Hard Truths

by Alex Whitehall

  “Ouch.”

  A laugh startled out of him: a short, humorless bark. “Yeah, babe. We’re gonna go to the hospital and get that checked out.”

  Get what checked out? I wanted to ask, but everything hurt. Obviously something needed to get treated. “Okay.”

  He got me in the car and—ouch—gingerly strapped the seat belt over me. I closed my eyes and rested my head back. Ouch.

  My car purred to life and a cheery pop song blared from the radio, then was immediately silenced. I could hear Logan’s heavy breathing over the engine.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “He hit you with a goddamn chair.” Logan’s breath hitched. The car began to move.

  “I couldn’t let him hit you with it.”

  “Not the fucking point.” Another hitched breath. “How are you doing over there?”

  I didn’t want to think about it, because thinking about it made me aware of the pain. All along my back, and my head. Something warm was trickling down my neck, and I had a feeling I knew what it was.

  “My name is Isaac Landes, and it’s Thanksgiving Day. My chest hurts,” I added as talking made me realize how much. I focused on taking shallow breaths.

  “How are you doing over there?”

  We’d stopped moving. I forced my eyes open to squint at him. “You just asked me that.”

  He grimaced. “Let’s get you inside.”

  He trotted around the front of the car and helped me get out. We were at the hospital ER entrance, which didn’t make sense since the hospital was ten minutes away from my parents’ house. And how did Logan know how to get here?

  Inside I was dizzied by the blinding lights. I vaguely heard Logan say attacked with a chair and disoriented. He must have said some other magical words, because we were immediately taken back to a little space sectioned off with curtains. It was the shortest time I’d ever waited in an ER.

  “I’ll be back,” Logan was saying, lips touching my temple as he helped me settle on the bed. “I need to move the car, but I’ll be right back. The nurses will take care of you.”

  “Okay.”

  I blinked and something tugged on my scalp. I lifted my hand to swat it away, but a hand was holding my wrist. “What’s that?”

  “Finishing up the stitches,” a high-pitched voice said behind me.

  “Stitches? Why do I need stitches? Why do I hurt?”

  “It’s okay, babe,” Logan said, and my eyes tracked to where he was sitting in front of me. He was holding my wrists.

  “Hurting is not okay.”

  His smile was a shattered, broken thing. He swallowed, but seemed to struggle to do that simple action. “No, it’s not. But the doctor’s going to give you meds to hurt less, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Logan squeezed my wrists, and I took comfort in the strength there. I closed my eyes.

  “How long will the confusion last?”

  “It varies person to person,” a new voice said. I opened my eyes to see a woman with a tablet in hand. The lights were nicely dimmed. “Once his body has a chance to rest and heal, he’ll likely feel better and be less confused. He probably won’t remember much of today, but the concussion is mild. You have the sheet with the signs to watch for.”

  “And he’ll be okay for a long drive home?”

  “That should be fine.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “How are you doing?” Logan asked.

  I opened my eyes. The car was vibrating around me and my head felt like cotton set on fire. The world was flying by. There was the pain beneath the sweet bliss of the drugs, and I was very careful not to move more than necessary. I slowly turned my head. Logan was staring straight forward, hands gripping the wheel with murderous intent. I swallowed a dry mouthful and broke the seal on my crusty lips with my tongue. “Thirsty.”

  He took a deep breath, let out a long exhale, then picked up a water bottle from the cupholder and held it closer for me. “Think you can drink?”

  “Yeah.” My fingers ached as I wrapped them around the bottle, but I was able to lift it to my lips and pour the cool, refreshing water into my mouth. Swallowing was heaven. “Thanks.”

  “How do you feel otherwise?”

  “Shitty. We were just in the hospital, weren’t we?”

  “Uh-huh. We’ll be home soon.”

  I wondered if he had teleported us there, because the drive from the hospital to my place should have taken longer. Unless we’d been at the hospital by me, but then how had he gotten there so fast?

  “You slept through most of the drive,” Logan answered. I must have said some of that aloud.

