Blended (Redemption #1)

by Sasha Brümmer

  My stomach lurches and I think that I’m going to be sick again. I scroll down again to her last message that came in two hours ago: He was asking for you before he went into surgery.

  Adrenaline spikes my body as I get up and fly out of my seat to the cabin door, just as the flight attendant is about to shut it. I blatantly ignore her reprimand as I squeeze through the opening and run up the jetway, bursting through the security door and back into the terminal. I run back to the international terminal while I search for a plane that leaves for Sydney on my phone. I must be fated to be on this damn flight because there’s one leaving within fifteen minutes. I haul ass through the terminals until I come to the gate that it says the flight it supposed to leave from. I rush to the counter and inform the woman my situation. She frowns and nods in understanding. She then spends too much time typing in my details before she confirms that I will, indeed, be able to board. They had a few seats available for their standby passengers.

  She ushers me onto the flight, and I quickly find my seat. My knees are bobbing up and down, anxious to get off of the ground and closer to him.

  “Please place your purse underneath the seat in front of you, ma’am,” a flight attendant says as I fish through it to find my phone again.

  Once I do, I type out a message to Lola: Never mind! Change of plans.

  Her message comes almost instantly: All right. Love you. Be safe.

  I’m about to reply to Isla and text Hold again when the flight attendant stops in front of me again. “Ma’am, if I have to ask you again, I will escort you off of this plane.”

  What a bitch. I chuck my shit underneath the seat as we taxi down the runway, and I beg no one in particular that Wade hasn’t suffered anything horrific.

  Sixteen hours later, I’m exhausted, both mentally and physically. I’ve been away from him for over thirty-five hours, and I don’t know when it was exactly that he was in the accident. When I check my phone as I get into a taxi, it’s dead. I huff and toss it into the seat beside me as I give the cabbie my destination.

  I swear this driver is giving me the run-around because it takes forty minutes to get to the hospital. Once we arrive, I throw some cash at him and jump out of the cab. It’s now that I realize that I have no idea where my checked bag is, but I don’t give a shit. I just need to see him.

  I stride in through the hospital’s main entrance and give the receptionist his name just as Isla walks past me, carrying a cup of coffee.

  “Isla,” I call out, and she turns in my direction.

  She scrunches her nose at me and sighs. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks. Where is he?”

  She shakes her head and takes a sip of her coffee. “I’ll show you.”

  I walk beside her, wringing my hands together as she leads me through a maze of hallways.

  “Where the fuck were you, Hadley?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  She stops walking and looks at me. “You ran?”

  I shrug and motion for her to keep walking.

  “You’re the one that hurt him, lady, not the other way around.”

  “I didn’t sleep with anyone, Isla.”

  “Don’t try and bullshit me. I heard you in there. I texted him, apologizing, because I thought I had caught you two in the heat of it. As it turns out, he was about to start his meeting across town.”

  I let her get out what she needs to, instead of stopping and correcting her. If I’m going to explain anything to anyone, it’s going to be to Wade.

  She stops outside of a closed door and pushes down on the handle. It swings open to Wade who is uncharacteristically grim-faced, lying on a bed with a thin white sheet covering him.

  “He’s asleep right now,” Isla says as I move to his side and run my hand through his unkempt hair.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know all of the details of the accident, but apparently they were on one of those speedboats that companies rent out, and the captain lost control of it. One of the men on board said that Wade jumped in to help steer it clear of another vessel. When he did, though, they lost control of it again. There must have been something faulty with the steering. They piloted straight into a sea stack. There is nothing left of the boat. It shattered upon impact and Wade got the worst of it because he was up front. The captain lost his life, though, so I suppose that it could have been worse.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I’ll give you a few moments with him.”

  “Thank you, Isla.”

  She nods and walks out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. When I look back down at him, his eyes are open, and he’s watching me.

  “Wade,” I say in a whisper.

  “I shouldn’t have treated you the way that I did. I’m sorry, Rye.”

  My heart splinters as he pulls me out from my internal prison, and back into the emotions of yesterday. I dash the unwanted tear away before I sniffle and cup his cheek. “No, stop. I’m so relieved that you’re okay. I’ve been sick to my stomach thinking about all of the things that could have happened to you.”

  “You ran from me.”

  He keeps changing the subject from his current state to us, and I’m having a difficult time controlling my emotions. It’s all too much for me to comprehend right now. I swallow the burning lump in my throat. “You didn’t want me to stay; you were sending me to another room, Whiskey. I’m sorry I left. I just . . . I couldn’t get you to listen . . . I . . .”

  He places his hand on top of mine as the tears flow steadily now.

  “Tell me where you went. To him?”

  I shake my head, unable to speak through my gush of tears. I think I’ve cried more in these last two days than I have in my entire life.

  “God, Rye.” He reaches up to cup my cheek before moving his hand to the back of my neck, pulling me down to him until his lips press against mine, making my heart flutter. I have every intention of pulling back from him until I realize that this may be our last. The unhealthy frenzy sparks my mind as his lips heal me without a word. If I could only live in this present moment, then I would be content, but my tears falling onto his cheeks help me to detach my lips from his.

