by Ella James
I hate the thick tube punched into his chest under his left arm, draining fluid from his hurt chest. I hate the way the nurses keep on putting chapstick on his lips, like he is theirs to touch. More than anything else, maybe, I hate that they cut his hair. Every time I think about his long, soft hair, my eyes ache and my throat feels too tight.
When my eyes slip shut—which isn’t often—I have nightmares about what his head looks like beneath the bandages. About the fractured skull. Even though it’s just a minor hairline fracture, and his brain is okay, his head was spit open. So there’s stitches there. Forty-eight of them.
My bad dreams of bleeding-head Vance aren’t much worse than being awake. His gray-ringed eyes don’t ever open. The rotating staff of nurses puts eye gel in them and sometimes tapes them shut, like something from a horror movie. If he ever seems alive—twitches or moves at all—they push more drugs into his IVs so he’s more sedated…therefore even further from me.
I pray all the time, but I don’t know what to say. Mostly I say please. The old cliché is right. “Please” can be the best prayer. In my case, at times it feels false. Give him back to me. Right now. There is no please. I hate God in those moments.
“He’s going to be okay. You know that, right, Luke? Nothing that is wrong with him is threatening his life.”
I turn around so fast, Pearl’s eyes widen.
“Everything that’s wrong with him could kill him. If you don’t see how, you haven’t bothered to think hard about it. Just look at the chest tube.” My voice is a hiss. We’re not supposed to say upsetting things in earshot of Vance, and it’s not as if I’m leaving him.
“It could get infected if one of these…nurses—” I would call them “children,” but right now, the two are over in the corner looking at computer screen, and I think they can hear me. “If someone gets one germ on it, he’s got a chest infection. Then he has another fever.” When he has a fever, they put cool cloths on him, even though we all know when you have a fever, you want to be warm.
My eyes make their trek over his body, cataloguing all the scrapes and bruises, the bandages and wires and stickers. They catch on his casted arm, propped up on pillows.
“Don’t forget his arm and his new metal pins. That’s no big deal, right? Not like he’s a career artist.”
“Luke, I’m telling you. His Wiki bio says he’s ambidextrous.”
“He needs both hands for sculpting.” My voice cracks. I drag air in through my nose.
“You should take the Xanax, PL. You remember? Dr. Todd prescribed it. Like for real. It would help.”
“Xanax makes me foggy.”
“And you’re needed here.” She nods in the direction of the children. “Clearly, you are their leader.”
“I am needed here. Without me watching, no one takes care of the small things.”
“What are those, Dr. McDowell?”
“Shut up, Pearl.”
She shriek-laughs so loudly, it peels over the ICU noises. She laughs so loud and long she snorts, and I stand up because I’m angry, and you can’t be truly angry sitting down.
“It’s not funny,” I whisper—because the standing has made all the blood in my head rush off elsewhere, and I’m suddenly dizzy.
“Aww, PL. I don’t think it’s at all funny. I was trying to cheer you up.”
“Your guffaw could wake the dead.”
I’m glaring as her gaze shifts away from me, and to something behind me. I watch as her eyes round and her mouth rounds. Her hand comes up to her face, and she smiles, pointing toward Vance, I think.
For the longest second, I don’t want to turn around, because I’m scared I’ll see the children leaning over him with frowns and furrowed brows the way they often do when some part of his car isn’t going well.
I turn slowly—still too fast for my head—and find both child nurses standing by the head of his bed with these little smiles—because his eyes are just a little open.
“Look at this, Pastor McDowell,” the brunette murmurs, her gaze fixed on the ventilator’s screen. “When the doctors rounded, someone said they thought if we decreased sedation this might happen today.”
Her words pass right through me as I step back to his bedside. Please stay open. I have a theory that his eyes will be blurry when they—now that they have opened. Because of all that stupid eye gel. I need to come in close…and maybe touch him somewhere—since I’m on the broken arm side right now and can’t hold his hand.