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry, the doctor said you’d feel better tomorrow.”

  “She said I probably would,” I corrected.

  His laugh was wet and choked. “You’re right, she did.”

  I sighed, took another sip of water, then tucked the bottle between my legs and closed my eyes.

  The next morning I woke in pain. It hit me like a goddamn chair to the back, along with the realization that my father had hit me with a goddamn chair to the back.

  I groaned and tried to roll over to give my neck, kinked from having slept on my stomach all night, some relief, but the heavy weight of Logan’s arm held me still. Which, after my slight struggle to move and the resulting pain that flared down my back, I was grateful for. Moving was a terrible idea.

  I manfully didn’t whimper. Much.

  “Shh, babe, shh.” Logan’s voice was gruff; I’d likely woken him. He sat up slowly, as if afraid to jostle the bed, and kept his hand on my hip. “How you doing?”

  The question sounded so brittle. Maybe he was afraid of the answer. I certainly wasn’t too wild about it myself. I blinked a few more times, and my newly awake brain tried to shuffle all of yesterday’s events. It was harder than I would have liked. “For getting hit with a chair? Pretty okay.”

  The chuckle that followed was low and sad, but it came with a kiss to my shoulder. “You remember that, then?”

  “Yeah. And some of the hospital. But that’s fuzzy. My body sort of aches all over.” I tried for humor to make this whole thing less sucky. “Kinda like when we did that fucking marathon after running ten miles.”

  “Not our best decision,” Logan admitted. “But that’s not too bad. Maybe we can sit you up and see how your head is?”

  “Do I have a concussion?”

  “A mild one. They weren’t worried: your scans were clean. You were responsive through the night when I checked on you, but they said you’d probably be dizzy for a few days.”

  “Okay.” I shifted my body, trying to assess how bad everything hurt. I could feel a few bits tugging unnaturally, and I wondered if I had stitches. As quickly as the thought came, it left. I focused on getting my arms under me, pushing myself up—I was going to trust that Logan’s implied command not to roll over was for the best—and then twisting so I was sitting.

  I realized a few facts: it was still dark out, dizziness was in fact a thing, and I was wearing my favorite pair of sweats. I didn’t remember putting them on, and it warmed my heart to imagine Logan caring for me after the shit-fest that was yesterday.

  “How do you feel?”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for the listing room to settle. Everyone on TV always described it as spinning, but it felt more like I was aboard a boat on rocky seas. Not that I’d ever been on such a boat, but this was exactly how I imagined it would feel. Only drier.

  “Hun?”

  “Sorry. Yes, I’m dizzy, but it’s passing.” I opened my eyes to prove to him I was okay. My eyes tracked to the alarm clock and the ungodly hour that was meant for business executives who commuted an hour but not for two guys who had the day off. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Jesus, Isaac, you don’t need to apologize for that.”

  “But you had a long day taking care of me—you’re probably tired.”

  “Yea
h, and your goddamn father put you in the hospital, so I think you’re allowed a few things,” he growled. After visibly taking a deep breath, he leaned over and kissed my bare shoulder. “Are you hungry? Need some Tylenol? A foot massage? A blowjob? Whatever you want is yours.”

  I looked over at him—slowly—and smiled. “I’ll say yes to the Tylenol. And food, though I don’t think I’m quite awake for that. I’ll hold off on the blowjob.” I tilted forward and kissed him. “Thank you for taking care of me. But can you tell me everything—what happened? How bad is it?”

  His grimace told me more than enough, but hearing yesterday described was still difficult. Partially because remembering the damn chair hitting me made shocks of pain run down my back, but mostly because it meant remembering the horror on my mother’s face and the rage on my father’s. Part of me was bitter and smug, hissing I knew it, but too much of me had hoped that it wouldn’t turn out the way it had. There was no joy in gloating.

  “Nothing broken or damaged, thankfully,” Logan said, and swallowed hard. “A dozen stitches overall where shards hit you, but they’re the dissolving kind, so no follow-up unless there’s issues. The doctor said the concussion is mild, and the scans were clear, but she gave us a list of things to watch for. That means when I ask how you feel, you tell it to me straight, got it?”

