Chapter Forty-Six #2
“Good. It’s just us now. Let me show you to your room, and then I want to hear everything, because I will say it again, what the fuck, Relly? I’m glad you’re alive, but like, how are you alive, you know?”
“Leave her alone, Lo,” Houston orders in a tone that makes it clear he’s the boss. “Don’t make her relive that shit if she doesn’t want to. That’s not why she’s here.”
Loren pouts but doesn’t argue or push once he gets me alone inside one of the rooms and out of earshot of Houston.
I’m grateful for it. I’m not ready to tell my story, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever be.
I want to keep the cabin and my mountain men and my memories of them for myself just a little while longer.
“So this is you,” he announces once we step inside a room with periwinkle and gold wallpaper.
There are more arched windows and dark purple drapes and a chandelier to die for made of crystal and faux wax candles hanging from the room’s black lacquer ceiling.
The four-poster bed is made of black iron and reminds me of another beautiful bed that’s no more.
“It used to be Braxton’s, but she never uses it anymore and the others are still being renovated. ”
“It’s beautiful. Please tell her I said thank you.”
“You can tell her yourself. She’s putting the baby down for a nap, but she’ll be in here soon to check on you. I’m sure you want some time alone, but she won’t be able to resist. Brax is worried about you. We all are.”
I sigh as I sink onto the foot of the bed. “I’m fine, Lo.”
“Uh-huh.” When I glower at him, he begins to fidget in agitation like he’s torn between his chivalry and curiosity. “Look, Houston is right. I shouldn’t push, and I won’t, but if you need me—if you need any of us—know that we’re here for you.”
“The stories I have to tell would probably give you nightmares, Loren. I don’t want to burst the happy bubble you have here.”
“Try us,” he says as he leans against one of the arched windows with a shrug. “I think you’ll find our bubble is made of stronger stuff than you think.”
I feel a flare of hope in my chest that I extinguish immediately before it can get out of hand. Bound might have survived the worst, but that doesn’t mean we will. Not after what I’ve done.
I left them, and even though I believed them when they said I could walk away anytime, I left them when they needed me most.
It’s…unforgivable.
“So, speaking of bubbles, did I read the room right?” I ask. “You and Rich? When did that happen?”
“It happened a long time ago,” Loren answers with a smirk. “And then it happened again a few years ago after we met Brax, only this time, we didn’t stop.” He shrugs.
“Wow,” I say, feeling jealous for a different reason now. I brought the possibility up with my guys once, but all three shut that ever happening down immediately. “Braxton is a lucky girl.”
“We’re the lucky ones.”
On cue, there’s a knock on the door and Loren saunters over to it like he’s on a runway. When he opens it, Braxton is standing there with the baby. “What’s up?”
“Coda. He won’t go to sleep until you do the thing.”
“What thing?” I blurt. I’m not even bothering to pretend I’m not eavesdropping.
“No, don’t—” Loren says when Braxton’s full lips part to answer.
“He pretends to be a dolphin, and Coda laughs so hard that it tuckers him out and he falls right asleep after.”
“Aww! Does it come with sound effects?”
Braxton’s eyes light up, and Loren groans. “It absolutely comes with sound effects.”
Coda whines and holds his arms out for Loren. I feel my fingers flex toward my stomach, but I ball them into a tight fist. No.
“And on that note,” Loren says, sounding like Oni. Loren takes Coda from his mom, and they both disappear down the hall while Braxton ducks inside the room to join me at the foot of the bed.
“You should know,” Braxton says, breaking the silence first, “I’m trying really hard not to ask how you’re doing. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing it, but I may slip up a time or two. Is that cool?”
“I’ll survive,” I reply with a dramatic sigh, and she snorts.
“I missed you.” Braxton nudges me with an elbow.
“Missed you too.”
My friendship with Bound wasn’t well-known to the world.
In fact, it was no better than a dirty little secret to keep it hidden from my uncle who didn’t like me involved with anyone he couldn’t control or buy.
There wasn’t a whole lot I knew about the band outside of the profession, and we only communicated through infrequent texts, but I’ve felt a strong kinship with all of them from the moment we met backstage at an award show three years ago.
It wasn’t a habit of Bound’s to frequent them, but Braxton had won her first Grammy for Best New Artist and her guys had all but dragged her there for her chance to shine.
I was the one who got to present the award to her, and I still remember being in awe of the way all three of them beamed at her with pride.
She’d been glowing, and I had the strong feeling even then that Houston, Loren, and Jericho were secretly responsible.
“So… Whose is he?”
Braxton’s smile is coy when she retorts, “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb, girl. Coda. Who’s his father?”
Brax tosses back her head and laughs. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. We decided it was better that way.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise if I tried. “And you’re okay with that? Truly?”
“Yes. Coda is as much Houston’s son as he is Loren’s as he is Rich’s, regardless of what his biology says.”
“And if, God forbid, there comes a time when it’s necessary to know or Coda wants to know?”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” she answers easily.
I consider if I could stand not knowing before deciding it’s a moot point.
There’s no chance I wouldn’t know exactly.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Braxton reaches into her shorts to pull out a small case containing noise-canceling earbuds.
“For you. In case you have trouble sleeping at night.” When I look at her strangely, her cheeks warm, but all she offers in explanation is a grumbled, “Thin walls.”
I take the earbuds at the same time there’s a knock on the door. “Um…come in!” I call out when Braxton doesn’t say a word, waiting for me to say it’s okay.
The door opens, and Houston peeks his head inside before pushing in with the rest of his body. There’s a large suitcase in his hand that he leaves by the door. “Oni said you might need this,” he explains. “It’s got clothes and toiletries in it.”
She really thought of everything. It’s only been a few days, but I’m already indebted up to my eyeballs to the woman.
