“I wasn’t trying to die?—”
“Shh. Let us not talk of these things anymore. Rest. Eat this sandwich.”
“Sandwich?”
Alexei produced a cellophane-wrapped sub and passed it over. He didn’t tell me what was in it. I didn’t look. Just demolished it like a man possessed and ate myself into a coma.
Cool hands helped me lie down. Alexei’s hands, again, and I appreciated what that meant. Appreciated that he washere. “Thank you, brother.”
He almost smiled. “You will be quiet now?”
Maybe. Probably. My eyes were so heavy they felt like Rubi was standing on them.
Alexei took the AirPods out of the case and fitted them into my ears. He didn’t say anything else. Just hit play on whatever batshit musical adventure he was about to subject me to, and I fell asleep to a Neil Young song that had always made me think of Saint.
I dreamt about going home.
Of Locke and Orla.
And when I opened my eyes, they were there.
29
LOCKE
I’d never get over seeing Nash in a hospital bed. But not in the way I’d feared.
Blood.
Bruises.
Pain.
I thought it would haunt me, but we rushed in to his mile-wide sunshine grin, his baby blues hazy with morphine and love. His whole heart in his arms as he wrapped them around us in a hug that said everything we needed to hear.
I’m alive. I love you.
It made me cry, and I felt no shame. No fuckin’ embarrassment. I hid my face in his neck and wept, and I didn’t give a single fuckin’ fuck.
We took him home a few days later. In a life surrounded by strong people, sometimes it was hard to appreciate every little nuance, but as I watched Nash haul himself around, chucking his fuck-hot grin in the face of undeniable discomfort, I realised that perhaps he was the strongest of us all.
“How does hedothat?”
I glanced down. Orla was lounging on the old couch in the garage, leaning against me, her leather-clad legs hanging over the arm, her gaze fixed on Nash as he hopped around gathering the tools he needed to fix a smashed-up guitar. “Are you asking how he makes crutches sexy?”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking. What’s the answer?”
“No idea. I’m as under his spell as you are.”
Orla smirked and it was good to see. The last few days, weeks, and months had been tough, but Nash coming home with a smile on his face had changed everything. For her. For me. For the family we had around us every day. Even Cam had lost the anguished look he’d worn while Nash had been in the hospital. “Can we fuck him yet?”
I snorted a laugh. “That’s up to him. And logistics, if you’re being literal about him and me.”
Couldn’t deny I’d thought about it. And I’d yet to come up with a sensible—comfortable—way that I could top Nash while a leg that was now half titanium was still in a cast.
Also, sex didn’t seem to be on Nash’s mind much, and I understood that. As strong as he was, his body had been through the wars. The scars on his leg were hidden by his cast, but I’d read the accident reports under Logan’s suffocating supervision. I knew what he’d survived to be pogoing towards us with a tool case jammed in his mouth.
I knew his blood pressure had bottomed out.