Jerk It

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I shot her a look. “You like me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No. I love you. They like you.”

  I felt my heart squeeze.

  I couldn’t stop myself from catching her by the ponytail and pulling her in for a kiss.

  “No more of that!” Taos wrapped his knuckles on the car window. “We have things to do.”

  I rolled my eyes after removing my lips from hers. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Thirty minutes later, the entire table was silent.

  “Fuck,” Jasper said. “I knew when I saw you that something was wrong. But something wrong to me in my head, and the something really wrong with you, are way different. Shit, man. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m assuming with the oxygen you’re carrying around, as well as the edema and lack of sleeping you were talking about, you’re in the end stages,” Soren, the ER doctor, said.

  I shrugged. “That’s what they say.”

  “Do they have any idea about the transplant list? Are they just going to leave you in the dark about it? Like do they just call you and say, ‘Oh, hey, we got you a heart?’ Or do they have any idea…” Sophia trailed off, not sure what she was trying to say.

  “From what I understand, there are a lot of factors that go into who gets a heart,” I admitted.

  “There is,” Soren agreed as he tried to explain. “First, someone has to die that is a match for what Murphy would need. Geographically, that person has to die somewhere close so that the heart can get to him in time. Murphy also has to be able to show he’s able to get there to give the heart to him. He has to be healthy enough to receive the heart. Because if there is even a slight chance that the heart won’t work or be compatible with him, they’re going to give that heart to someone that they know will be able to use it.”

  I listened with a dawning sense of horror.

  Not because of what Soren was saying, but because of what Mavis was listening to.

  I’d watched these past few weeks as any and all hope that she’d been carrying around had slowly dwindled over time. But I watched right that moment as the last remaining hope that Mavis had for me bled out right before my eyes.

  I moved until I was practically plastered against her side, and then wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

  Vlad, who was in the baby seat between us, leaned into not me, but his mother.

  He must’ve sensed her mood right along with me.

  Fran looked at her sister with a look of sadness on her face that likely reflected my own.

  God, if I could just make one thing happen, one very small thing, it would be to erase my entire existence from Mavis’s life.

  I wish I hadn’t hurt her like I had.

  I wish…

  “I think we should figure out what we’re going to do to make sure you can pay for this,” Jasper suggested.

  That’s when I started to crack up. “I got it covered.”

  “Listen, man.” Jasper leaned back into his seat, his large shoulder bumping his father’s similar large shoulder. “I can work it out with the station. We can put on a fundraiser. Not to mention we could hold a competition at the gym that could raise some. We can totally make this work.”

  That’s when Mavis cracked her first grin of the night.

  “Jazz, honey.” Mavis grinned wickedly as she reached for a roll to tear into pieces for her son. “It’s sweet that you’re the only non-nosey person at the gym, but Murphy is a millionaire. He won the lottery a few years ago, and has enough money to buy all of Paris.”

  Jasper’s eyes went wide. “No shit?”

  “No shit,” I confirmed. “I won the lottery about two years ago. Which is a far cry from where I was.”

  “That fuckin’ sucks that you won the lottery and you can’t even spend it,” Fran frowned.

  “Fran!” Taos elbowed his soon-to-be wife. “You can’t say that.”

  I chuckled then, slightly breathless as I did. “It’s actually kind of refreshing, honestly. To be one hundred percent honest, it’s fuckin’ awful timing. If this had happened when my mom and I were struggling, I wouldn’t even need the heart surgery.”

  Soren frowned. “What happened? I just assumed you were born with a heart anomaly.”

  “Nope.” I shook my head as I caught a piece of Mavis’s hair and twirled it around my big finger. “Sadly, that’s not what happened. I caused this.”

  “You did not cause this,” Mavis snapped.

  Vlad looked at her, and like the good kid he was, offered her a bite of roll.

  She took it, but didn’t place it in her mouth seeing as it’d been gummed to death.

  I patted her on the shoulder but went on to explain.

  “I had a heart attack when I was seventeen,” I explained. “They say it was due to my poor diet. I lived off of Ramen noodles and bacon that the butcher down the street gave us when I begged enough. For years we lived off of that. I also had myocarditis as a child after a viral infection. I recovered from that eventually, but ultimately, I wasn’t able to take care of my body as I should have. Because at the time of my heart attack, it was found that my blood pressure was two twenty over one sixty. Cholesterol levels through the roof. Good low, bad very high. Hell, I don’t even think that I got a damn veggie or fruit in me for about eight years or so. So it was no wonder that when I suffered that heart attack, it hit me as hard as it did. It damaged a lot of my heart, and that’s what started the downward spiral that I’m in now.”

  “That fuckin’ sucks,” Madden grumbled. “That just really fuckin’ sucks.”

  I looked at the man that I’d had a rough relationship with since the very beginning.

  Madden, I knew, had the hots for Mavis.

  There was no doubt in my mind that he did.

  But he’d backed off when I’d sort of started to stake my claim when she’d started coming to morning classes, giving me no other options but to see her.