“I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Braxton says as she stands and joins Houston, who holds up his arm for her by the door. I feel my nape grow warm when I watch them embrace. “Let us know if you need anything, okay?”
Suddenly, I feel Houston’s piercing green stare and Braxton’s warm brown focus on me, so I nod. “Will do.”
As they leave together, I hear him whisper urgently to her, “Did you give her the headphones?”
Braxton tosses back her head in exasperation and groans. “Yes, Houston. I gave her the headphones.”
The door closes behind them, and I’m alone.
Standing from the bed, I drift over to the window like a specter doomed to haunt this plane without a real existence.
The curtains are parted to show me the full moon in stark contrast to how incredibly fucking empty I feel being here without my mountain men.
I’m back in the States, back in my reality, but I feel far from home.
I don’t allow myself to dwell on it, and instead, I turn to stare at the phone I left on the bed.
They’re only a phone call away, but I don’t feel brave enough to call yet, so I ignore the phone and walk over to the suitcase before ducking inside the en suite for a long, hot soak in the clawfoot tub.
When I emerge an hour later, I’m too nauseous and exhausted to eat, so I crawl into bed and fall asleep immediately only to be jarred awake sometime during the night by the carnal sounds coming from down the hall.
Cursing, I lunge for the earbuds left on my nightstand and shove them into my ears, and then I shove a pillow over my head for good measure.
Thin walls, indeed.
The next morning, I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed in the fluffy robe Braxton loaned me with my new phone in hand and the number to the hospital room in Canada keyed in.
All I have to do is press call.
But I’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes, and I haven’t pressed call yet.
My hand is trembling, my heart is racing, and my skin is fire hot.
I’m a coward.
I’m a coward, I’m a coward, I’m a coward.
I’ve already tried calling the ICU’s nurse’s station for an update, but since I wasn’t an authorized contact, they refused to give me the status of Thorin’s condition.
What if he’s already awake? What if he needs to hear it from me why I left? Don’t I at least owe him that?
Exhaling a long breath, I press call and shut my eyes tightly as if it might shield me from the incoming pain.
The phone rings three times before it stops.
At first, I think it might go to voicemail, but then I hear a gruff and exhausted male voice say, “Hello?”
I don’t speak.
I stare across the room as my vision becomes blurry and my body trembles so hard the bed begins to shake too.
After a few seconds, Khalil tries again, but this time he sounds annoyed. “Hello?”
My lips move, but no sounds come out. In the background, I hear another male voice murmuring a question that sounds like, “Who is it?”
Zeke.
He’s still awake.
Khalil’s voice suddenly sounds muffled, like he pulled his mouth away from the phone to answer. “I don’t know. They’re not saying shit.”
I hear footsteps growing louder on the other line, and then I swear I hear Zeke utter, “Let me try.”
There’s shuffling from the phone changing hands, and then his voice is clear but not as close as Khalil’s was previously.
Speaker.
They’d put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?” Zeke says. Like before, my only reply is silence, but it doesn’t matter because everyone Thorin has is already in that room.
Everyone except me. “Princess, you there?” My head falls as I squeeze my eyes closed.
“Princess… I know it’s you. It doesn’t have to be this way. Just come back. Come back to us.”
“I…can’t.” A moment later, I jump when I hear a loud thump on the other end of the line—like someone angrily putting their fist through a wall. Losing my nerve to say any more or ask about Thor, I drop the phone on the bed and quickly end the call.
I cry for an hour before I pick up the phone again and dial another number. It rings only one time before someone answers.
“Y-hello!” Sheriff Kelly answers cheerfully.
“Hi, sheriff.”
“I know that voice,” he says without an ounce of animosity. “That’s the voice of someone who’s caused quite a bit of trouble on my mountain this summer.”
My smile is small but genuine as I retort, “We both know who those mountains really belong to, Sheriff.”
He chuckles heartily. “That we do. That we do. What can I do for you, honey?”
“How’s the investigation going?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s an open-and-shut matter. Some out-of-towners came looking for trouble and got more than they bargained for. Case closed.”
“Good,” I whisper distractedly.
“But that’s not why you really called,” the sheriff guesses wisely.
A sob breaks free as I shake my head like he can see. “No. How is—” My voice breaks. “How is he?”
“He’s fine. He’s fine. Still asleep, but strong. You just remember that, darling, hear?”
I can’t answer as I unleash all of my emotions on the poor unsuspecting sheriff. He doesn’t complain or stammer uncomfortably. He just waits for me to get my bearings. When I’m finally done crying, I ask with a sniffle, “Can you…can you let me know the moment he wakes up?”
A long silence follows, and then the sheriff sighs. “Aurelia… I don’t enjoy telling you this, or being put in the middle, but I’ve been given explicit instructions not to give you any information about Thorin if you call. I’m sure I’ve already said too much.”
My jaw drops with a gasp at the news that I’ve been shut out.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
“Why the hell not?” I snap.
“Well.” I hear the creak of the sheriff’s chair in the background as if he’s sitting back in it. “He said if you really cared, you’d be here,” the sheriff reluctantly relays. “Simple as that.”
“Who?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Khalil.”
Ending the call, I stare at the wall, feeling my fury and pain boiling me alive from the inside even as the happy, contented sounds of Braxton, her men, and their son float up the stairs from where they’re all having breakfast together.
A moment later, I’m making a mad dash to the bathroom to empty my guts into the toilet.
I brush my teeth once I’m sure there’s nothing left, and then I crawl back into bed, and I don’t get out again for the rest of the day.
I call my mountain men again the next day and every day for a week, but I’m met with the same resistance and the same demands each time.
Come back to them or forget they ever existed.
Khalil most of all was adamant that I couldn’t have it both ways. And at the end of that first week, they stopped answering the phone altogether.