by JB Salsbury
I stare at the wall in front of me.
I don’t bother to make it interesting, to count the cracks or make patterns out of the texture. I just stare.
I’ve been in and out of so many surgeries, put to sleep and woken up, sedated and writhing in pain, I don’t know which side of being awake is a drug-induced illusion and which is real.
What happened to me? Isn’t that the million-dollar question.
I’ve heard the breakdown from all different mouths, but none of it feels like my life. It’s all too bloody. Too intense.
But I killed the feeling part of me years ago. Or was it only months? Days?
Who knows.
Who fucking cares.
There’s a soft shuffling of feet and then a small feminine gasp. “You’re awake.”
I blink.
Layla’s here. When did she show up?
“Bro, you’re up.” Blake’s voice cracks, and it’s like a vise grip on my heart.
I hear creaking at my bedside and see him out of my peripheral vision, but I keep my gaze firmly locked on the wall.
His big hand moves over mine, but only hovers before he pulls it back to his side. “Fuck.” He drops his head a little and sniffs. “It’s so good to see you, man. I didn’t think—” He clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re home.”
I blink again.
“You gonna talk to me?”
The muscle in my cheek jumps, but it does that from time to time, uncontrollable from the damage, I’m sure.
“Don’t want Mom and The General to see me.” My voice sounds like a whisper dragged over broken glass.
Blake and Layla share a look, and the air in the room grows thick.
“Please. Dad . . . he’ll—” My words are silenced as emotion grips my raw throat.
“Alright. You don’t need to see anyone till you’re ready.” He reaches over my body to my good hand and squeezes it. The touch makes my eyes burn. “You focus on getting better, okay?” He sniffs and clears his throat.
With the unexpected onslaught of emotion, I turn away and close my eyes.
The mattress shakes from the force of my brother’s silent tears.
Seventeen
AJ
“Are you comfortable?” Andre stands with his arms crossed over his chest, and although he’s wearing a nice pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved button-up shirt, the evidence of stress is all over him.
Most people probably wouldn’t see his rolled-up sleeves as a sign of distress, or the way his short black hair stands up as if he’s been pulling on it, and unless you look closely, you wouldn’t see the red that tinges the whites of his eyes or the slight bags beneath them.
The man hasn’t been himself since the night I fell from the silks. He also hasn’t left my bedside. Not when I was in the back of an ambulance. Not when I was rushed into surgery where plates and pins were used to put my bones back together, and not the days that followed.
I shift as much as I can on the bed, thinking it’s impossible to be comfortable with a broken body, but I suppose I’m as comfortable as I can be. “Yeah, I’m good.”
My phone rings, and the caller ID flashes my parents’ number.
“Hello?”
“AJ, it’s Dad. How are you feeling, honey?”
“I’m better. I got released from the hospital this morning, and my friend Andre is letting me stay with him. I can’t even get out of bed without help.”
“Andre, your boss?”
I explain our friendship, making sure to leave out the current offer on the table, and that seems to set my dad at ease. He tries to talk me into moving home, but I’m not yet ready to give up the idea that I’ll be performing again. The doctors said it’s not likely, that because of the location of the breaks my body won’t be as sturdy as it was before, but I refuse to accept that this is it for me.
I’m twenty-five years old with at least ten good years ahead of me. I’m nowhere near ready to give up everything I’ve worked for.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t come down.” The pain in my father’s voice almost brings me to tears, but I push all that back and let him know there’s nothing they could’ve done anyway. He doesn’t seem sold but tells me how he and my mom will be checking in daily and lets me off the phone.
Andre never left the room, and when he hears me say good-bye, he circles the end of the giant bed to come sit next to me. He lowers himself to the mattress slowly, to avoid disrupting my position, then leans over me and braces his weight on his palm at my opposite hip. “I need to get to the office. You have my number if you need me.”
I hold up the device to prove I do.
“The nurse’s number is in there too. Your physical therapist will be here after lunch. Your meals will be brought to you as well as snacks, and your medication will be delivered every six hours.”
“Andre, this is excessive. I could’ve stayed at the rehab center for physical therapy, and then you wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble.”
“Nonsense. It’s no trouble at all, now can you think of anything else you might need?”
God, he’s insanely stubborn. I look around Andre’s guest room, which is the size of a large hotel room complete with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the Las Vegas mountains. “You’ve already done too much.”
“No.” He reaches forward and pushes a strand of hair from my face. “Never too much.”
“Just listen to me, okay? A private nurse? Twenty-four-hour care and room service? You know I can’t pay you back for all this.”
“I know, and I’d never expect you to.” He stares at my lips then seems to mentally shake himself and moves his gaze to my eyes. “I want you here. And the money? Please understand that for me the cost of this is pocket change.”
I roll my eyes and grin. “Must be nice.”
“Is it?”
The seriousness in his voice gets my attention.
“Do you like being here? Do you enjoy living this lifestyle with me?”
Private balcony, pool, being waited on, and getting the best service wherever we go? “What’s not to like?”