  Now, looking at us, I wondered if I should’ve left it alone.

  I wondered if…

  A hand cupped my jaw, fingers curling lightly into the overgrowth, and I blinked, staring down into Mavis’s eyes.

  “You’re mine, and I love you,” she whispered fiercely.

  I closed my eyes and placed my forehead against hers.

  “I love you, too,” I promised her.

  That was the night that I had another heart attack.

  CHAPTER 17

  You need to stop living for someone else’s idea of perfect.

  -Murphy to Mavis

  MAVIS

  A few weeks later

  “Can’t. Breathe.”

  I reached into my pocket for the aspirin that I carried everywhere now—I never left home without it—and shoved two practically down his throat.

  “I’m going, baby. I’m going.”

  I blew the stoplight that was turning red, and quickly drove to the hospital like I was on two wheels.

  By the time that we pulled up to the ER entrance, it’d been two minutes and fifteen seconds since he’d first shown signs of a heart attack.

  I screeched to a halt and all but screamed my head off for someone to come help me.

  A brawny young man in green scrubs came out seconds later with a wheelchair in front of him, looking nervous.

  I yanked open the van door and all but lifted Murphy out of his seat.

  All I had to do was pivot and turn Murphy into the wheelchair before I was screaming, “He’s having a heart attack! Take him back!”

  The green-scrubbed guy didn’t hesitate after that.

  Vlad was screaming his head off in the backseat, and I turned woodenly and stared at his face.

  He was staring at where Murphy had disappeared through the large doors.

  I sat down on the concrete right there, put my head in my hands, and cried.

  It took them twenty minutes to come out to me and tell me that Murphy had suffered a heart attack.

  Five minutes later, I was walking into my
worst nightmare.

  “Baby?”

  He was so weak he could barely hold his head up.

  His eyes were sunken, and he couldn’t sleep worth a damn because of the coughing that kept him up all night.

  Weeks ago, when he’d had his heart attack after we’d left dinner with our friends, he’d gone from moving around to…not.

  He’d gone from being able to do just about everything, just with a hitch in his step, to barely able to move from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen.

  Now, he couldn’t even do that.

  “Read to me,” he pleaded.

  I swallowed past a lump in my throat, my fingers scraping down the length of his scruffy jaw.

  “What do you want me to read you?” I asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Read me the romance book you started reading me last night.”

  I choked out a laugh. “That was a joke.”

  “It might’ve been, but I got into it. Now read, woman,” he ordered.

  I dashed away the tear, hopefully before he got a chance to see it, and reached for my phone.

  I’d already started to read on the book, but I knew exactly where we’d left off.

  There was a specific scene that’d left me all hot and bothered.

  One that I had to stop reading because I couldn’t go about reading it anymore in front of the man that, though weakened and barely able to lift his head, still had the power to undo me.

  Even with a heated, sallow-eyed look, he could totally and completely do it for me.

  “You know, she has it in audio. I could lay in the bed next to you, and we could listen to it together while I knitted,” I offered.

  He grumbled something under his breath. “I could do that, but then I wouldn’t get to hear your voice.”

  I felt the tears course through me at his words.

  I didn’t let them spill over, though.

  Not when I knew what crying did to him.

  “Okay,” I offered, picking up the book.

  I’d read it before, of course. It was one of my favorites.

  The name of the book was called Hide Your Crazy.

  It was one of my favorites because of the two main characters. At first, they’d hated each other.

  Kind of like Murphy and me.

  That had to be why I’d liked it so much.

  Getting up, I decided to join him in bed anyway.

  His hand went to my leg as I snuggled in deep, and his head moved so that it was resting on my stomach.

  His face turned so that he was pressing the side of his face against my belly.

  Then I began to read.

  I stared at the ceiling, wondering if I’d done something to God to make him hate me.

  Three weeks ago, I’d moved out of my old apartment into this one because my old neighbor liked to hold orgies at all hours of the night.

  Now, I had a pacer above me that never slept.

  “What in the hell have I done to deserve this?” I asked the ceiling.

  Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Shuffle to the left. Step. Step.

  Step. Step. Shuffle to the right. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

  Over and over again it went.

  It was on my second hour of listening to it when I finally decided enough was enough.

  Grabbing the broom that I’d gone and gotten from the kitchen but hadn’t worked up the courage to use over the last two hours, I walked to the middle of my bedroom and came to a stop at the foot of my bed.

  Step. Step. Step. Step.

  Then, with trepidation, I lifted the broom and tapped on the ceiling.

  Lou, who’d been on the end of my bed sleeping blissfully, started to bark.

  I whipped my head around and growled, “Quiet!”

  He settled down into a low growl, but the stepping, thank God, had stopped.

  At least, it did for all of twenty seconds.

  Then it resumed again.

  Step. Step. Shuffle to the left.

  So, I tapped the broom a little bit harder, biting my lip.

  “He’s asleep.”