I do that—lean down over the bed’s rail, so my face is right in front of his—and he blinks. Twice. His mouth bends as his gaze lifts a little…almost holding mine but not quiet.
Please please please please.
His brows scrunch a little, and the look is so Vance. He looks like a living human. I feel a rush of warm shock as tears start streaming down my cheeks.
His eyes move just a little. Like he’s looking over my shoulder. My stomach slow-rolls. Does he recognize me? Is his brain hurt more than they know? His eyes shift the other way, toward Pearl…and back to me. I press my lips together, hating that he can see me cry.
“It’s okay,” I murmur to him. “Don’t worry.”
As his eyelids sag shut, two twin tears drip down toward his temples.
Vance
Three and a half weeks later
I grin at Pearl, and she beams back at me.
“So anyway,” she tells Arman, in that lilting cheerleader voice Pearl has. “Vance is one of the best humans.”
Arman gives a shake of his head. “One look at PL crying. He did a little sweep of the room to see why, and then dropped these two tears for PL.”
Arman steps forward so he can clap Luke on the shoulder. He chuckles. “She’s right, you know. You two are romance goals.”
“After that,” Pearl sends a smile in my direction, “finally we got Luke in the shower.”
“And after that,” Arman tells me, “is when Mrs. McDowell met you.”
I wince, looking down at my lap with a slight shake of my head. It’s still a little tender, but not too bad mostly. “So I heard.”
“You had just gotten the breathing tube yanked out, so you had that good death rattle breathing going, sort of looking around with glazed eyes from the sedatives. And Luke was loving on you.”
Luke rolls his eyes. “We are now a Hallmark movie,” he says to me.
I grin because—while we aren’t; especially one of us is not—he’s really fucking cute when he’s embarrassed.
“I remember some of that,” I say. “Being propped up with those towels, I guess, and your hands touching me.”
“You hear that, Pearl?” Luke says. “Hands touching him. You gonna jot that down for your Harlequin novel?”
She smiles teasingly at Luke. “Maybe I will.” Then she looks at me. “I don’t know how you deal with him these last few weeks, Vance. That day you opened your eyes, no one had even told Luke they were waking you up.”
“Because they were children. Graduated college yesterday. They probably didn’t know.”
Pearl rolls her eyes. “I had been mentioned when the doctors rounded, but no one spelled it out for him. No wanted to field all his questions about how it would go. Or if they didn’t wake you up that day after all, I think they knew he would be threatening the hospital donation.”
Luke’s jaw drops at that one. He points a finger at Pearl. “Employee subordination!”
She giggles, and Luke moves from the fluffy rug onto the half-heart couch beside me, lifting my legs into his lap.
Pearl and Arman stay for a while longer. Then there’s hugs and back claps, and they’re on their way out.
“Keep him on the yoga, now, Vance. Might help with his flexibility issues.” Pearl chortles, and Luke heaves a silent sigh as they three round the corner of the partial wall that divides living room and foyer.
“Will do,” I call.
A minute later, he’s back, with one eyebrow arched, shaking his head as if that might clear the
air.
“Too much fun, McD?”
He sinks down to the fluffy rug beside the couch again and leans his head against my leg. “It’s exhausting, all the drop-bys.”
Yesterday, it was Hakim and Carolina—who, apparently, are now an item. The night before, a team of two servers Mrs. McDowell hired to come over and cook us dinner.
I run my hand through his soft hair. “You really are an ambivert, aren’t you, Sky?”
“I need quiet.”
“It’s near bed time. Wanna go up?”
“Are you tired?” His eyes on mine are slightly wide, as if my being tired three days after being cut loose by the hospital would represent a real emergency.
“Nah.” I grin. “Just thought you might like it up there where it’s…quiet.” I shove back the blanket on my lap, revealing my cock straining at my lounge pants. “Dude. I’m gonna start having wet dreams soon. This thing is out of control.”
