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If Xander didn’t make it back to his room on the bus by 4 AM, that typically meant he didn’t plan on sleeping that night. It was nearly dawn, and Grayson hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep.
It wasn’t that he was worried about what Xander was doing—he was a rockstar on tour, what could anyone expect? No, Grayson’s uneasiness came from having the room to himself. Intimidating as Xander’s presence could be, having him around was a safeguard.
A drunken roadie could stumble into the room to harass him. Or maybe a rabid fan looking for Micah.
Laying back on the pillow, Grayson kneaded his temples.
He was being paranoid. There was twenty-four-hour security keeping an eye on the troop of tour vehicles. But would anyone bother to intervene if it was a print who was in the danger?
The door burst open. A figure stumbled into the dark room.
Sleep-deprived and wired as he was, Grayson shouted in alarm and scrambled to the corner of his pillow. Then he froze up, his heavy breathing beginning to calm when he recognized Xander’s silhouette.
“Lights… on,” Xander mumbled. When nothing happened, he huffed. “Lights on,” he said louder.
Grayson flinched both from the sound of his voice and the light that flooded that room. He gaped when his vision cleared.
One, Xander was clearly hammered.
Two, his hand was bleeding.
“Are you okay?” Grayson jolted to hands and knees, leaning forward.
Xander barely looked at him. He muttered something incoherent and sank down on the floor beside the bed. For a second, Grayson thought he was passing out right there, until he heard Xander digging around through one of his bags.
When he stood again, he held a med pack—one that had clearly been swiped from the tour physician.
“Do, um… Do you get hurt often enough to keep that in reach?” Grayson asked.
Again, Xander didn’t answer. He sat on the edge of the bed and slumped over, clumsily opening the pack.
For all of his hyper-intense focus while sober, his inebriated self could only focus on one thing at a time—if even that. Or, he was just being an asshole and purposely ignoring Grayson’s concern.
“Don’t tell me you got mugged?” Grayson tried again.
Finally, Xander snapped his head around to see over his shoulder. He stared at Grayson like he was crazy. “You think I’d lose a fight?”
The intensity of his glare almost sent Grayson fleeing back to the corner of the bed. He raised his hands in peace. “Hey, for all I know, they’re laying a blood-soaked heap outside.”
Xander narrowed his eyes like he couldn’t be sure whether to take it as a compliment or not. He snorted and went back to rifling through the medical supplies. “I tripped, okay? Scraped myself on gravel or glass or something.”
“Two are two very different things. Maybe you should go to—”
“I’m not knocking on the doctor’s door like this. She’s already been on my case about drinking. Don’t wanna deal with that.”
The finality of his tone made Grayson shut up for a few moments. He watched as Xander haphazardly selected what he was going to use to fix himself. Unfortunately, that selection only amounted to a roll of bandages to wrap the wound.
“You can’t do that!” Grayson blurted before he could stop himself.
Once again, Xander looked over his shoulder. That glare, unfocused or not, towered over Grayson at a building’s height. Neither of them moved for several seconds, locked in a silent staring contest that Grayson finally forced himself to break.
“You… you can’t,” he insisted. “You can’t just cover it. You’ve got to disinfect it.”
“I can take care of myself.” The defensiveness in his tone bit hard.
Intimidation rolled through Grayson like a thunderstorm as Xander continued to study him, daring him to continue the argument. But the longer Grayson looked, the more he could see embarrassment lining his narrowed eyes and pout. It was far more than Xander gave away when sober.
“If that gets infected, there’s no way you’re playing for a while,” Grayson said, injecting some semblance of authority into his tone. “So, listen to me.”
Another beat of silence. Grayson’s confidence wavered. For all he knew, pushing Xander over the edge would result in a broken limb or two.
At last, Xander pursed his lips and shoved the box in Grayson’s direction. He stared down at the bedsheets with insecurity that Grayson didn’t think possible from him.
Grayson slowly slid off the pillow and inched toward the drunken giant. It could have been some power move trap—lure Grayson close and hurt him just for the fun of it. But Xander didn’t appear to have the wherewithal or spitefulness to pull that off.
Although every self-preservation instinct told him to keep his eyes on the massively potential threat, Grayson tore his eyes away to look through the box. He grabbed a bottle of salve by the cap and heaved it out. It was longer than Grayson’s arm, and he’d never had access to such high-end medical supplies. He’d only heard that it worked wonders.
Clutching the bottle to his chest, Grayson walked closer to the edge of the bed, right beside where Xander was sitting.
“Lay your hand out,” Grayson said, calmly as he could manage.
Xander obeyed after a heavy sigh. The gash was deep, but thankfully it didn’t look like he needed stitches. Blood continued to trickle out and pool in his palm, threatening to stain the bed.
Grayson uncapped the bottle. “You need to soak up the blood first.”
“Ugh.”