  “Are you okay?” I sputter as I wipe my eyes.

  “I’ll be fine with time. I had a punctured lung, but the doctor performed surgery soon after I was admitted. They recently took me off of the breathing tube.”

  “Anything else?” I ask as I inspect his body, which I can’t fully see because of the sheet covering him.

  “A couple of broken ribs, which will heal with time as well. I’ll be okay, Hads.”

  “You swear it?” I sniffle and run my hand through his hair again.

  He nods and gives me a weak smile. “Where did you go?”

  “I was on my way back to Chicago. I got Isla’s message when I landed in LAX.”

  “You shouldn’t have run. I understand that you need what you need, and I blame myself for not giving it to you when you asked me for it.”

  I shake my head as the tears turn into a river pouring down my cheeks. “I-I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

  He doesn’t say anything to me as he watches me fight my fears. “I got this job as a, uhm, as a phone-sex operator a few days before we left Chicago. I was so furious with you for rejecting me earlier, and I didn’t have anything to do once you simply closed yourself off to me yesterday morning and just . . . left me.”

  “Hadley—”

  “Please, just let me get this out,” I say before he can continue. He nods and takes my hand. “I didn’t know what to do once you left so I logged on for the first time and I gave it a go. That’s what Isla must have heard.”

  I shrug and look away, feeling ashamed of myself.

  “Rye.”

  I turn back to look at his face and see the pained expression etched across it.

  His eyes are wide as he pulls me closer to him. “Fuck, baby. I’m so sorry. I fucked this up more than I care to realize. You
were trying to explain, but I saw red. Can you forgive me?”

  I nod as a sob rips through my lips. He reaches up and runs his thumbs underneath my eyelids.

  “I took you for granted yesterday morning. I swear to you that I won’t let it happen again. Please, Hadley, don’t run from me.”

  I’ve not seen him so vulnerable before now, and I know that I won’t be able to leave his side. Not now, and not when he’s helped me surface my emotions. Not when the world around us seems to blur with the static electricity surging back and forth between us.

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re beautiful, do you know that? Even when you cry.”

  My sob turns into a laugh, and I smile at him, my body lost in a trance to his. “I think I missed you.”

  “I know that I missed you. Especially since you’re mine.”

  “I am,” I tell him and lean down to kiss him gently, trying not to apply any pressure onto his body. I’m scared shitless that I’ll hurt him. The current between us is explosive and sends tiny shocks to my heart, reviving it after the blinding grief that had consumed me entirely.

  “Knock, knock,” Isla says as she walks into the white, bleached-out hospital room. “Are you feeling any better, brass balls?”

  “Fuck off,” he murmurs and winks at me. “Have you found out when I am able to leave?”

  “Yup, never. The nurse said that she needed to sew up your balls before she let you go. She thinks the shrinkage is due to the amount of pussy that you don’t eat.”

  He shuts his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Very well.”

  “Hadley, I was about to grab some sandwiches. Would you like one? Seeing as you two have made up.”

  “No, thank you, though. I’m not really hungry.”

  Wade clears his throat. “Grab her something to eat, Isla. I doubt that she’s eaten since she left. Am I right?”

  I purse my lips and look down at my hands, playing with the gold ring on my left index finger. “Not entirely.”

  “You got it, boss man,” Isla says before picking up her purse from the chair next to his bed and walking out of the room.

  “Are you tired?” I ask him as he shuts his eyes.

  “I am, but I doubt that I’m as tired or jet-lagged as you are. You’re putting your body through hell, flying back and forth.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Wade.”

  “The fuck if I don’t. I cannot stomach the thought of not sleeping with you in my arms for another night.”

  “Wade, I could hurt you.”

  “Don’t deny an injured man his wishes,” he says with a content smile on his face. I run my thumb over his stubble when he shuts his eyes again.

  “Get some sleep, Whiskey. I won’t run. You have my word.”

  “Mmm.”

  I have not told her that I cannot feel anything below my waist. The accident caused some sort of spinal injury, and the doctors are unsure how it will affect the functions of my body, let alone if my current state will be permanent or not. I’ve been advised to treat it as if I will not recover; however, recovery is possible. Luckily, treatment was administered almost immediately after the injury occurred, and the severity of it will have the final say on my recovery. Due to my other injuries, my doctor refuses to take me into surgery again. If I am to pull off a full recovery, I will need to go through countless hours of rehabilitation in order to get my body to function correctly again.

  I turn my head to look at her while she leans against the bed, fast asleep in the veil of darkness over the hospital room. I run my hand through her wild curls and curse myself for the way I treated her. The raw abandonment that took over me when I realized that she had run is something I do not plan on feeling again. When I went back to the meeting after refusing to listen to her explanation, my crowded mind pushed everything else aside but the thought of her. Once we concluded the meeting, I hardly remembered agreeing to go out on the boat with them, but I did, and it’s why I’m in my current position.

  When the captain lost control, my body reacted before I was able to think about the consequences of my actions. In a matter of a minute, I had put everyone’s life in more danger than they were in before. Each passing second that followed was a memory of the look of agony and disappointment on her face from our earlier argument. The next thing that I remember was waking up to the smell of bleach.