“Yeah, because you got off all those pain pills this week. Same thing happened to me. Your dick goes haywire.”
“Also, I’m horny for my partner.”
I don’t remember much at all about that day. None of the drive to the church. Not one minute of the party. Definitely none of what happened when we were standing by the street, and our assailant sped toward us. Toward Luke. I don’t remember shoving him out of the line of fire, or all the ways my body broke as I flew through the air, and then got rushed to the ER and wheeled back for surgery. One of the only things I do remember from the day is that statement he put out—the one where I got called a partner.
He smiles because I’m grinning. As if the merriment of the last few days is act, and he’s playing along just for my sake.
I shift my legs so they’re off the couch’s side and use my free arm so I’m poised to get up off the couch. Luke moves to help me. With my cast arm—usually in the sling—and my still-healing ribs, it’s still tricky to get up off beds and couches. I’ve got almost all my strength back, but when I get up or down, he helps me.
Like right now. He’s slow and careful as he helps me get to my feet.
His green eyes are gentle on my face.
I kiss him on the jaw. “Thanks, Sky.”
He drops his gaze away from my face, and I take his hand. “Let’s go upstairs so you can blow me like you promised.”
He snorts.
“Better yet, I can blow you.”
Another snort from Mr. Doctor’s Orders. “Don’t know how you think you can manage that.”
“You straddle my face.”
“If you get off, and breathe too hard—”
“Nothing will happen.”
His jaw tightens, and he won’t look at me—not until we reach the stairs. Then that’s all he can do. Watch me like I might break, even though the stairs don’t hurt that bad now. I just grit my teeth a little, and the ribs seem fine.
Being in the townhouse and not his house right now is well worth it. Despite a really warm outpouring of support from all over the world, Luke’s security thinks anonymity is good for the next little while. Gives the crazies time to forget about us and move on.
He watches me until we get to the top of the stairs. Then he casts his eyes away. He walks slightly in front of me and pushes open the door to the bedroom—where we’ve been sleeping for the last two nights with Luke angled away from me so he won’t “tempt us” with his cock. As if I don’t have one, too.
I’ve got a doctor check-in tomorrow morning, and one thing I’m dead-ass sure is not on the agenda is our sex life. No one will be clearing me. There’s nothing wrong with my cock. My head’s shaved, and, till tomorrow morning, there are still stitches there and in my cheek—but I got off damn near scoot free except my arm, which needs some rehab when the cast is off in four more weeks.
Luke was distraught about it—so I’ve heard—until, one of the first days after I woke up, he gave me a teary apology and I told him I’m ambidextrous. Dude hadn’t even noticed, and when I told him, he insisted for two days that it would take me both arms to sculpt or do murals.
“Nope. Just one,” I told him.
“What do you do with two then?” he’d asked, frowning.
“Jerk both of us off,” I’d said then.
I get on the bed using a stool he put beside it for me, and he rushes to help me lay back. So he’s right beside me as I pull my sweatpants down.
“You can roll on over if you want,” I tell him. “I’m just gonna jerk off with my spare hand.” I wiggle the fingers, and he blows his breath out, then surprises me by doing just that. He rolls away from me.
Pearl was right in that text she sent me this morning. Sky isn’t himself. Not during the few hours he’s at church each day, and not when he’s here with me.
32
Luke
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to regulate my breathing. My dick is so hard. I can feel the mattress bounce as he jerks himself off. I want to spread his knees and get inside him so bad I could scream. Even sucking him off would be a dream come true. Now that his lungs and ribs are healed, he could enjoy it—but if I do that, I’ll want to take him, and…I can’t.
It’s hard to explain, so I’m not going to try. For now, no one’s actually said he can take dick, so it’s normal for me to say I’m waiting until he gets clearance.
Vance has other ideas. He scoots up behind me and starts rubbing his erection on me. I try not to make a sound, but there’s a low groan I can’t seem to keep in.
