34. Archer
Chapter 34
Archer
Clayton had been moved up to a bed by the time Shane and I arrived at the hospital. On the drive, Shane had urged me to eat something, but that was a regrettable decision. The contents of my stomach churned the moment we walked in the doors. I didn’t have a particular aversion to hospitals, but I didn’t feel prepared to see Clayton. In my mind, I’d never see him again. He’d ruined our friendship and my life. Though, with Shane’s hand linked with mine, it was hard to feel that way.
Not that I’d say I liked having my livelihood ruined and being forced to move in with Cyrus was a particularly good thing, but it had given me Shane. He was my rock in all of this. In all things. Sometimes I thought he was superhuman. But that was just who he was. Shane’s love language was doing things for people. Big things or small things. The same way that I created art to show people I loved them, that was Shane with everyday deeds. And then not-so-everyday deeds like driving four hours to take your boyfriend to see his ex-best friend in the hospital.
Shane tracked him down to a room on the third floor and I followed along, shaking and unable to speak. I clung to Shane like he was a life raft and he navigated the hallways, taking us up to a room with two people inside. The curtain between them was drawn and we couldn’t see who was on the far side of it, but closest to the door was Clayton .
My hand tightened on Shane’s. The last time I saw Clayton he had been smiling and happy. Hadn’t he? Maybe it had all been a facade. Maybe the man lying in the bed with the shaggy brown hair, overdue for a cut and caked with blood, had been the real Clayton all along.
He looked like he was sleeping, or maybe he was just drugged out of his head.
“Do you need me to go in with you?” Shane asked.
“I can’t do any of this without you,” I told him. “Come on.”
Using a strength I wasn’t aware I had, I walked into the room. The closer I got, the worse Clayton looked. Not ready to look at his face again, I looked at the rest of him. His right leg was elevated and covered in a cast from the knee down.
The contents of my stomach rolled like an angry sea and then I saw his right arm. It was covered in a cast the same way his leg was. His left arm appeared to be uninjured, but it had an IV going into it.
Up close, his face hadn’t fared too well. He had two black eyes, a split lip, and a small gash in the side of his head, near his hairline. That was the source for all the blood that was still caked in his hair.
“Clayton?” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “What the hell happened to you?”
Clayton’s eyelids fluttered and it looked like it took all his energy to drag them open. “Archer?”
“Yeah, it’s me. What the hell happened to you. You look like you got hit by a bus.”
Clayton’s small huff of laughter was cut off abruptly when he winced. He panted a few times, screwing his eyes shut. “Hurts. Sorry.”
I didn’t want to be here looking at him like this. I didn’t want to be looking at him at all.
“What happened?” My voice was harder than I’d intended, but I felt like I was barely hanging on. Clayton was supposed to have been in the past. My ex-best friend. He’d once known everything about me—which was how he’d known exactly how to rip me off.
“That guy I owed.” Clayton sighed. “Doesn’t like being owed.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah. They said they didn’t kill me cuz they can’t collect from a corpse. But he wanted me to know he was serious.”
“What did the cops say?”
Clayton looked at me with his swollen eyes and his half-doped expression. “Nothing. I didn’t tell them what happened.”
“Clayton…” My fingers tightened on Shane’s. “You have to tell them.”
“I have to do nothing but find ten grand to pay him before he breaks my other leg, or decides to make a real example of me and dump me in a river somewhere.”
“Call him.”
My head whipped to the side so fast I swear I gave myself whiplash. “Shane, no.”
Shane looked at me, his face etched with sympathy and determination. Already I knew I wasn’t going to win this battle. Fuck, did I even want to win it? I didn’t know anymore. I didn’t find it hard to still be angry with Clayton, even though he’d been worked over and probably left for dead. He’d been through his own kind of hell, but he’d brought it for himself.
“Archer, yes. I have it; he needs it.”
“It won’t stop here, Shane. He’ll want more and more.” Panic clawed at my chest when I thought about Clayton inserting himself in my new life, taking everything good about it away from me. Again. Leaving me with nothing. Again. I didn’t want Shane to hate me and he would if Clayton ruined his life too .
“It will stop here.” Shane let go of my hand and cradled my face. He looked me in the eyes. “Listen to me. It will stop here. All of it. The gambling and the bookies and the fucking you over and dragging you hours away because he got the shit kicked out of him.”