“I’m happy to hear you say that, Adeline, because I’d like for you to move in with me.”
My stomach jumps with either excitement or unease, I can’t tell, so I laugh awkwardly. “I’m pretty sure I already have.”
He leans in, putting his face only a few inches from mine. “In my room, in my bed. I want you in my life in every way imaginable. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
“I . . . I think so.” I might be loaded on pain meds, but I’m not stupid. He wants to take whatever this is that’s been simmering between us to the next level. But from friends to live-in girlfriend?
“Good.” He reaches forward and fluffs up the pillows at my back, and when he’s done, he doesn’t move away. “Heal first; then we’ll talk about where we go from there.”
I manage to nod once.
He stares at my lips and then with a slight dip presses his mouth to mine.
My eyes stay wide and open as he brushes tender kisses across my lips.
They’re warm and soft and communicate a level of caring I’ve been missing for what seems like a lifetime.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting so long to do that.” He kisses the tip of my nose and then my forehead. “I’ll be working tonight, but I’ll drop everything if you need me.”
“That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”
He cups my jaw, rubbing his thumb along my cheek. “Anything for you.” Then, as if he’s having to push himself away, he stands from the bed and leaves me to contemplate his words alone.
Move in permanently? Into his bedroom? Give Andre not only my body, but my heart?
A fierce wave of anxiety speeds my pulse. Emotions war with my vulnerability and all the unanswered questions about my future.
When the door to the penthouse closes and I’m sure Andre is gone, I slide open my contacts and hit Braeden’s name. With my
heart in my throat, I wait for his voice, the playful way he’d answer and call me muffin.
The three-tone squeal of a dead line seals our fate.
“You have reached a number that is disconnected or is no longer in service.”
As if robot woman didn’t get her point across the first time, she repeats it again. I force myself to listen, refusing to hang up until I’m sure the message Braeden is sending me sinks in.
It’s over. It’s really over.
I made a mistake and let my head get the best of me by worrying about a man who it seems only saw me as a weekend fling, an orgasm away from home.
My spine stiffens with resolve.
It’s my interests first from here on out.
I allowed Braeden to complicate my life, and look where that got me.
I’m left feeling used and nursing a broken heart and more broken bones than I can count.
Braeden Daniels is my past.
Andre is my future.
~*~
Braeden
“You don’t have to stay.”
Blake and Layla whip their heads toward me in unison. I immediately feel guilty for freezing them out. It wasn’t intentional. I just don’t have shit to say about shit. Anytime I manage to put together a cohesive thought, it’s like a burst of wind blows through my head and takes everything in me with it.
But my brother and his wife have been at my side for God knows how long now, and it’s making me feel like a dick for keeping them from their kid.
Blake scoots his chair up closer, probably helping me to see him since I’m still pretty comfortable with my good ole friend the wall. “We don’t have anywhere to be—”
“Bullshit.”
I catch the hint of his grin in my sight-line and turn my head to the side so I can look at my big brother head on. His eyes glisten, but fuck him if he thinks this is turning into a cry fest.
“Your boy needs you.”
Layla comes up behind her husband and puts her hands on his shoulders, showing him the kind of support that a good woman can give. “He’s with Ax and Killian, and they’re having a blast. I don’t even think he’s noticed we’re gone.”
I stare into the compassionate eyes of my sister-in-law and think they remind me of someone I cared about once, in another lifetime. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate you guys being here.” I’m going to have to try harder to convince them I’m okay if I’m going to get them to leave. I push up and adjust in the bed to make myself more comfortable. The right side of my body feels ten sizes too small. “I’ve got PT for the next couple of weeks and then . . .” My words trail off.
And then what?
“I, uh . . .” Where do I go? I’ve been living at Pendleton, but . . . I return to the safety of the blank wall. “I’m out, aren’t I.”
“Yeah, man. You got a Purple Heart, discharged with honor, but yeah.”
Well, fuck, now what?
I wonder if I should feel something having heard that, if there should be some sorrow or at the very least a sense of loss, but I feel nothing. I’m as blank as that fucking wall.
“I guess I’ll move back home with Mom and Dad.”
A thick silence fills the space between us.
“I’ll be outside,” Layla whispers, but I can hear the tears in her voice.
My brother looks like he’s got a fucking hurricane brewing behind his eyes.
“What?”
His throat bobs, and I can tell it’s taking everything in him to push something from his throat. “Dad’s gone, man.”
“Dad’s gone? As in . . .?” Oh fuck, here come the feelings. My throat aches like a motherfucker, and I swallow hard against the tightness that strangles me.
“A few days after you were rescued, he slipped away. It was peaceful, in his sleep.”
Oh fuck . . . my chest. “Did he know?”
God, the idea that The General’s worst fear, of me being killed in action, was the last thought running through his mind before he died is too much to consider.
“No. Mom kept it from him. He was so confused at the end that he thought you were already back. We didn’t think it was necessary to correct him.”
