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The convention was interrupted by gunshots.
Matt hadn’t realized how close it was. Actually, he hadn’t realized it was happening, because he was kneeling on the ground and tying his shoe. There was a crack behind him. He didn’t think much of it. It was a convention. Someone might have snuck a firecracker or something in, somehow. He wasn’t thinking about hearing a gunshot, so he didn’t—it just wasn’t on his mind. He glanced Smitty’s way—
And then there was another crack.
And then a spurt of red.
And then something hot was spattering his face.
It didn’t even take more than a second for him to realize that was blood on his face, that Smitty had been shot, that there were more gunshots going off behind him. At the same time, Smitty collapsed to the side, eyes still wide and breath catching in his throat. He let out a weak groan as he did, almost strangled. Matt lunged for him, managed to catch his head before he fell.
“Jaren?” He asked. “Jaren, hey, no—” He cupped his friend’s face.
Groaning, brown eyes wide, Smitty stared somewhere past him. His eyes flicked around the ceiling, presumably. His breath came in rattling, weak. A hand settled on Matt’s shoulder.
Flinching, Matt turned. Chris was there, already scooping Smitty into his arms. There was a weak groan. Smitty’s head fell to the side, and then Yumi and Grizzy were dragging Matt to his feet, and John was shoving him in the back, and they were running. They were running, and they were out of the convention centre so fast, breaking out into the LA night air. Puffer was carrying Smitty in his arms so easily, like he didn’t weigh anything. There was blood on Smitty’s stomach, on Matt’s face. Smitty’s breathing sounded wrong.
Matt glanced at Puffer. The other man was looking at Smitty, though, cradling him close. “Hold on, Jaren,” he reassured, glancing down at him, “we got you.”
Smitty just let out another groan, then inhaled hard, painfully.
Behind them, Matt could hear people screaming. More gunshots. People were running from the centre, trying to escape the—the shooter? Was it a shooter? Was it something else? He didn’t know.
“Pu—” Smitty wheezed out, “Puffer.”
“It’s okay.” Puffer smiled weakly. There was a spatter of blood on his cheek—Matt had missed that, but right. Puffer had been by Smitty, too.
“House! Up there!” Grizzy called to the others from up ahead.
“Pez—” Smitty started.
They hit the lawn of a small house, a single-story bungalow type thing with a porch. It might have had blue or green walls. Matt didn’t know. He and Danielle had been looking at houses—just for fun, she liked finding houses to place her characters in when she wrote. It definitely didn’t seem like a place he and the others would find themselves at when they were running from a shooter.
Smitty whimpered. Matt glanced over to see Puffer holding Smitty closer.
“Sorry, sorry,” Puffer apologized, running onto the sidewalk. Pausing, Matt dropped back behind him, glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t close your eyes, Smitty.”
There was a weak grunt. John hurried to Puffer’s side, cupped the back of Smitty’s neck and lifted his head to settle it against their friend’s shoulders.
Practically throwing himself up the stairs, Matt hammered on the front door.
“Please!” He yelled, so loudly his voice cracked. “We need help!”
There were more gunshots behind them. Was it more than one shooter? Again, Matt glanced at Smitty. His friend was staring up at the porch ceiling, eyes half-lidded. His stomach was soaked in blood.
The door opened. Matt turned around in time to see a woman, hear her gasp. “Oh my—what happened?”
“Chris?” Smitty’s voice was practically a whisper. “I can’t—I can’t feel my legs.”
“Please, we need help.” Matt told her. There was a bit of hesitance on the woman’s face, he could hear Puffer and Smitty talking. Puffer asked about Smitty not being able to feel his legs. Quietly, Smitty repeated the same words from moments before, but his voice was…slurred. Weaker. “He got hit, please, we just need somewhere to be.”
To hide, really.
Dark eyes flicking across them all, the woman—a Latina lady in her late forties, if he had to guess, with graying black hair and a red blouse—shook her head like she was jerking herself from a dream. Stepping to the side, she beckoned them, said, “Come in, come in.”
“Thank you.” Matt almost sobbed, glancing back to let Puffer and Smitty, then the others, in first.
“Watch your head, buddy.” Puffer whispered, adjusting Smitty again. Face tucked into Puffer’s neck, Smitty wheezed for breath. He brushed his fingers against the red spreading on his stomach.
Matt followed them through the house, giving introductions to their saviors—a woman named Angela, apparently. Fuck, it was fitting. Smitty glanced around at them all, and Matt met his gaze.
