2. Fox
2
FOX
I cranked the volume up on my phone, blaring the music from West Side Story , but the nurse immediately snatched it out of my hands.
“You can’t play your music this loud.”
“Um, I’m paying for this room. I can do whatever the hell I like. It’s soothing.”
“It’s loud and disturbing the peace of the other patients.”
“It’s helping me heal!” I argued. “Do you want me to heal? Do you want me out of this hospital?”
“You have no idea,” she seethed, shooting me a glare.
“Then let me play my music. I need it!” I snatched the phone, but she held tight, stuck in a tug-of-war with me. I felt the stitches pulling, but refused to let go. I’d rip them and bleed out before I gave in to this fascist dictator.
“Sir!”
“Lady!”
“Fox!”
We both stopped arguing and turned to the doorway where Eva stood beside a very annoyed Anna, along with Max and FNG hovering in the background.
Eva shook her head at me, walking further into the room. “Why are you harassing the nurse?”
I ducked my head, feeling like a five-year-old being scolded. “She won’t let me listen to my music.”
“I don’t care if you listen to your music. You cannot have it blaring at maximum volume and disturbing the other patients!”
Eva quirked an eyebrow at me, but it was the way Anna was looking at me that had me squirming in my bed. I knew that look. She was pissed as hell and doing everything in her power not to storm over and slam my head into the wall. I hadn’t exactly told her my plans before I took Cash hostage and knew I might possibly be ending my life.
“Fox, West Side Story ? Really? Haven’t you seen enough violence over the last few days?”
“Hey, it’s not my fault. You told me to do it.”
“What?” Anna spun on Eva, glaring hard at her. “What did you do?”
“Ooh, I smell a catfight coming on,” Max chuckled. He strode over to the corner chair and kicked up his feet, followed quickly by FNG.
“Don’t just watch it,” FNG snapped.
“Thank you,” Eva smirked.
“We should take bets,” he continued. “I put my money on Anna.”
“Nah, my money is on Eva. Fox trained her,” Max argued.
The nurse glared at all of them. “This is a hospital. A place of rest and recovery. Not a cage match.”
I chuckled at that. “Yeah, this is the wrong group to tell that to. Ooh, do you have any Funyuns by chance?”
“Funyuns?” the nurse said incredulously.
“Tasty onion snack? Leaves a dusty coating on your fingers?” She continued to stare at me. “No?”
Pursing her lips, she turned to everyone else. “Talk to him.” She stormed out of the room, leaving me with two women who were equally pissed, but for different reasons.
“So…” I nodded. “Nice weather we’re having.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at me, storming forward. “Nice weather? That’s all you have to say after the ridiculous stunt you pulled?”
“Ridiculous is a harsh word.”
“I’d use it,” Max snorted.
“Is your name Rafe?” Anna snapped.
I frowned at her, uncertain of where she was going with this. “I don’t think so. I mean, last time I checked it wasn’t, but I did have a rather hard hit to the head. I suppose?—”
“Fox, how could you do that?” she shouted. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I glanced at Eva, hoping she would take this one. Unfortunately, she didn’t. “I was thinking that my friend is lost and I wanted to pull him back from the edge.”
“My getting yourself nearly killed?”
“Technically, I wasn’t nearly killed. I mean, he was holding my KA-BAR in his hand, but I knew he wouldn’t go through with it.”
“Your what?”
I snapped my mouth shut. Maybe that was something I should have kept to myself. “But it’s all good. Here I am, good as new.” I grinned.
I really shouldn’t have grinned.
“Your face looks like a beat-up mashed potato,” she retorted.
“Ooh, mashed potatoes,” I said dreamily. “I could definitely?—”
“You just left us!” Anna shouted at me. “You didn’t even discuss this with me first.”
“Well, if I had, you would have said no. I figured the fastest and easiest way to get what I wanted was to work around that issue.”
Anna got that look in her eye, the same one I saw the night she chopped up the man who staked her to a wall. My balls shriveled up inside my body, and for the first time in my life, I was truly frightened.
“And what about you?” she turned on Eva. “How could you send my husband in when you knew what he would do? I thought we were friends!”
“I was thinking that if anyone could get through to Cash, it would be Fox.”
“So, you offered my husband up as collateral damage?”
