Chapter Forty
AYDA
After that first shower, I only left Drew’s side to use the restroom and wash my hands. Nurses came and went, and tests were performed. Some of the guys came to the door to check on us both, and eventually, Drew was wheeled from recovery to intensive care, but I stayed by his side every step of the way.
My body and mind were mostly numb to the goings on around us both. When I slept, it was with my hand under his, my head on the edge of his bed waiting for him to move, to squeeze my fingers and wake me up.
He didn’t so much as twitch a finger.
All too soon, that first hellish day rolled into another, and then another. The windows slowly grew dark, casting us in shadows and then, as the machines continued to beep and tick it soon became light again, but still, Drew didn’t so much as stir.
The nurses in the intensive care unit encouraged me to speak to Drew almost as much as they insisted on me eating...for the baby’s sake. His baby was growing inside of me, and the promises I’d made to Drew helped me keep it all together. A bean and a promise were duct tape on a gapingwound in my soul that wouldn’t ever heal until Drew flashed those blue-green eyes at me again.
But a promise was still a promise, and I ate what they put in front of me. I drank the water they set on the surface next to his bed, too—the only space not taken up with machines, wires, and charts.
I paced his small room when my muscles ceased, curled up in the uncomfortable chair like a contortionist while they changed his dressings and checked his stitches, and I also insisted on being the one to help clean him with warm towels.
Drew’s face was swollen, black and blue from the fights, and no matter how much the urge to stroke the brow I longed to see frown at me, or run my finger along the lips I loved to see curl into that sexy smile that was mine, I somehow resisted, keeping the slow strokes of my fingers along his arms, where the bruises weren’t so intense.
It was a never-ending nightmare that I couldn’t escape from. A night terror that I was too scared to step away from in case something changed when I wasn’t there. When things were quiet, and I had all the time in the world to think, desperation and fear became my constant companion. That’s when the what ifs hounded me relentlessly.
It was in one of those moments that I suddenly found myself not alone anymore for the first time in hours.
“Ayda?”
I looked up to see one of the nurses standing at the door, her smile still holding that sympathy I didn’t think I would ever get used to as she studied me.
“Hey, Katie.”
“Drew’s father is asking if he can come visit with y’all. Is that okay?”
“He’s here?” I asked. The last I’d heard, Eric was in a room of his own being looked after under duress by the nursing staff.
Katie gave me a knowing smile and stepped aside as Eric Tucker shuffled into the room wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, his face almost as bruised and battered as his son’s.
“He discharged himself,” Katie said with a click of her tongue, her eyes meeting mine to make sure it really was okay before offering a quick nod and stepping out to leave us alone.
I studied Eric for a moment as he limped toward the bed and stared down at his son. He was hunched, one arm plastered to his side, telling me that his ribs were also worse for wear. The pained look in his eye wasn’t for his own suffering. That look was for his son. He hated seeing Drew like this almost as much as I did.
“How bad are you?” I asked quietly, moving across the room to grab him the only spare seat in the room. It was hard and plastic, but he seemed grateful for the gesture.
“Fine,” he answered robotically, his eyes trained on Drew. It was obvious to me that he wasn’t fine, but you couldn’t argue with Tucker men. That was one thing I’d learned along the way. “And you?” Eric asked, looking at me reluctantly. “The baby?”
“We’re…” I paused, not wanting to use the same word he’d used. “The baby is doing well.”
I made my way to the other side of the bed and slipped into my chair, pulling my legs up against my chest as I met Eric’s familiar hazel eyes with a pang of sharp pain in my chest at seeing them so vibrant on a face that wasn’t Drew’s. It was a cruel thought, but I blinked it away as I reached out and slipped my hand under Drew’s again, needing that physical connection between us.
“Have you talked to any of the guys?” I asked. As much as I loved the guys, I hadn’t put much thought into how they were handling things. It was selfish, but I would deal with the fallout of my guilt for that later.
“Yeah,” Eric croaked, leaning forward to rest his arms onhis knees as he clasped his hands together and studied Drew again. “They’re worried. We all are. I can’t seem to hear what they’re saying too much when they speak, though… just that they refuse to leave the hospital. Slater’s going crazy.”
There was a small pang of regret in my chest as I thought about what the rest of them must be going through, especially Slater and Jedd. I knew the two of them held themselves impossibly responsible for this whole thing. When Slater had managed to get past security briefly, I’d pretended to be asleep, unable to face him because I had nothing new to tell him.
“How did it all get so fucked up, Eric?” I asked suddenly, glancing up at him. I wasn’t holding him accountable for what had gone wrong by any means, but part of me needed to know how they’d gotten a hold of him to use as bait for Drew.
“You want the long or short answer to that?”
“I just want an answer.”