There were other people rushing into the house soon enough, Angela’s husband (Virgil, his name was Virgil) hurrying to let them inside. People were flooding into the bedrooms, the living room, the backyard—just away from the front porch. Angela got them to the back den, apparently, and then they were putting Smitty on the floor. Ripping his jacket off, Grizzy folded it up and shoved it under Smitty’s head.
John hurried around, reached for Smitty’s face. Smitty frowned up at him, mouthed his name and blinked languidly. His eyes took a few seconds to open.
“Matt.” Grizzy started, catching his attention. Whipping his head around, Matt turned to him. “We need to put pressure on that wound. Help me out.”
Matt nodded, hands shaking as he knelt on Smitty’s right side. Grizzy took the left, pulling up Smitty’s shirt.
There was a hole in his friend’s body.
An actual, genuine fucking hole. Stomach flipping, Matt clamped his mouth shut and took a breath, then watched as Grizzy put his hands over Smitty’s body. It wasn’t quite his stomach. It was the lower left side of his ribs, not quite in the soft spot. Matt moved his hands to match Grizzy’s. “He’s going to be okay, right?” Yumi asked, voice shaky and wavering.
“This is going to hurt. John, try to calm him down as best you can. Chris, go and see if anyone else who came in have first aid experience, or if Angela has a medical kit. Blake, sit down.”
“What?”
“Sit down. Matt, pressure.” Grizzy ordered, leaning forward on his hands. “He’s going to scream. Keep the pressure on. Blake, sit down so you don’t pass out.”
Matt leaned harder on Smitty’s stomach. He could feel his friend’s blood under his hands, tacky and slick and repulsive. There was a shudder in Smitty’s breathing. He moaned, lips parting. Face going hot, eyes burning, Matt blinked hard. He might have been crying. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want Smitty to look up and see him sobbing or something. That might freak him out more.
“Matt, press harder. He’s going to bleed out otherwise.” Grizzy cautioned.
Matt applied a lot more pressure.
Smitty screamed.
He managed to throw a punch, knuckles grazing Grizzy’s shoulder. It was a pathetic punch, really. Matt bit back a cry of his own, grabbing Smitty’s shoulder and pinning him down. Smitty thrashed. He tangled his fingers with Grizzy, applied more pressure.
Smitty wailed, thrashing again. “Ssh, ssh, it’s okay—” John said, brushing his fingers through Smitty’s hair. Whimpering, Smitty tried to jerk away. His chest heaved. He sobbed again, shaking his head. “Smitty! Smitty, calm—”
Smitty dug his heels into Angela’s carpet, a whine leaving him. Every single sound he made was frantic, teary. It tore at Matt’s chest. He turned his head away, tried to ignore the pained noises leaving Smitty.
“Jaren,” Grizzy’s voice was calm. Commanding. Pain bit into Matt’s hand—the one tangled with Grizzy’s. He glanced down to see Smitty had grabbed onto them, digging his nails in. “Let. Go.”
Smitty let go.
Grizzy kept looking down at him, though, his face steady. He seemed calm—way calmer than Matt would ever be in this situation. Fuck, was he keeping the right amount of pressure? What if Smitty bled out anyways? Beside him, Matt heard Grizzy talking in that calm tone of voice, cutting through everything, “—need you to stay still. Do you understand?”
Smitty nodded, though it seemed to take a hell of a lot of effort for him to do so. He flinched, gasped. There was an attempt to raise his head. Thankfully, John had free hands Matt and Grizzy didn’t. Gently, he pushed Smitty back down, saying, “No, don’t—don’t look.” There was a pause, John glancing at the bloodied mess that was Smitty’s stomach. “You don’t want to look.”
Smitty was crying. Sobbing, really, with tear tracks running down the sides of his face. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Still, Grizzy stayed where he was. So, with nothing else to do and no other guidance, Matt did the same thing. Smitty swallowed once. There was shuffling out in the other room. People crying, sobbing—no screaming, thankfully. He could just hear Puffer and Angela’s voices in the other room.
Smitty’s breath hitched.
Looking down at him, Matt whispered, “Easy, easy.” He glanced at Smitty’s hands, bloodied and now laying limp on the ground. There was red running down his side, pooling between him and Matt’s knees. Frowning, he applied a bit more pressure. Smitty’s chest shook, and when he blinked more tears joined the other ones.
Gently, John smoothed the tears away with his thumbs, whispering to Smitty. Mostly just gentle reassurances, something to give Smitty an out. Something to focus on.