I try to swallow. And again. “I’ll move in with Mom; she’s gotta be a mess over there in that house alone.”
“She sold the house. She’s moving in with us until she finds a place in Las Vegas.”
“Sold it?” I stare down at my worthless body. “How long have I been in here?”
“It’s, uh . . .” He leans forward in his seat, rubbing his face, and clears his throat. “You were overseas until they got you stabilized. Been back here on US soil for about a month.”
I suck in a shaky breath.
I missed my dad dying. The funeral. What else? “Ax’s wedding?”
“She pushed it off. My girl is stubborn as shit, and she refuses to get married until you’re able to stand up with her.”
I don’t know what it is, maybe all the fucking heaviness in the room that’s damn near suffocating us, but I laugh. It’s deep and gravelly and doesn’t sound like me or at least the me I remember, but I fucking laugh.
Blake joins in, his chuckle not much better than mine.
We look at each other, tears forming in our eyes as the fucking tragedy reaches in to take my heart in its unforgiving fist, and our laughter turns to something else altogether.
My shoulders jump and liquid regret pours from my eyes. Blake gets up and wraps his big arms around me, and I grip his shirt with my good hand, fisting it and pulling him closer. His tears soak my neck as we both break down and allow the injustice to leech from our souls.
Soft small arms come around us, and the soothing sound of Layla’s voice wraps us in its embrace.
“Let it out.” She chokes on her own tears. “You’ll be okay. We’re going to get through this. We’re gonna fight our way through this because we know no other way. And we’re gonna do it together.”
Eighteen
Two months later . . .
AJ
Whoever said the lights of Las Vegas were magical is a fucking idiot. I know this to be true because that person was me.
These lights are nothing more than sharp teeth disguised as opportunity waiting to snag and devour a person’s dreams before it spits them out.
The colors blur and mix, and I wipe the stupid fucking tears for the millionth time. I told myself I wouldn’t cry and I didn’t. Not until I got home did it hit me that I’d never perform again.
The doctors all say I should be happy, that I’m lucky to be alive.
But what kind of life do I have left if I’ve been robbed of my future?
Because that’s what my job gave me. Hope for a better future for myself. Hope that I could give my parents a break as they get older. Hope is nothing but the worst of four-letter words.
Fuck hope.
The wind whips my hair around my face, and I don’t bother to hold it down. I stare out at the lie that is Las Vegas and consider petitioning the city for a billboard right outside the county line that reads, “Las Vegas: Where Dreams Come to Die.”
A long arm tipped with a frosted martini glass comes into view. I follow the dark-suited length up to Andre’s worried face then accept the martini from his hand. “Thank you.” I take a sip and savor the cold-burn down my throat. “You’re home early.”
He takes the chaise lounge next to mine, but sits facing me. “What happened at the doctor today?”
I stare at him and wait until he notices the tears streaking my face.
He drops his head. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
I shrug and take a mouthful of vodka. “Me too.”
“So that’s it? There’s not a chance—?”
“Not according to the doctors, no.”
He turns to stare at the lights, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s thinking the same things I was, about how they lure you in only to crush your heart, or in my case my bones.
The outdoor lights catch the
sharp lines of his jaw, and I wonder what I would’ve done without Andre? After he nursed me back to health, I decided I’d give us a chance. I moved what little I had into his guest room and brought my personal things into his room.
The hotel staff and security have been briefed on our relationship, so I have access to all the perks of being the boss’s old lady.
We are, for all intents and purposes, a couple.
Well, mostly a couple. I still haven’t slept with him. We’ve kissed and made out. I just haven’t been able to give him everything. At first, I blamed my sore body, but now it just doesn’t feel right. It’s not that I’m not attracted to him, because any woman with eyeballs would be, but there’s something holding me back.
I’m ashamed that I’ve taken so much from him: his kindness, his financial help. Part of me thinks if I have sex with him, give him the one thing I can, it’ll feel cheap, like I’m prostituting myself.
I’m so messed up in my own head that I don’t even know what I think anymore. The only thing I do know is that I miss the days when life was easier, when two plus two equaled four. You work hard; you earn a paycheck. You fall for a guy; you sleep with him. But now everything is tangled up and convoluted, and I’m the helpless fly suspended in this web of confusion.
“You need a job.”
I jerk my gaze to Andre and my cheeks heat. I knew this day would come where he got tired of supporting me.
“I know you, Adeline.” He smiles, and that dimple he seems to reserve for only me shows itself. “As much as I wish you’d let me take care of you, you’re happiest when you’re working.”
I reach over and grab his hand, and he gives it to me. God, I swear the man has softer hands than a woman. Must be the hundred-dollar lotion he uses. “I appreciate you wanting to take care of me, but you’re right. I just . . . I hate feeling like a leech.”
“I know you do.” He kisses my knuckles.
“But what can I do now? All I know is performing. I never gave myself a back-up plan because I refused to fail.” Tears build again and I curse my weakness.
“Hmm . . . I’ve been thinking.” The corner of his mouth turns up. “I have a proposition for you.”