“How? You can’t just give him ten grand to give some shady asshole.”
“He’s right.” Clayton interjected from his bed. “You can’t fix this for me. No one can.”
A nurse bustled in to tell us that visiting hours were over, but that we could come back in the morning and that Clayton would likely be discharged.
“We’re going to get a hotel nearby, and we’ll be back in the morning,” Shane informed Clayton. He slipped his arm around me and held me upright. “Get some sleep.”
Shane steered me out of the room and down to the lobby.
“What are we going to do?” I asked him. Fuck, I felt so lost. I didn’t want to see Clayton, but I also didn’t like the idea of him being in trouble. But the thought of Shane throwing money at him didn’t sit right with me. I felt like there were no good answers, no good solutions.
“We’re going to get a hotel room. I’m going to draw you a bath and you’re going to soak until you’re a prune while I call Kieran and get his advice.”
I liked Kieran. Shane’s brother was a lot like him, both in looks and personality. They were both tall and broad, thick in all the right places. Kieran’s hair was darker than Shane’s chestnut, so dark it was almost black. Like Shane, he was a thoughtful person, but more reserved than Shane was .
“I already want tomorrow to be over.” I confessed, leaning on him as he walked me to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door for me. “I’m already exhausted just thinking about it.”
Shane closed the door and went around to the other side. I buckled my seatbelt and leaned my head against the window, closing my eyes and thinking about painting, brushstrokes, color theory, anything to keep Clayton’s battered image out of my mind.
It didn’t work.
By the time we got to a hotel and into a room, I was a ball of anxiety. I stood there, fretting inside as Shane went about his business as cool as a cucumber. He poured me the bath he promised and even helped me strip down and get in.
Sitting in the water, looking up at Shane, who already towered over me, I felt small. He sat on the edge of the tub and grabbed the wash cloth. He got it wet then gently cupped my chin and wiped my face.
“If you want, I can deal with Clayton for you. Though I can’t promise to do things your way, Archer.”
“I don’t want you to give him money. He’s got a problem, Shane.”
He nodded. “I don’t think Kieran would be too happy with that either. I’m going to call him and see what he thinks. When you’re out of the bath, your sketchbook and your pencils are in the side pocket of our bag.”
Shane brushed the hair off my forehead with the wash cloth, then washed the tip of my nose. “Boop.”
I wrinkled my nose and scowled. Well, pretended to scowl. It was impossible to stay miserable when Shane was doing his best to be adorable. Even adorable, he was still serious. I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he tried to figure out what to do. He was like that with everyone he cared about, not just me. That actually made me feel better about leaning so heavily on him. And also worse. Because if everyone leaned on him, he’d eventually crumble. I didn’t want that to happen.
“Maybe I should handle this myself,” I blurted. “You do so much for everyone. I don’t want you to think you have to solve my shit for me. And—”
Shane put his hand over my mouth. I blinked at him a couple times in disbelief.
“Do you trust me?”
Shane didn’t move his hand, so I nodded.
“Then trust that I only take on things I think I can handle. I don’t have an emotional attachment to Clayton. I’d walk away and leave him there to rot if I thought that’s what you wanted. But it’s not, is it?”
It took me a minute to get myself together enough to shake my head. For better or for worse, Clayton had once been one of the most important people in my life. And though it was his own fault he struggled, I still didn’t want to abandon him, no matter what he’d done to me. But I was too close to the situation to see a solution that didn’t make me want to dive headfirst into a trash compactor.
Reaching up, I gently tugged Shane’s hand away from my mouth. “You really are like those little fix-it robot aliens. Just zooming around solving problems and shit like it’s your destiny or whatever.”
“Does that mean you trust me?”
Giving him the nod of approval took the rest of my strength and I let myself ease back and lean against the sloped wall of the tub. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. When I opened my eyes, Shane was looking at me with that soft gaze of his. Sometimes I swear he was part heart-eyed emoji.
“I trust you.” I waved him away like royalty dismissing a loyal subject. “Let me soak. Or drown. Something. One or the other. ”
Shane booped the end of my nose again. “No drowning. I’m going to call Kieran.”
“Shit. I didn’t text Cyrus.”
“I did. Don’t worry about it. They send their love. Did you need anything before I call Kieran? He’s probably going to talk my ear off.”
“Can I have a kiss?”
Shane dazzled me with a smile then leaned in and brushed a kiss against my lips. “Always.”