Matt’s own voice wavered when he spoke again. He just prayed Smitty didn’t notice, smiling weakly as he managed to say, “We got you, Smitty.”
Smitty’s eyes flicked around them all, landing on Matt. There was blood in his teeth, running from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed again, weakly, and looked back up at John. He was panting. Almost frantic, really. His chest pitched up and down unevenly, his fingers were barely moving now. One of his feet twitched. He didn’t even seem to be conscious of that.
Swallowing again, Smitty weakly rasped out, “John?”
“We’ve got you, Smitty.” John brushed Smitty’s bangs from his face again. There was a thin sheen of sweat coating Smitty’s skin. He felt clammy and cold under Matt’s touch, though. Something else was wrong with him.
Smitty wheezed. “Pezzy?”
Shaking his head, John said, “Not here. He had that wedding.”
“Droid?”
“Safe, too. It was just us.” John studied his face, hesitantly adding, “Someone had a gun.”
“Matt.” Grizzy hissed to him. Glancing over, Matt met his gaze and nodded.
When they added just a bit more pressure, Smitty screamed.
He was fucking howling in pain. Puffer rushed in, Matt glanced their way—he felt Smitty thrash. That scream turned into a sobbing whine, shaking gasps and something that could have been a plea leaving him. Matt didn’t even have the words to describe it, though. Gritting his teeth, he turned back to Smitty.
Trailing off into a wavering moan, Smitty gasped for breath. John had grabbed his hand when Matt wasn’t looking. There was a gentle squeeze from John. Smitty squeezed his hand back, stared at him. His chest heaved. Face twisted in pain, he let out another low moan.
“We have some of the con medics,” Puffer started, “I’m going to see if they have some bandages, okay?”
Grizzy said something else. Matt focused on Smitty’s face. His blinking was getting harder, like he was struggling to open his eyes more and more. We need to keep him awake. “Smitty?” He asked. From the look of things, Smitty didn’t hear him.
Puffer came back, holding a cloth. “Move your hands, we’re going to try and use a cloth, okay?” Grizzy nodded, opening his mouth.
Squinting at Smitty, Matt frowned. Something was wrong. “John—” He started, meaning to warn him.
Smitty’s eyes rolled back in his head, his hand going limp in John’s grasp.
“Jaren?” Matt’s heart sank to his stomach. “Jaren, hey—no—” Smitty was so pale. His chest hitched with every breath, but it didn’t seem to be working.
Are his lungs punctured? Or collapsed? Where had the bullet hit him? Had it nicked something internally? What if Smitty was bleeding out, and they just didn’t know it, or—
Smitty didn’t respond as John tapped his cheek, trying to wake him. “Come on, come on, Jaren. You gotta wake up. I need you to open your eyes. Please, Jaren.”
Lips slack, pale where they weren’t tinted with his own blood, Smitty didn’t move. Didn’t wake. Holding a hand next to his mouth and nose, Matt waited. Please. Please be breathing. Please.
There was air against his fingers, Smitty was alive, Matt would have sobbed from relief—
“Matt, you need to move—” Grizzy was pushing him away. Glancing over, Matt saw people coming in. They had jumpsuits. Not EMTs, not paramedics, but the con staff—that’d work. They’d be better than Matt and Grizzy could possibly be.
Shuffling back, Matt joined John, looking down at Smitty’s face. He was still pale. His breathing had gone shallow. He twitched a few times. Again, John tapped his face. The paramedics were busy working with Smitty, trying to keep him alive. Apparently, they weren’t worried about him being conscious. “Come on, Jaren. Come back to us.” John begged quietly, rubbing his thumb across Smitty’s cheek. There was blood smearing on his skin, left from the blood in the corner of his mouth and what was on John’s hands.
Grizzy grabbed Yumi, pulling him to the side. “Yumi, breathe.” Whipping his head around, Matt spotted Grizzy manhandling Yumi onto the couch. Yumi was gasping for breath, hands shaking. Having a panic attack, maybe? Matt didn’t know.
He turned back to Smitty, who twitched again. His face twisted. “Has someone called an ambulance?” One of the con EMTs asked.
“I did, earlier.” Puffer offered.
In John’s lap, Smitty moaned. His face twisted up again, pain written on his features. “Jaren?” Matt tried again. “Can you hear us?”
John went back to patting Smitty’s face, a bit more frantic this time. His brows furrowed. He jerked again, John was brushing tears from his eyes, and Matt grabbed his shoulders. Just in case. One of the medics was rifling through their medical bag, mumbling something.
