by Voss, Deja
“Where are we going?” I ask. It’s already dark, and we have at least a four-hour drive ahead.
His phone rings and I try to listen in, but his tone is hushed and his expression is blank.
“You ever heard of Manassa, Colorado?” he asks me after hanging up.
“Nope.”
“Me neither. But that’s where we’re going.”
“Was that him?” I ask, my heart fluttering just knowing that he’s alive. Knowing that I might get the chance to see him again. I can’t hold back my tears, joy mixed with concern. Concern that he might not want to see me.
“It was one of our guys. He’s in the hospital. He’s stable but he was shot. Apparently there was some sort of armed robbery situation.”
My stomach sinks. “He wouldn’t do that,” I say. “He was just running with a bad crowd.”
“He didn’t do that. He stopped it from happening. One of the guys in the gang shot him in the leg before the police could subdue him. He told them everything while they were dragging him out on a stretcher, and he told them to call you. That you’d know.”
“Well we gotta get to him,” I say. “Punch it, grandpa.”
His GPS screen lights up and he turns off of the highway and down a long dirt road into a clearing. Not a minute later, I hear the deafening sound of a helicopter overhead, the trees swaying in the wind all around us.
“Four hours or forty-five minutes,” Max says to me. “Pick your pleasure.”
“Do you have a paper bag or something?” I ask. We’re getting in that helicopter. I don’t care if I puke all the way there, as long as it gets me to Tucker as quick as possible.
“I’m sure we can figure something out,” he laughs. “I can see why Jesse likes you, by the way.”
My hair is still damp, my make-up is questionable at best, and my skinny jeans and hoodie make me look like I’m wearing a burlap sack compared to him.
“I don’t have a word for it,” he says. “It’s like being around you makes me feel calm. Like everything is going to be ok.”
“It always is,” I say. “No matter what happens.”
I try to remind myself of that fact. Even if Tucker doesn’t want anything to do with me, everything’s going to be ok. As long as he gets the treatment he needs and he’s healthy and safe, life will go on. Hopefully, though, our lives will go on together in some sort of way. I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of repairing to do, but I’m currently unemployed and really don’t have a clue with what the next chapter of my life is supposed to be. I have all the time in the world to figure it out.
We board the noisy helicopter and I put on the headphones and close my eyes tight.
“You’re not even going to peek?” he asks.
I open my eyes and look out the window as we take off.
“You got that bag?” I ask him, cupping my hands over my mouth.
“Yeah, maybe you should just try and go to sleep,” he laughs.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Tucker:
Blurry.
Everything around me looks fuzzy, blurry, and strange. My throat feels dry and my body feels stiff, but I can’t move, even though I’m trying my hardest.
The last thing I remember is coming out of the basement with my hands in the air. I needed to make sure Mitch was ok. That old guy didn’t deserve to get caught in this mess. Moments later, I was laying on the ground grabbing my leg, my hands all red and sticky, pain searing through my body. I was wheeled out on a stretcher, but there were bodies strewn all over the garage floor, a sea of red pooling on the concrete. Faces that were so familiar to me, people that I once called my family.
“Someone call Molly,” was all I could muster up before they fitted my face with an oxygen mask.
“You’re going to be ok, Jesse,” the paramedics assured me, and I drifted off into the deepest sleep I’ve ever known.
Now I’m half awake in this hospital bed. Alone, uncomfortable. Each individual thought I’m trying to conjure up feels like pulling out my teeth one by one.
Everything before my car accident is back in place in my mind. My name, my occupation, my social security number. My business in North Carolina. Max, my partner and best friend. My mom and dad who live just down the road from my property who walk to my house every day for breakfast. My Lamborghini. My helicopter. The shooting range in my backyard. My blueprints.
And then there’s after the accident. The Vagrants. The cave. The mountains. And the only person that matters to me, the only thing that will ever mean anything to my past, my present, and my future. The only request I have is finding her and getting her back, no matter what it takes.
“Hey, bud,” Max says from the doorway of my hospital room. “I’m coming in.”
Seeing him makes me smile.
“You do know who I am, right?” he asks me. “I heard you’ve spent the last few months in blackout town.”
“I’d never forget that ugly face,” I say to him. “And yeah, sorry about that.”
“Honestly, I’m sorry,” he assures me. “I’m a shitty friend. I figured you were exactly where you wanted to be. I didn’t even start looking for you until I saw Molly’s article. Trying to convince your parents you were on vacation was a pain in the ass, though. You owe them a serious apology.”
“Are they coming?” I ask him. I miss my dad and mom. I’m sure they’d probably shoot me themselves if they had the chance.
“They’re flying in tomorrow morning.”
“Can you help me find Molly?” I ask him. “I need to talk to her.”
“I already found her. Don’t worry. I sent some guys over to her place to scare her a little bit. She won’t be writing articles about you anymore.”
