs.

Darwin came through the door exactly ten minutes and forty-eight seconds later. And he was still wearing the purple button-down shirt and the dark stone-washed jeans he'd been wearing yesterday. His glasses sat crookedly on his nose. That was nothing new.

"It took you long enough," she said.

He glanced over his shoulder before he shut the door.

"You ready to break out of this joint?" He smiled. Big and wide. Which was unusual for Darwin. Rare, actually. She could probably count on one hand all the times she'd seen a genuine one on his face.

Wynn pushed up on her elbow. "Are you serious right now?"

"Give me your arm."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

She raised her arm, and he gently pulled the IV line out, covered it with gauze, and taped it.

"You weren't joking." She stared at her hand and wiggled her fingers.

"Nope. Now, let's get you back to my room," he said. "You'll be so much more comfortable there."

"Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Don't get any ideas." He laughed. "There will be no wex until you can put a little weight on that leg. That's two days minimum, and I'm not negotiating."

"That's not a word. Besides, my grandmother taught me that I should never settle and that there was always room to negotiate."

"We're not settling. We're waiting. And we're doing it in my room." He dropped the used needle in the sharps bin. "Where I can keep an eye on you overnight. I’d like at least one night's sleep that doesn't happen at a forty-degree angle. That chair sucks."

"Are you saying this is strictly medical?"

"I'm taking you to my room. What do you think?"

"You're actually going to let me sleep in your room," she said. "Where anybody can see me go in. And you’re not going to care that everybody knows."

Darwin leaned back against the counter. "Everyone knows we've been sneaking around like a couple of teenagers," he said. "Zadie has a running commentary and I've heard several minutes of it. Scout came in here this morning and asked if I—we—needed anything special on her and Coulter's supply run. And then she winked at me. Every person under this mountain has already assumed something's happened or is about to. So tell me what part of this is supposed to shock anyone."

"That's not the same as⁠—"

"Pick a room," he said. "Yours. Mine. I genuinely don't care which. But if you're getting out of this one, we're staying together."

"I like the smell of your pillows," she said.

"That's the same soap everybody's got."

"It is not the soap, and I've thought about it enough to be embarrassed, and I'd appreciate you not making me say more than that." She put her arms out. "Take me there."

He got one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her thighs and lifted her off the mattress, and Wynn had about two seconds to enjoy that before he set her down into a wheelchair.

She glared. "Seriously? I have to go in this thing?"

"You do."

"It's one hole. In one leg. I have another leg, and it's fully operational. I've had it for years."

"I can go get Coulter and have him carry you."