With another whimper and a closed-teeth whine, Smitty cracked his eyes open. He blinked a few times, mouth falling open. One of the medics touched his side. “Might be bleeding internally. Let’s give him some air. Persons?”
“Got it.” The other medic replied, pulling out an oxygen mask. He pressed it to Smitty’s face.
Clumsily, he reached up to touch the mask. John took his hand, stopping him before he could.
Smitty glanced John’s way.
Matt watched his eyes roll back again.
“No, no, no, no, Jaren please, Jaren—” John begged, cupping Smitty’s face. His breathing was fluttering. Voice pitching up in a panic, John tapped Smitty’s face again. “Jaren? Jaren, please, wake up, please wake up—”
Smitty’s head fell into John’s palm.
Choking on a breath, John glanced at the paramedics. Matt followed his gaze. The paramedics were still working on Smitty. That had to be a good sign, right? That he was still alive, that they were still fighting to keep him around? They at least hadn’t stopped efforts to keep him alive—
Yumi didn’t seem to be breathing well, either, but Grizzy was handling him. Matt glanced from him to their friend again, biting the inside of his cheek. He needed to be calm, he needed to make sure John didn’t panic. Smitty wasn’t waking up. He probably was just in too much pain or something like that.
“John, he’s going to be fine,” he said, voice steadier than expected.
Scrubbing at his face, John looked at him desperately. “Matt—”
“I know, but we have to stay calm in case he can hear us. Okay?” He glanced his way.
Swallowing, John nodded.
Smitty got worse.
Matt knew just by the way the paramedics had started splitting up, tending to some other grazes and injuries. One of them stayed by Smitty the whole time, but there wasn’t much more that they did. It seemed like it was just…up to him, now. Or maybe up to the paramedics, once an ambulance finally got through. The cops seemed to have the whole street shut down, though.
Again, John brushed his hands through Smitty’s hair. They could see his breathing, fogging up the oxygen mask. His hand was clutched in John’s, though, fingers slack and pale. His face was pale, too—everything. When Matt touched his cheek, Smitty’s skin was clammy and cold. Shock, probably. He was in bad shape.
His breathing had gone more and more shallow, too. His chest barely rose and fell. “Come on, Smitty. Just—stay with us. Please.” Matt begged, softly.
There were sirens. Please. Please be EMTs. Paramedics. Someone who can help him, Matt glanced up, seeing people walk through the door. He almost sobbed. They had help. Smitty was going to be able to get to a hospital. He was going to be okay—
He turned back to Smitty, who was still lying on the ground. He was unmoving. He was breathing, sure, but he was just so…it was shallow, and quick. Worrying. As the paramedics approached, John clutched Smitty’s hand a little tighter. One of his hands continued to rest in those blood-slicked curls, gently.
Matt sort of spaced out, really. He knew what was going on, saw his body moving. He was pushed out of the way by John, left watching as the paramedics packed the wound, worked a tube down Smitty’s throat, and then moved him onto a gurney and began rushing him away. There were people talking.
Blinking harder, Matt wavered.
He glanced at John, who was crouched in front of him now. The world had gone fuzzy. Hazy. The world was tipping. Why was the world tipping? That wasn’t normal, was it?
He woke up on the floor.
One of the paramedics was beside him, touching his arm. It hurt. It really hurt. Blinking, Matt tilted his head to the side, seeing their lips move. “Wha—”
“Sir? Can you hear me?” He managed to jerk his head in a nod. “Alright. We’re going to get you to the hospital, okay?”
“Don…I don’t need it.” He replied, frowning. “Jaren needs it.”
“We have your friend on the way already. Let’s take care of you, okay?” Matt frowned. He didn’t need a hospital, did he? Turning their head, the paramedic said, “I think he might be in mild shock, too. Sir, how about you just lay down, okay?”
“Okay.” Matt mumbled, lying back.
All he could do was pray that Smitty would be okay.
In the end, Matt ended up with sixteen stitches on his bicep and bandages wrapped around his upper arm.
He’d been lucky. He’d just been grazed. There were other people who weren’t so lucky—Smitty included. Even then, Smitty was the only one in their group who got hurt. It had been just…sheer chance. The two of them standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy who did it was dead, shot himself in the head and took the easy way out after murdering a shit ton of people. Bastard.
Some part of Matt hoped he suffered for it. That he didn’t die quickly. That it fucking hurt, because Smitty crashed on that fucking table. He crashed, and his heart had stopped, and then he was in the ICU again, and the doctors had to tear him apart to put him back together and give him a chance.