I have to look over at the monitor to make sure I’m not flatlining. I know exactly what kind of guys he’s talking about, and if they went anywhere near Molly as soon as I get this cast off my leg, I’m going to kick his ass three ways from Sunday.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I say.
“I am. But you earned that. I’m gonna mess with that head of yours so bad for the rest of your life, Jesse, you’re not going to know if you have amnesia or not. You truly are an asshole.”
“So where is she?” I know I earned whatever punishment I have in store for me from him, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make it up to him.
“You have to answer some questions for me first.”
“Sure.”
“Do I really make your life so bad that living in a cave is better than being around me? I know I push you, I know I push us and our business, but is it really that terrible? And once you started coming around and getting your memory back, why didn’t you at least call me, man?”
“Max, it had nothing to do with you. You know I love you like a brother. You know I’m eternally grateful for all the opportunities you’ve given me over the years. I just needed some time away to remember who I am. By the time things started coming back to me, I was in too deep. I was being selfish for the sake of keeping Molly and making it work with her. I didn’t want our lives to have to change. Look how great that turned out,” I grimace, feeling like even talking is a little too much exertion for me right now, but I need to get this off of my chest. “I pushed her right out the door by trying to hide her from this life.”
“She didn’t write that article, by the way. She wrote AN article, but it was just about how such a great person could go missing without being searched for. Her parents showed it to me.”
“You met her parents?”
“He did,” she says, peeking around the doorframe. As soon as she sees me, she bursts into tears. I’ve never seen her cry like this before. It makes me feel terrible. I would do anything in the world to make sure I never have to see this again.
“I’m sorry,” I say, unsure of how to make this better. “Molly, I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” she asks me, still standing in the doorway, scared to move.
“W
hy are you crying?”
“I did this to you,” she stutters. “I made you run away. Now you’re in the hospital.”
“Come here,” I say, patting the spot next to the bed. If I could get up and run to her and scoop her up in my arms, I would. Hell, I want nothing more than to throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of this place, take her home with me. My real home. For good.
The smell of her perfume, the way she walks through the room like she’s a timid little feather floating on air, all of her mannerisms that I’ve missed so much, they make me feel lighter, better, calmer. Like a gunshot wound to the leg is really nothing for me to worry about.
She sits on the bed next to me and stares into my eyes, like she’s meeting a stranger for the first time. I guess she is. I guess I’m not the man that she met, lived with. Not the man who proposed to her like an asshole to try and make her stay with me.
“Will you please stop crying, Molly,” Max says. “You’re going to make me cry, too.”
“Get the hell out of here,” I say teasingly. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“This has everything to do with me,” he says. “If you’re going to settle down and start a life with this woman, then I’m going to probably have to find my own place to live. I don’t want to wake up every morning to the constant reminder that I’m just an aging bachelor with a billion dollar company, a yacht, a safe full of fine art, and a staff of people who literally do everything for me but wipe my ass.”
“Max.” I roll my eyes at him.
“You’re right. I do love my life. But I’ll get out of your hair. You think there’s a decent hotel within a fifty-mile radius of this place? Better yet, a good strip club? I could go for some mountain strange.”
“I’ll see you in the morning?” I ask him.
“Maybe. Maybe I’ll go off and hide in the woods for a few months myself. I’m taking my platinum card, though. I don’t eat bugs or dig holes to shit in. Bye, Molly.”
Chapter Fifty
Molly:
“I want to kiss you right now,” he says to me. He looks so pale, so weak, and seeing his leg casted up is really upsetting to me. I don’t know many details about his accident, just that he got shot by one of the Vagrants when he was trying to protect an elderly couple from being ambushed by them.
“I’m sure that’s just the morphine talking. Plus, you definitely don’t want to kiss me right now. Apparently I’m not a very good helicopter passenger and a stick of gum only gets you so far.”
He brushes his hand down my arm, just staring at me like the first time we met, when he scooped me up off that hill and carried me home to safety.
“I missed you, Molly.”
“I missed you, too. Jesse? Tucker? This is really confusing for me.” As happy as I am to see him, I know things are never going to be the same between us. We live in two different worlds, two vastly different worlds.
“You can call me whatever you want. As long as I can call you my girlfriend,” he says.
“You think that’s a good idea?” I ask him. “I mean, what about your life? You probably have a lot of catching up to do. I don’t expect you to let me hold you back.”
He grabs my hand and laces his fingers with mine, and instantly I feel like everything is going to be ok. No matter what the next thing that comes out of his mouth is, I know I’ll be alright.
“You could never hold me back. I’ve spent the last few months running. Running from Max and my business, running from my responsibilities, and running away from who I am. The only time I ever wanted to stop running was when I was with you. My life will never be complete again unless I can spend it with you, Molly. I know I’m asking a lot. I mean, I should’ve never run off before talking to you, but I can promise you that I am going to be immobile for at least a couple of weeks.” He tries to move his leg and he winces in pain.