  “Straight as I can.”

  He kissed my shoulder again. “Yeah, yeah. I still wish I could’ve punched his face in.”

  “Logan.”

  “I know, I know. But I don’t care if he’s your dad. We should still report his abusive ass to the police. Assault and battery of his own son. Who knows what he’d do to someone else’s. What that bigoted asshole would have done to me.”

  I winced and tilted away from him. I couldn’t remember having this argument last night, but I instinctually knew that we had, which was, frankly, terrifying. I took as deep a breath as my aching body allowed, then slowly released it. I should report the attack, make my dad realize what he’d done was wrong, but I couldn’t. He was my father. Even if he didn’t think I was good enough to be his son, I still loved him. Even knowing he would have hurt Logan . . . I could only be happy he hadn’t.

  Beside me, Logan sighed. “Guess it was too much to hope you’d change your mind in the morning. You were pretty adamant about not doing it last night too.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s your choice.” It sounded like it took all of Logan’s gritted teeth to say, but he’d said it. “If he harms a single hair on your body again, though, I’m going to beat him to a pulp.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “I’m glad you’re being reasonable about that.” Logan’s laugh was about as carefree as I could expect this morning. It radiated through me like magic, and I imagined it healing all my aches.

  I smiled and listed toward him. “Well, at least we can move in together now.”

  “Yeah.” Logan frowned and looked down. He reached out and clasped my hand, holding it tight. For a moment I waited, wondering if he was going to explain the blatantly unenthusiastic response. Abruptly he raised his head. “Hey, are you hungry?”

  I blinked in surprise. Hungry? Why was he asking if I was hungry?

  That quick, I could feel my grip on my previous concerns slipping away.

  “Yeah, I could eat.”

  “You want breakfast in bed?”

  I shifted on the soft mattress and considered needing to be propped up by a dozen fluffy pillows. The thought made my spine ache. “Uh, better go for the kitchen table.”

  “Your wish is my command. Wait,” he added when I moved to throw back the covers to stand. “Let me be there just in case.”

  I thought he was being silly, but I humored him anyway, pushing back the covers and putting my feet on the floor to wait while he got out of bed and came around to my side.

  “Ready?”

  “I was ready a minute ago.”

  He held out his arms, offering a ring of support should I lose my balance, presumably. “Glad to see your sarcasm wasn’t damaged.”

  “You’ll have to pry it from my cold dead hands,” I said, rising to my feet.

  I swayed, but he didn’t immediately grab me, letting me steady myself and wait for the dizziness to pass. Only then did he wrap his arms around me and draw me to his chest. He set a kiss on my crown. “How about we let you keep it, then?”

  “Sounds good.” I nodded against his chest, closing my eyes as his heat and scent surrounded me. If I hadn’t hurt so much, and been so very aware of how delicately his arms were touching my back, I would have been turned on. As it was, I felt protected. Safe from all of yesterday’s shit. I could have stayed there forever.

  Moving must have woken my body up, though, because my stomach grumbled its complaint at being empty. Really empty.

  “When did I last eat?”

  His fingers slid as light as droplets over my skin. “I fed you when we got home, though you weren’t too hungry. C’mon.”

  He got me situated at the kitchen table with an extra cushion on the seat, even though my butt was fine, and a pillow between me and the backrest, in case I leaned on it. I didn’t mind the fussing, although I was sort of waiting for the bubble wrap to come out.

  He handed me my phone before he set to cooking, so I could answer the texts I’d received last night—he’d wisely taken my phone away before I’d done the concussion equivalent of drunk texting—and update my friends on my big “coming out.” There were a few messages in the group chat asking how it had gone, then a few fretting before Jenna sent, Logan said you’re OK and will give us an update tomorrow :( Love you! Hope everything’s okay!