With some more cajoling, Xander did as he was told. He used some of the gauze to gracelessly mop up his palm. He even managed to use an alcohol whip on the cut without being a baby about it.
“Good,” Grayson said.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m five,” Xander muttered.
“Then don’t whine like you’re five.”
When Grayson peeked up to see if that would ignite some anger, he noticed the other side of Xander’s face has a smear of red across it. There didn’t appear to be another cut—maybe he had thoughtlessly brushed his hand over his cheek. Whatever the case, the sight of it didn’t do much to make Xander appear harmless at the moment.
Let’s get this over with.
Taking a dollop of the salve into his hand, Grayson leaned over Xander’s palm to apply it to the wound. The moment he made contact, however, Xander seemed to forget what his intentions were. Fingers curling reflexively, Xander snapped his hand away and stared at Grayson with wide eyes.
“H-hey,” Grayson said, swallowing hard. One of those fingers had nearly given him an uppercut to the jaw. “I need to touch you. Please. I just want to help.”
“Why?” Xander snapped.
“B-because, I mean,” Grayson sputtered. “You’re bleeding. People hurt when they bleed. You’re hurt. It hurts, doesn’t it?”
That didn’t quite seem to satisfy Xander’s demand, judging by his deepened frown.
Grayson returned that frown. “Why are you so shocked that I want to help you?”
Xander shrugged. Cautiously, he laid out his hand again. “Whatever.”
Watching for so much as a stray twitch from Xander’s hand, Grayson gingerly spread the salve on the wound. Almost immediately, the redness began to fade, and the skin began to close a little. With any luck, it would be nothing more than a scrape by tomorrow morning.
“Okay,” Grayson said, searching for the end on a roll of gauze. “Can you lift your hand a little?”
When Xander didn’t move, Grayson dared to peer up at his face and found him staring hard again. Whatever he was thinking about, he couldn’t seem to make sense of what was going through his own head. He blinked and finally seemed to register that Grayson was waiting for him.
Once Xander’s hand was in place, Grayson pressed the end of the gauze to the salved wound to keep it from slipping. Then he wrapped Xander’s palm, asking every few rounds if the tightness was okay. Xander’s only feedback came in the form of noncommittal grunts.
When it was done, Grayson hesitantly told Xander to cut off the remaining bandage roll with medical scissors. Thankfully, that went without disaster. After the gauze was taped off, Xander inspected his hand and flexed his fingers.
His eyes drifted back down to Grayson, intensity flaring up again. “You’re not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?”
Grayson tossed the salve back into the box and clenched his jaw. Annoyance kept him from making eye contact, not fear. “Oh, what? That a print patched you up?”
“Nah. That I tripped over my own feet while I was fucking wasted.”
“Oh. I mean. I don’t know.” Grayson’s gaze fluttered upward and he caught sight of the smeared blood on Xander’s face again. “Hey… You’ve still got—”
“What?”
“Here. Lean down.”
Grayson ripped off a clean corner of the alcohol wipe that Xander had used. To his surprise, Xander didn’t argue about leaning down.
Once his face was close enough, Grayson reached out to wipe the blood. Xander went tense—his jaw clenched right beside Grayson. But neither of them flinched. Xander’s skin was hot to the touch. Stubble grazed Grayson’s skin as he gently cleaned away the red smear. He took a step back, holding up the stained wipe for Xander to see.
“Hm.” Xander clumsily plucked it out of his hand and tossed it, along with everything else they’d taken out, back into the box.
Grayson sighed wearily. “Okay, I know you’re wasted, but you can’t just put bloody things back in—”
“Thanks,” Xander cut in suddenly. “Thanks for the help. Micah would’ve lost his shit if I couldn’t play because of an infection.” There was a beat of awkward silence, though it didn’t last long. “You didn’t answer my question, though. About not telling anyone.”
“I mean… I think the doctor should probably know that you hurt yourself, right?”
“Wrong.” Xander’s expression went blank for a second. Then he stifled a yawn into his good hand and wavered like a sudden wave of sleepiness had crashed into him.
Without warning, he scooped Grayson up.
“H-hey! Wh-what—” While Grayson stammered out half-questions, Xander yanked back the sheets and crawled under them, taking Grayson with him.
Settling into bed without a care, Xander hugged Grayson to his chest. Although his touch was more uncoordinated than usual, it felt far from menacing.
While Xander’s heart thudded at an unhurried pace beneath him, Grayson’s pulse was fluttering like a panicked bird. Sure, Xander was a cuddler when he was unconscious, but never while he was this awake—though it quickly became clear that awake was an understatement.
Xander’s mumbled words were barely audible, even when pressed up against his chest. “Can’t have you running off to tell on me.”
Before long, his breathing evened out. The weight of his hand loosened. But Grayson stayed where he was. After what he’d been through the last fifteen minutes, he couldn’t say no to some warmth and safety—things that were becoming dangerously familiar from the likes of Xander Dalton.