“Oh…feeling a little tempted, are we?” He reaches around, trying to get to my dick, but he can’t because he can’t prop up on his bad arm.
Instead, the deviant reaches into my pants and starts going at me from the back.
“I know you’ve got a baseball bat dick,” he says. “I should get down off the bed and walk around there so I can suck it.”
“Nope. Just going to sleep.”
“Sky, it’s nine-thirty.”
“I’ve got that early meeting with the lawyer.”
Vance
I blow my breath out. Then my cock throbs, and I re-commit. I can’t go on like this—without him. I get off the bed, walk around to his side, and go for his dick. Luke turns back over so his back’s to me.
“Shit, man. You’ve gone evil.”
I get back up on the bed, and again, he turns away.
“Fuck.” By now, I’m frustrated, and my ribs are sort of sore. “If you don’t want to, your choice.”
I lie on my back—without his help—and start to jerk off, same way I’ve done in the shower for the last week. He rolls over to face me. For a second, I think I’ve gotten lucky. Then he gets down off the bed and heads into the closet.
Oh, Luke.
Such a fucking runner. Hardly Mr. Unemotional, for all the shit he gives me. I start off the bed to find him in the closet, and he strides out of.
“Stay there,” he demands.
I throw my hand up. “Is there anything I can do, King Luke?”
“Go to sleep.”
I laugh.
“Don’t like it, go home—I mean I will.”
His words are like a gut punch. “Oh so you want me to go home?”
I keep my tone calm, but my heart is racing. “Is that what’s behind this Mr. Chastity bullshit? This thing between us run its course for you, so you don’t want to suck my cock or other shit you used to be insane for?”
“Yeah, that’s it, Vance. This thing between us has run its course.” He says it like the notion is absurd. “I put out a statement saying you’re my partner, but it’s over now, after less than a month.”
My ribs scream, and I realize I’m kind of halfway panting. My heart races. “How do I know it won’t be?”
“It isn’t,” he says hotly, “but maybe it should be.” He walks closer to the bed. “You like both of your arms? You want your head in one piece next time?”
“Next time? There’s a next time now?”
“There will always be something. If you
stay with me, and if I stay the face of Evermore, there will be someone out to ruin us. Out to hurt us.”
“He—” our psychotic friend—who’s being held without bond until trial— “was out looking for you,” I point out. “Sally—” she’s our lawyer for this— “told you he’s been drawing you inside his cell.”
“So you want to be a widower?”
My racing heart comes crashing up into my throat. Tears sting my eyes like sunbursts, catching on the light that’s streaming out the bathroom door.
“If you die, Luke, I would fucking love to be your widower.”
He stalks closer. For a moment, I think he might kiss me. Then he’s up on the bed, up on his knees so he’s lording over me a little. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks softly.
“Just a normal person who’s in love with someone and won’t let anything take it away.”
“I’m not someone,” he says softly.
“Right—I forgot, you’re Luke McDowell.”
“I am. I can’t not be.” His chest starts to pump. His face is twisted in pain. “I can’t start over if I wanted to. Everywhere I go, people know me. People know my face. Even on Sea-3PO, at the yacht and on those little islands, I’ll see people and sometimes they know me.”
“Every one of them is not a crazed sociopath.”
“All it takes is just one person.”
“All of life is just one anything. That’s what makes it interesting. Follow on your course and see what all your anythings are gonna be.”
His hand covers his eyes. “When I see those stitches on your head, Vance, all I hear is you choking on all that blood. I don’t even know what I did.” His words are groans. He moves his hand, and I can see cheeks are streaked with shiny wetness. “I thought you were dead, Vance.”
I move toward him, and he holds his hands out with a shake of his head.
“Every crazy person in a hundred mile radius will always flock to us, and it’s because of me. If you stop seeing me—” his voice cracks— “they’ll forget your face. You can just be normal.”