  I looked up, swallowed hard, and felt the tears come to my eyes at Giulia’s words.

  “He’s not sleeping much,” I admitted.

  “I know,” she whispered, her eyes on her son.

  My son was asleep in her arms, and I felt my heart lurch. “You going to go?”

  She nodded, walking farther into the room, and hefted Vlad in her arms slightly. “I can’t remember the last time I picked my son up like this.”

  Her words felt like a dagger to my heart.

  Vlad had done a lot of growing in the last few months, growing that had been somewhat overshadowed with Murphy’s illness.

  But Vlad, being the good baby he was for everyone but me, had hung in there.

  I smiled as I thought about how heavy he’d gotten lately.

  “I read a book when I was pregnant with him,” I said, smoothing my hands across Murphy’s hair. “Pretty much said to cherish everything, because one day you’ll pick them up for the last time. I never really put much thought into it, but last week I found one of his old pacifiers under my bed, and I thought, when was the last time he’d used one of those?”

  She smiled sadly and brushed a kiss onto Vlad’s forehead, then walked to the bed and looked down at her son.

  My heart felt heavy as I said, “Want to switch places for a bit? I can get him ready for bed.”

  She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as if she was swallowing past a large lump. “I think I’d like that.”

  We switched, and together we moved the man that held my heart until he was resting in his mother’s arms instead of mine.

  She curled her hands around his face, and then bent low to press a kiss to his forehead.

  “When he was little,” she said softly, “he used to sleep in a ball. Like curl up so tight that I could barely see him in his little bed. From the moment that he was old and strong enough to do it. There was one time that I went to check on him and swear to God, I thought he’d been kidnapped. I tore his bed apart. His room. Then the whole house. Then to go back into his room with this frantic feeling in my heart only to find him sitting curled in the middle of his crib with stuffed animals surrounding him.”

  Vlad made a fussing sound in my arms, and I rolled my eyes. “I seriously don’t understand what everyone else does for him that I can’t.”

  Guilia didn’t look up as she said, “Sometimes, as a mother, a child knows that they can just be themselves when the person they love most is holding them. They can cry and scream, and they know that we’ll love them anyway when they’re through.”

  I felt tears clog my throat as I left the room.

  It was only after I’d gotten my son in bed—awake now that I’d learned that it was his desired way of doing things thanks to Murphy showing me—that I went back to check on the two.

  I found Guilia crying silent tears while Murphy slept in her arms.

  I left them alone, and only when I was far enough away, did I let the sobs fall free from my throat.

  • • •

  2 weeks later

  I got home from work to find Murphy asleep on the couch, and Vlad asleep on top of Murphy.

  My eyes instantly filled with tears.

  Ever since that day of doctor’s appointments, though he hadn’t officially ‘moved in,’ he’d been there every night.

  I loved it and hated it.

  Mostly because I was going to get used to it, and at some point, he would no longer be there to give me that instant feeling of ‘rightness.’

  “You’re staring like a weirdo,” came the grumbled reply from the couch. “And you’re letting all the cold air in. Hurry up and get in here and close the door.”

  I snickered as I did what he said, not because he’d ordered me to, but because I wanted to.

  At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

  I walked to the couch and bent over the arm, placing
the first kiss on Murphy’s lips before moving to my kid next.

  He allowed me to kiss him only because he was still asleep.

  “Was he good for your mom and you today?” I wondered.

  He grunted out a ‘yeah’ as he sat up, being careful not to jostle my baby in his arms. “He was fussy after my mother left, though, so I gave him a bottle and we took a quick power nap.”

  I smiled as I reached for my kid, relishing in the way he snuggled in, likely not knowing that it was me.

  “I wish I knew why he disliked me so much,” I grumbled.

  Murphy snorted. “He doesn’t dislike you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We both know that to be a lie,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head, and I felt yet another lead weight get added to the ball in my stomach.

  “You have to eat,” I ordered.

  He smiled. “Have to. But don’t want to. Maybe soup?”

  Broth. He’d drink the broth, because that wouldn’t take any effort on his part.

  “Okay,” I said softly, heading to the kitchen to get his soup on.

  I made myself and Vlad a small frozen meal and waited until all three were done before heading back into the living room where I could hear Murphy breathing heavy.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Breathing’s bad today.”

  It was getting worse and worse as the days went on.

  Not even oxygen was helping anymore.

  He looked awful, too.

  He was overdue for a haircut, his eyes had large, black circles underneath of them, and they looked sunken, as if he’d had all the water sucked out of him.

  Which was funny, because everywhere else he was so swollen he looked like a different person.

  I sat carefully on the couch beside him and brought the cooled soup up to his lips.

  He didn’t protest when I held it there because he could barely hold a spoon up anymore, let alone a bowl of soup.

  Honestly, if Vlad had woken up and had needed anything, Murphy wouldn’t be able to provide it for him.

  But today, Guilia had hurt herself in the kitchen, and she’d gone to the doctor to see if she needed stitches.