“I thought you’d never forgive me,” I confess. “I pushed you too hard. I tried to make decisions for you that weren’t mine to make.”
“They WERE your decisions to make. You took me in. You took care of me. You did so much for me without asking for anything in return. Anything but for me to be a decent man. Until I faced the facts, I would never be worthy enough to have you.”
I rest my head on his shoulder and curl up next to him like I did for so many nights. I missed being right here, not a care in the world. Just him and I and everything is right and perfect.
“You were always worthy enough for me. No matter who you were. I silenced all the external noise. I knew you were the man for me. I just didn’t want to end up hurt if you had a wife and kids or something. I was being selfish.”
“Well you got your answers now, Molly. Would you still be cuddled up next to me if I was a garbage man, or a prostitute? Would you be able to silence the external noise?” he laughs, pulling me in tighter.
“Garbage man, yes. Prostitute, maybe, if you let me be your pimp, just so I made sure you weren’t sleeping with anyone who is prettier or younger than me.”
“I’m sorry I’m just a boring old architect. Lucky for you, though, most of my clients are dirty old men.”
It feels like we’re picking up right where we left off. It feels good, it feels natural. I don’t care who this man actually is, he is the person I fell in love with the first time. I know my life is about to radically change on the outside, but inside, it will always be just the two of us. I enjoy the long silence, laying here with him like it’s just another day.
“I’m probably going to get kicked out of here, soon. I’m sure visiting hours are about over.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says to me.
“Well if they tell me I have to leave, I’m going to.”
“They’re not going to tell you to leave, Molly. Don’t you know who I am?”
He starts laughing so hard that I can tell he’s in pain, but he just keeps on giggling like he just told the funniest joke in the world. It makes me laugh too.
I stay by his side all night long. The nurses come in to check his wound and make sure he’s comfortable, and by the time the sun comes up, his room is full of flowers, cards, balloons, and giant gift baskets. Every hour on the hour it seems like they keep bringing more and more stuff in.
I’m there next to him when he wakes up, and the smile on his face is worth the pain in my back from hanging halfway off of a hospital bed for the whole night.
“You’re a popular man, Jesse. Look how many people are happy to have you back.”
“The only one that matters is the girl who was willing to take me in when I had nothing. And now I get to take you in and give you everything you could ever want for.”
“I only want for one thing,” I say, smiling at him. “OK, two things.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Number one, a toothbrush. And number two, I want to find out who’s better in bed. Tucker or Jesse?”
He chuckles as he squeezes my boob. I just giggle.
“You’re probably going to have to wait awhile for the full Jesse experience,” he teases. “I’m sure my dick works just fine, but I’m gonna need more than one leg to do the things I want to do to you.”
“I love you, Jesse,” I say, and for some reason, it sounds a lot less strange than I thought it was going to. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh you are,” he says. “You’re going to go somewhere and brush your teeth. Even when I lived on the mountain my breath never smelled as bad as yours does right now.”
He grabs me by the back of the head and presses his lips to mine and I squeal in shock, but I don’t care. I’ve waited way too long for this, to have him back with me and feel his lips on mine.
“Totally worth it,” he smiles as I pull away, catching my breath. “You know I’d still make out with you even if you hadn’t brushed your teeth or showered in a month. There’s nothing you could do to repulse me enough to keep me away from you for another day.”
Epilogue
Jes
se:
I’m nervous as hell, and not just because my poor mother and father are scaling the side of a giant boulder to get to the special spot. I shift my weight back and forth in my shoes, doing everything short of hopping up and down, my body filled with anxious energy as I wait for her to arrive.
“Out of everywhere in the entire world, this is where you guys choose?” Max teases. “Seriously, there’s something not right about this at all.” He wipes the sweat from his brow, winded from the long hike up the hill.
We had to put off the wedding for a year so we could have it at our special cave, the spot we were both seeking when we first met. My recovery from my surgery to repair the damage from the gunshot wound was long and intense, with daily physical therapy, but I had Molly with me the entire time. She was reluctant to move across the country at first, and worried that she wouldn’t fit into my life, but I told her she could park her bus in the driveway, free to leave if she ever chose.
Lucky for me, it never came down to that.
No, Molly never left my side.
It’s been fun watching her acclimate to the lifestyle. Even though she could have anything she could possibly desire, our bedroom is decorated with the same floral printed comforter and matching handmade curtains that once lined our mobile home. If it makes her feel comfortable and at home with me here, I can’t complain.
Max and I have decided to take a step back and tone down the business a little bit. We both came to the mutual agreement that we weren’t pushing ourselves out of a place of need anymore, but mainly his addiction to seeing those numbers get bigger and bigger. I think having Molly around has been a positive influence on him. He realized that there’s more to life than flying all over the world trying to land another deal, and he’s been dating women who are more than walking Barbie dolls looking for a payday. His current girlfriend is a kindergarten teacher.
