Chapter 1 #2
God, he was gorgeous.
That square jaw. Strong brow. Exquisite chest hair over equally exquisite pecs and down his defined abs.
Those wide shoulders (even with one covered in bandages).
“Trust you to be hot post-double-GSW surgery,” I mumbled.
Nothing from Knox.
But even though I wanted to be there and didn’t want to be anywhere else, not until he woke up, not until he was dressed and walking out the door of that room for good, even with that, I was acutely aware there were a bevy of people in the waiting room who needed to see what I was seeing right now.
So, okay, perhaps in a drug-induced state he’d ask for me.
Once he was no longer in that state, he wouldn’t want me around.
That was something (agonizingly) I knew for certain.
Even so, I had this shot.
This one shot.
Maybe the only one I’d ever get again.
And perhaps it was messed up.
But screw it.
I was going to take it.
I bent over his handsome face, my eyes to his beautiful lips surrounded by sexy dark stubble.
I didn’t press. I didn’t take much.
I just brushed my lips against his.
I remembered them being soft like that.
Soft, but not gentle.
The man was a greedy kisser.
On this altogether too painful thought, I lifted away, and my breath stuck in my throat because his hazel eyes were open and on me.
“Luna,” he said, and damn.
He might look all right, but his deep voice was fragile, and hearing that, it instantly gutted me.
I was about to say hey, when he spoke on.
“The love of my life.”
My body turned to stone in shock.
And hope.
Hope.
I hadn’t felt hope about Knox in over a year.
His hand I was holding tensed around my fingers, but then it relaxed, his eyes going hazy.
“Didn’t love me enough,” he muttered.
My throat started burning.
Hang right the eff on.
“Let me go,” he kept at it.
My mind immediately reengaged, taking over from my heart.
And we could just say, when it did, my mind was pissed.
“Let me go,” he mumbled a repeat, his eyes closed. “Walked away,” he whispered and his head fell a little to the side, so I knew he was back to sleep.
“I didn’t let you go, asshole,” I whispered. “You scraped me off.”
And he fucking well did.
Right.
Assess.
Knox was okay. He was going to be fine. He was in excellent shape. He’d breeze through PT. He’d be fighting fit before anyone could blink.
And I was angry because him spouting that bullshit, drugged or not, brought back the hurt.
Or not exactly brought it back, because it was always there seeing as we shared the same friend posse, so it wasn’t like I could get away from him and heal.
But that hurt resurfaced full force and again shredded me.
Thus, I could not stay there, hearing his words bumping into each other in my head, witnessing his magnificence, all that was him never to be mine…
The love of my life.
Let me go.
How had he twisted that up in his head?
Seriously, I wanted to know.
I was not going to ask, not now, when he couldn’t answer.
Not ever.
I had to get out of there.
So I did.
Right, actually, I didn’t.
He might be a big jerk, but he was Knox. If not mine in reality, mine in my heart.
So before I took off, I said, “I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m glad, with what happened, now the Nightingale boys are gonna lose their shit and deal with your sister and her idiot boyfriend, because that crap has to end.”
He just lay there.
Lay there with his chest bare.
Was he cold?
I carefully unfolded the blanket and tugged it up so it covered his pecs.
Now it was time to go.
Of course (ugh!), I didn’t.
I said, “And you better do what the doctor orders. No gonzo bullshit. Tearing your stitches or whatever. You don’t know better than people with years of education and more years of experience. So stick with the program. No heroics.”
He again didn’t so much as twitch.
Okay, now it was time to go.
I released his hand and headed to the door.
At it, I stopped, though, and turned back to him again, mostly because when it came to that guy, I was a total idiot.
“You’re the love of my life too, asshole,” I whispered.
With that, I went out the door.
I headed right back to the waiting room, and with everyone’s eyes on me, evaluating, curious, concerned, I announced, “He’s good. In and out of sleep. Whoever’s up next can go on in.”
With that, I went right to the bag I’d left in my seat.
And of course, the Angels were suddenly there, crowding me.
All of them.
Raye, Jess, Harlow, Willow, Shanti, Joey and Gemma.
I loved them. They were the best bitches a bitch could ask for.
But…
God.
I had to get out of here.
“You okay?” Raye asked.
“Did he say something?” Jessie asked.
“You don’t look too good,” Harlow noted, worry unhidden in her tone.
“Gotta bounce,” I stated, shouldering the strap on my bag and pushing through them.
“You gotta bounce?” Shanti queried, her words sharp with shock.
Joey followed me. “What happened?”
“Need space,” I told her.
“What’d he say?” Gemma, also following me (they all were), asked quietly.
“Space,” I bit, quickening my step.
I felt some of them do the same, but heard Raye advise, “Leave her.”
“But—” Willow began.
“Trust me. Leave her,” Raye said.
I started jogging, and they fell away.
I got out to my car.
I navigated a parking lot whose designers should be incarcerated for creating such a maze people had to navigate, those people being folks who needed hospitals for themselves or loved ones, and as such, they were in no state to have to maneuver said maze.
And I had no idea why, because it sure wasn’t my heart or my head that made the decision, but as I drove, I ended up sitting in my car at the curb outside my sister Dream’s house.
Dream and I did not get along (marked understatement). Though, recently, there’d been a thawing. Just not much of one.
Why I was there rather than going to my mom, I did not know.
Why I was there rather than heading straight to the grocery store, buying a gallon of Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream and a jar of Biscoff cookie butter, emptying both into a mixing bowl, cueing up Once, and eating the whole thing, I did not know.
But there I was.
“Fuck it,” I clipped, pushed out of my Prius and trooped up to her door.
I knocked.
Dream opened the door with a baby on her hip.
The baby was not one of hers.
Seeing as she had three kids from three different men, and three jobs to take care of them, she’d managed to create a fifty-fifty custody gig with all of her baby daddies so her kids were with their dads every other week. And this was that week.
But she had a daycare thing going in her pad, taking in two other kids. So there were always kids.
After she opened the door, I noticed what I’d been noticing lately with growing alarm.
She was losing weight, and she looked beat down.
This happened when you had three jobs (her daycare, weekend waitress work at The Surf Club, where I also worked, and her Etsy store, which had taken off), three kids, and you’d used up all your family and friends (another long story), so you didn’t have a lot of help.
It was time for me to ask her about this regardless of the fact that, even if I genuinely cared about her state of being, I knew she’d be bitchy or spiteful or throw my concern in my face some other way.
I didn’t ask her about this.
I announced, “Knox was shot.”
My sister’s head jerked back.
I burst into tears on her doorstep.
For a second, I just stood there crying while she stared at me.
As expected.
We’d never been close. This deteriorated the last few years.
And I guessed now we were just…siblings.
But suddenly, I was pulled inside.
She closed the door.
She put the baby in a playpen.
She turned to me.
I kept crying but did it braced for her to say something ugly.
She didn’t.
She pulled me in her arms.
And she hugged me.
Hard.
* * *
Thirty Minutes Earlier…
In Room Three West
Knox Chambers heard the door snick shut.
He opened his eyes.
He saw ceiling.
Physically, he felt pretty much nothing.
Mentally, he felt hazy and out of it.
Even so…
His lips curled up in a smile.