  I smiled and typed, I’m OK considering. My parents didn’t take it well and my dad attacked me. Logan and I spent yesterday in the hospital. I have a MILD concussion, some stitches, and bruises. But overall I’m fine. Logan’s making me breakfast now.

  After I’d sent the message, I remembered it was fuck early in the morning on Black Friday and, aside from Emmett and Jackson, who would likely be awoken by their daughter, everyone would be asleep. Well, that gave me more time to find my feet before I got a flood of responses. I put my phone to sleep and leaned back—gingerly—on the pillow. It pressed on my lower back and wasn’t too bad. My eyes tracked to Logan fussing at the stove, and I smiled.

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Toast and eggs with coffee and orange juice.”

  “Not French toast? Pancakes? Waffles?” I teased.

  He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I can if you want, but I know how much you love eggs, and I figured this would be fast.”

  “It sounds great. Though I am having an odd craving for pancakes.”

  Logan chuckled and turned his gaze back to the eggs. “We can do those for dinner, if you want.”

  My whims seemed to be the order for the day. After breakfast—and a dose of painkillers—we returned to bed for a few more hours until it was reasonable. Then he took me into the shower for the most gentle shower sudsing imaginable. If I hadn’t known raucous amounts of sex were off the table—trust me, they were—I would have thought he was buttering me up. In reality I just wasn’t supposed to get my stitches too wet or soapy, and it gave Logan an excuse to examine every inch of my injuries, which he did.

  He was probably blaming himself for them, but he didn’t say anything and I didn’t have the energy to push. We could talk about it later, when my head didn’t pound every time the drugs wore off and moving too fast didn’t result in grabbing something for balance.

  After a thorough toweling off, I wandered back to the kitchen to get my phone. My friends had all woken up.

  Emmett: Holy fuck. What did he do?

  Jackson: Oh no :(

  Mark: Fuck, are you okay?

  Jenna: Did you get the police involved?

  Laura: <3 *hugs*

  Roe sent a GIF of someone wrapping a child in bubble wrap.

  I loved my friends, although I knew th
ey weren’t going to be wild about my answer to Jenna’s question. I updated them on how I was (OK. Sore and not pretty, but Logan is taking care of me), what my dad had done (slammed a chair against my back as he was attacking Logan), and if I had told the police (no).

  Jenna: Why the fuck not?

  Wow, she was fast.

  Laura: What my lovely lady means is, why didn’t you report him? That’s scary. You had to go to the hospital! He shouldn’t get away with it.

  So I told them the same thing I’d told Logan, knowing they’d take it about as well.

  Isaac: He’s my dad and I love him, even if he doesn’t love me. I don’t want to put him through that.

  Roe: That’s a shitty reason. He obviously had no issue putting you through that.

  Isaac: He was aiming at Logan.

  Jenna: Then no offense but I wish you hadn’t stepped in, because Logan has the sense to report his assaulting ass to the police.

  Roe: Also, he’s ripped, it probably wouldn’t have hurt much.

  I didn’t want to keep arguing, so instead I replied, Are you saying I’m feeble?

  Roe: No, I’m saying if it was me, I’d be a pancake on the floor.

  Isaac: Good save :p

  Roe: I’m glad you’re okay. Is there anything we can do for you?

  Logan came into the kitchen, stopping to kiss my temple before he headed to the counter to start making tea. I smiled up at him and told my friends, Logan has everything covered. I think I’m good. Thanks.

  “You’re going to spoil me,” I told Logan.

  “Good.” He set out two mugs with tea bags while the water heated. The fox on his stared at me cheerfully. “I still can’t believe yesterday happened. I never should have—”

  “I told you, I wanted to do it.”

  “I know, but I—”

  This time my ringing phone interrupted him. I glanced down. “Oh, it’s Sue. I should take this.” I hit Answer and raised it to my ear. “He—”

  “Zacky!” Croaked over the line, followed by a fit of coughs. I waited for her to get back under control, keeping the phone slightly away from my ear. When she finally settled, she said, more softly now, “Mom called me. Are you okay? What really happened?”