They kept saying Smitty was lucky, too. Lucky the bullet didn’t hit him in the spine. Lucky that Angela had been kind and opened her home for them. Lucky he survived until the paramedics arrived, but Matt didn’t think being shot in the stomach was lucky, or that going into shock was lucky, or that clinging to life in the hospital was lucky. And Matt was the one who had to authorize surgeries and sign paperwork and contact Smitty’s family to let them know what happened. It was his job to handle telling people what had happened, that Smitty and the others were alive. That they were still kicking. Still breathing.
He sat beside Smitty the whole time, with the others waiting for him in the waiting room or the hotel. They wanted to be back there, too, sitting with Matt. However much they wanted to, though, Smitty was in the ICU. Fucking hospital rules or some shit like that.
Sitting beside him, Matt held Smitty’s hand in one of his own. There was an IV stent in the back of his left hand, connected to the bags hanging off to the side. He didn’t have the tube down his throat now—that had been on the way to the hospital and then in-surgery. It’d been switched back to an oxygen mask. They were still monitoring things. His heart rate with wires all over his chest. His oxygen saturation with a clip connected to his right forefinger.
For someone who was almost six foot, Smitty looked painfully small against the hospital sheets. The nurses had tucked them around his chest, beneath his body. He was still ghostly-pale—from blood loss, if Matt had read the papers correctly. Some of it might have been the hospital lighting, too.
If he had been standing just a little bit to the left, Smitty wouldn’t have been shot at all. Matt had been the lucky one, just getting a graze that he hadn’t even noticed because of the adrenaline pouring into him. If he’d been standing up and not tying his shoe, Smitty wouldn’t have been shot at all. Matt would have taken the shot. He would have been fine, too. Bloody, yes, but not hit anywhere worse than where Smitty was.
His eyes burned just thinking about it, because if he didn’t let himself tear up he was going to tear himself apart.
Clutching his friend’s hand a bit tighter, Matt sighed and squeezed his eyes shut.
Smitty came to a few days later, thankfully with all of them around him.
Matt and John were both flanking him. They’d managed to sneak Grizzy, Puffer, and Yumi in, too. Okay, sneaking them in really entailed John pointing out to the nurses that Smitty had panic attacks waking up from anesthesia and would probably be worried about the others being alive. So they were able to get the others gathered around Smitty’s bed, waiting for him to wake up and possibly using his bed as a card table. He wouldn’t have cared. If he was awake, he would have been playing with them.
For now, Smitty was going through another round of antibiotics, painkillers, and Matt didn’t even know what else. He was still kicking, though.
Unfortunately, Matt didn’t realize how right John was about Smitty and those damn panic attacks.
John also was the one to key into it first. He straightened up before the monitors around Smitty even alerted them to his increased heart rate. Then, he was holding Smitty’s hand, talking to him softly. Matt didn’t hear everything that was said, focusing more on reaching for the call button. They’d been told to get that, after all.
Whimpering, Smitty frowned in his sleep. His throat bobbed, his eyes started to crack open.
And then he was panicking.
It was a total one-eighty, going from technically calm to Smitty suddenly sobbing, chest heaving in a panic. His head whipped around, brown eyes wide. He gasped, focusing on Matt as he and John tried to hold him down. “Matt—” He choked out, voice terrible. His words were raspy and weak. “Matt—John—”
“Hey, hey, J,” Matt started, leaning over him and holding him down. It felt like back in Angela’s house all over again (he needed to thank her again, a thousand times. She was the only reason that Smitty survived). “We’re right here, we’re right here, you’re fine.”
Smitty kept staring at him. Eyes going wider, Smitty gasped. His chest heaved, eyes flicking all over him. He was terrified. It was like Matt holding him down again—there was blood on his hands, tacky and hot, and Smitty was dying—
The heart monitor was going insane. He held onto him anyways.
A nurse was there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Matt since Smitty was clinging tightly to John’s hand. Smitty’s head whipped around. He was sobbing, choking on his breaths and trying to move. The nurse kept hovering over him. “Hey, look at me.” The nurse ordered, in the same calm tone as Grizzy had used that night. When Smitty didn’t move his eyes, though, the nurse met John’s gaze instead. “Has he had panic attacks before?”
Probably a nurse unfamiliar with Smitty’s chart, or something like that.
“I don’t—I don’t know. Maybe?” That was Puffer, off at the foot of the bed. He, Grizzy, and Yumi had all moved to the side, letting the nurse have space.