  I thought that I had lost her when Isla told me that none of her things were in our suite, nor in the second room I got for her. Since lying in this bed, surrounded by the sensory calm of isolation—with the exception of Isla—it made me realize what I had thrown away. She’s not a woman who is plagued by vanity or who wants her own fairy tale. She’s the person she’s had to be to save herself.

  A thudding in my chest makes me relive the deepest fear I have in losing her as I move her curls out of her face to ensure that I didn’t dream her up.

  She shifts and reaches for my hand. “Hi, Whiskey.”

  I will pay whatever medical professional I need to in order to recover from this injury to live my life to the fullest with her by my side. She lifts her head and smiles sleepily at me. “I didn’t mean to drift off.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I could watch you sleep for hours.”

  “That verges on the side of creepy, Wade.”

  “It may, but it’s the truth.” I’m interrupted by a knock on the door.

  A moment later the doctor who performed surgery on me walks into the dark room and flips on the light switch.

  “Good evening, Mr. Brass,” he says in an Aussie accent.

  “Dr. Heath,” I greet him. “This is my girlfriend, Hadley Rye.”

  “Good evening, Miss Rye. If you will both excuse my intrusion, I needed to come by and check on your long list of injuries. Your nurse seems to be impressed with your recovery thus far.”

  “Very well,” I tell him, knowing full well that he’s going to shed light on my paralysis.

  “I’ll start with your lungs and work my way down.”

  He gets to work as a nurse joins us. She takes my vitals while my girl stays by my side. I won’t let her move. I have her hand locked in mine, and I refuse to let her go.

  “Your lung seems to be healing well thus far,” he says, and he moves the sheet off of my lower body, revealing my legs. He presses against my ribs, and I flinch each time that he does it.

  “As I said before, the two ribs that were injured will take a minimum of six weeks to heal. I’ll keep my nurses administering drugs to make it easier to take deep breaths.”

  I nod in acknowledgment.

  I glance up at Hadley, who is watching Dr. Heath intently as he moves the sheet off of my feet. He walks to the end of the bed and lifts up my left foot. I watch him press his thumb against the sole of my foot.

  “Mr. Brass? Are you able to feel that?”

  I shut my eyes for a brief moment before opening them and stare into Hadley’s eyes. She looks frightened and grief-stricken.

  “No,” I tell him honestly.

  Hadley’s hand flies up to her mouth in an attempt to hold back a sob that escapes her lips regardless. I squeeze her hand in apology. This is not how I wanted her to find out.

  “Don’t go,” I ask her quietly as the doctor moves his hands up my calf.

  “What about now, Mr. Brass?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “All right. Try flexing your ankle for me.”

  I attempt to force the movement, but nothing comes of it. I cannot even figure out where the movement should start.

  “Wade?” she asks as she wipes a tear away.

  “Swear to me that you’ll stay, Hadley.”

  The doctor looks up at us and clears his throat. “I’ll be out of your way in a few minutes, Mr. Brass. Please stay with me.”

  He sets my left leg down and then starts with my right, going over the same routine he has done multiple times since he first met me.

  “Dr. Heath?”

  “Yes, Miss R
ye?”

  “Oh, just Hadley, please. Would you mind if I asked you some questions of my own?”

  My eyebrows shoot up, surprised that she’s still holding onto my hand, let alone that she wants more information regarding my paralysis.

  “Of course, Hadley. What would you like to know?”

  “Will he ever be able to recover from this? I mean . . .”

  The doctor smiles and sets my right leg down on the bed. “It really depends. I have had many patients suffer through multiple surgeries with no results while others have made a full recovery. To be frank, I’m not certain as to his condition yet because I have not been able to operate on him while his lung recovers.”

  “Oh.”

  “Luckily for Mr. Brass, I do not believe that the nerve was directly injured in the accident, which would have caused a spinal cord injury. I’d like to believe that the paralysis that he is experiencing is caused by compression of one of the lumbar nerves. In his case, the underlying cause seems treatable, but the prospects for his recovery are the same as they are for anyone else. The likelihood of a full recovery is slim if I’m unable to perform surgery soon.”

  “Oh my God,” she says under her breath and squeezes my hand.

  “Nothing is impossible. Keep that in mind.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Heath,” she says as they shake hands before he notes a few things on a device and exits the room.

  “Rye?”

  “Yes?” she looks down at me with worry marring her face.

  “You haven’t answered me.”

  “Wade,” she exhales, “I’m not going to leave you. I ran because I thought we were over and because you wouldn’t give me a chance. I’m not a cold-hearted bitch, and an injury isn’t going to change the way I feel toward you.” Her eyes seem to widen at her own words as if she hadn’t realized what she was saying.

  “I’ll have to be here for a while, Hadley. I understand that you’ll need to fly back to Chicago. Isla needs to get back to Blended once the week is over.”

  “How long did they tell you that they’d keep you locked up in this place?”

  “A minimum of two months. I’ve been trying to convince them to at least let me go back to the hotel where I’ll be more comfortable.”