Eva went silent, pursing her lips before she spoke again. “I was hoping he could pull Cash back from the edge. Maybe it was wrong to involve Fox, but I was desperate.” Tears filled Eva’s eyes as she slowly turned to face me. “It didn’t work. He’s gone.”
“Well, it didn’t totally fail,” I grinned. “If it had, I would be dead right now.”
“You just had major surgery,” Eva pointed out. “How did you even survive?”
“Ah, well, I had a punctured lung and I used a knife to cut into the pleura, then rolled up a Funyuns bag and used that to act as the tubing that would inflate my lungs. You know, it’s not easy to contort your body in that way. I think I might have pulled a muscle.” I wrinkled my nose. “I think I still have some Funyuns dust in there. When I breathe, it tastes like onions.” I shrugged. “Not a completely bad deal.”
“Are you serious?” FNG asked. “You made a cannula out of a Funyuns bag?”
I stared at him, daring him to challenge me.
“Is he serious?” he turned, asking Max.
Max rolled his eyes, dropping his feet to the ground as he stood. “So, now that we know you’re alive and somewhat well, I have a bottle of Jack waiting for me.”
“That’s it? You’re just leaving me?”
“I think the ladies have more to discuss with you. And while I don’t mind a good catfight, that’s clearly not going to happen.” He shrugged. “I’m bored now.”
“Bored?” I coughed out a laugh, holding my side when it burned. “How could you be bored?”
FNG jumped to his feet, holding out his hands. “Okay, just tell me, is this some wild attempt to get back at me for my stories? Are you going into competition with me? Just tell me, I can handle it.” When I didn’t answer, he kept going. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re jealous of all the things I did, so you’re trying to come up with something better. Well, let me tell you, there is nothing better than Ivan. You can’t beat that.”
Eva rolled her eyes at him. “Nobody is in competition with you.”
“Oh yeah? Then what’s with the story about the Funyuns cannula? You can’t tell me you believe that!”
“Will you two please get out of here?” Anna snapped, then spun on Eva. “And you—just…go.”
Eva’s face shuttered as she took a step back. “I…”
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry. I know you’re not. You would do it all over again if you could.”
I could feel the axe coming down as Eva walked out of the room and the door shut behind them. Now, it was just me and my beloved. Only, she didn’t look like she loved me very much at the moment. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say she wanted to take that cannula made from the Funyuns bag and shove it up my rectum.
This required a lot of finesse.
“Don’t you dare open your mouth and try to sweet talk your way out of this. You’re an ass.”
Okay, finesse might not be on my side right now.
“Anna—”
“And don’t patronize me either. Do you know what it’s like to find out that you’ve disappeared, and then to get a phone call from the hospital, telling me that you’re out of surgery? That you specifically told them not to call anyone until you were in the clear? Do you think so little of me?”
“I think the world of you,” I answered honestly.
“Your actions say otherwise.”
“My actions are the only reason I can live with myself,” I snapped. “You know me, Anna. I know I don’t have to explain this to you.”
“Try,” she gritted out.
I shifted my sore body, wincing when my side pulled. “Cash is the only man who gave me a chance?—”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“Too fucking bad,” I snapped. I never got mad at my wife. She was the light of my world, but right now, she needed to fucking listen. And based on the shocked look on her face, she knew it. “When I was dishonorably discharged from the SEALs, Cash took me in. No one else would look past that, but he saw something in me. He saw past the darkness and knew there was still something inside me worth fighting for. And all those times I was lost to the dark, he knew I had to find my own way. I would be gone for weeks at a time—watching you. I came back when I was ready, and not once did he judge me for it. There is no man on the face of the earth who has done more for me, and I will not stand by as that man throws away his life and his family because he’s hurting too bad to pull himself out of the darkness.”
“And what if he can’t?” she whispered. “Eva said he’s gone.”
“Then I will fucking hunt him down and drag him back here,” I promised.
“And what about me?”
The tears in her eyes were my undoing. I never could deny Anna a single thing, and as she stood in front of me, begging me to choose her, I knew this was going to take some work. “Just give me some time.”
She walked forward and pressed her hand to my chest, leaning in and pressing a kiss to my lips. “Be safe.”
“You know I won’t.”
She smiled, stepping away from me. “I’m afraid I might have done something.”
“What?”
She winced and I knew it was bad. “I’m so sorry.”