“He has. A few in high school.” John confirmed. His voice was solid. Immediately, Smitty was looking for him. He didn’t seem to be able to find him, though, tears running down his face. His breath rapidly fogged the oxygen mask.
His breathing got worse.
Like, way worse.
He barely seemed to be getting any air, and John clutched his hand until Smitty was turning his fingers white. “Sir, you’re okay.” The nurse began. “You’re safe.”
“I don’t wanna die.” Smitty choked out, suddenly. He was still gasping. Panicking.
Other nurses ended up coming inside, forcing Puffer, Grizzy, and Yumi out of the room to give them space. Smitty thrashed, trying to move. He let out another whimper.
“Sir,” Matt turned at the touch to his shoulder, “We might need to sedate him.”
“Let me try and calm him down first?” Matt begged. There was a nod. He turned back to Smitty, leaned over him. Brown eyes focused on him, burning into his own. “Hey, Jaren? Come on, look at me. Focus on me, okay? Just come on, J, breathe.” He saw Smitty trying, chest hitching. There were alarms yelling at them. The nurses kept working. Trying to solve things, probably. “Just take a breath, please.”
Smitty reached for him, letting go of John. His and Matt’s fingers tangled together. Smitty blinked hard.
“Matt—Matt, you have to—” Smitty choked. “To go. He’s going to find you. You need to go—”
The shooter. Matt realized, dimly. He thinks we’re still in danger.
Shaking his head, Matt replied, “No, no, we’re fine.” He brushed Smitty’s cheek, pushed his hair back. One of the nurses had something in their hand, wiping down Smitty’s elbow with an alcohol wipe. He didn’t seem to notice. “We’re in the hospital.”
Smitty wasn’t calming down. He sobbed again, shaking his head. There was a flinch, another thrash. His eyes went to the nurse who was injecting him.
Something like a whimper left Smitty, and he grabbed onto Matt. His grip slackened quickly, though, tipping his head to the side. There was a low breath, a sort of groan, and then his eyes rolled back. He was out.
Matt sank back in his chair, burying his face in his hands.
Smitty’s hands were raw.
He was awake (he’d woken up while Matt was asleep, after they’d sent Grizzy, Yumi, and Puffer back to the house. Thankfully, he was calmer this time. Didn’t make Matt any less jealous of John in that moment), though. That was an improvement. The raw hands less so.
It wasn’t even his palms or anything, but the back of his hands. An intolerance or something to the tape the nurses used, or something else they’d used. It left small red splotches on Smitty’s knuckles and on the backs of his thumbs where they met his wrists. Painful, annoying, but not the worst thing in the world.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Smitty mumbled as Matt smoothed some of the ointment over his hand. His eyes were focused on what Matt was doing, not his face.
Matt didn’t do much more than glance at him before looking back down. He needed to make sure he actually got Smitty’s hands properly. The last thing he needed to deal with was his hands hurting after taking a bullet to the stomach. And he still didn’t think that Matt was going to try and help.
“Don’t have to. Don’t mind.” Matt replied simply. He could see Smitty’s other hand resting in his lap, fingers curling. “Honestly, J. This isn’t the worst thing I’ve had to do.”
“I’m not your wife, Matt.”
“You’re not, so I don’t have to inject you with shots every month.” Matt replied, glancing at him. Smitty’s mouth drew into a thin line. He ducked his head. Waiting for Smitty to glance at him again, Matt added, “You’re my friend. I’d do anything for you.”
Smitty let out a sound that might have been a choked-back sob, but Matt pretended it was just a cough. They’d done it before. He didn’t need to force him to face anything he didn’t want to—and he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t just the meds still messing with Smitty.
Finishing up, Matt sat back. “There. Should be done.” He glanced up at Smitty, who just looked at him for a long moment. “Smitty? You alright?”
“I’m fine.” Smitty lied.
It was ridiculously obvious. “John mentioned he was going to hang out with you,” Matt started, since John wasn’t in the room with them and couldn’t be asked himself. Smitty nodded. “Are you going to want me around once we get back to Canada?”
“I don’t want to impose on you and Danielle.”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t think she’ll give a shit about if you’re at our place or I’m at yours. Especially since, you know.” He gestured to Smitty’s stomach.
Crossing his arms, Smitty shrugged. “I don’t know. Do whatever, I guess.”
John came back a few minutes later, and Smitty managed a tight smile as John and Matt argued over who was paying for the plane tickets. (Matt won the fight.)