13 #2
My eyes stayed on the ceiling. My body still hurt, but beneath all of it lived the older ache waking hadn’t softened.
“I loved her.”
The room changed.
Nomad settled back into the chair without a joke, and Ledger’s expression lost its amusement. These men knew parts of my past, pieces I had handed over across years of war, road, and club life. They knew Lila existed. Saying this still felt different.
“I had loved her as long as I can remember,” I continued, quieter now. “Longer than I had any right to.” My eyes closed for a second. “Still do.”
Ledger studied me. “Wakin’ up and seein’ her…”
“God.” A broken breath slipped out of me. “It was like a prayer bein’ answered.”
The truth sat there, too raw to take back.
“But man, she’s pissed. And she should be.” I stared at nothing because there was no answer waiting on the ceiling either. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”
Ledger and Nomad exchanged one of those silent conversations brothers developed after enough years together.
Then Ledger asked, “She yours?”
I turned my head toward him.
“Yes.” No hesitation existed in me for that one. “Always was.”
He nodded as though the answer settled something obvious. “Then you chase.”
Nomad’s mouth twitched, but he stayed quiet.
“You chase,” Ledger repeated, “and you make her understand she’s yours and nobody else’s.”
Before I could answer, the door opened.
Lila stepped inside and stopped when she saw Nomad and Ledger.
Surprise crossed her face before she tucked it away beneath that professional composure she wore so well.
Her scrubs were wrinkled from a long shift, her hair pulled back without much care, and exhaustion sat in the line of her shoulders.
She still hit me hard.
Every part of me woke up and strained toward her before my mind caught up.
Nomad recovered first. “Hey, you’re Blue’s friend.”
Her gaze shifted toward him, recognition sharpening it. “Oh. Yes. I remember you, you were with Priest and the guys at the apartment the other day.”
He tipped his chin. “Nursery paint detail.”
The smallest smile touched her mouth. “Right. Hi.”
I wanted to keep it.
“Lila,” I said, because there was no world where I could let her stand there without hearing her name in my voice.
Her eyes came to me immediately.
I kept my tone even despite everything happening beneath my ribs. “This is Ledger.”
Ledger straightened enough to offer a polite nod. “Ma’am.”
“Hi.” She gave him a brief smile before turning back toward me.
The room changed with her attention. Nomad and Ledger were still there, machines continued humming around me, and pain was chewing steadily through my side. None of it carried the same weight once she looked at me.
“I just came to check on you real quick before heading home,” she said as she stepped farther inside.
Nomad’s brows lifted. “Home to a man?”
The question was teasing.
It hit me like a fist.
My hands tightened in the sheets before I could stop them, jealousy flaring so fast and hot that sitting up suddenly felt worth whatever damage followed. Lila turned toward Nomad, but her eyes cut to me for one brief second.
She saw it.
“No,” she said a little too quickly. “Home to a shower, silence, and the kind of sleep I don’t usually get enough of.”
Nomad glanced toward my white-knuckled grip and smirked.
Lila caught that too. “Do you always enjoy making trouble in hospital rooms, or is this a special occasion?”
Ledger turned his face away, shoulders shifting.
Nomad settled deeper into the chair. “Depends. Is it workin’?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You seem real comfortable for somebody stirring up business that isn’t his.”
A grin started before I could stop it.
There she was.
That bite had been there when she was a kid and sharpened every year afterward. Jesus, I had missed it.
Nomad tipped his head. “I’m observant.”
“You’re nosy.”
“Sometimes those are cousins.”
Lila folded her arms. “You know, I have access to sedatives in this building.”
Ledger barked out a laugh, and my smile broke loose with his.
She turned toward me immediately. “Oh, don’t you start.”
My brows lifted. “What’d I do?”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Maybe a little.”
Her lips pressed together while color crept higher into her face. “You are supposed to be resting, Jackson, not encouraging bad behavior.”
I held her gaze, too aware of every inch separating us. “Thought maybe you liked bad behavior.”
That landed.
Something flashed through her eyes, and for one bright second I saw eighteen-year-old Lila beneath the woman standing in front of me. Same sharp mouth. Same courage. Same heart I had never deserved.
“You are in absolutely no condition to flirt,” she said.
Nomad made a thoughtful sound. “That was flirtin’?”
Lila pointed toward him without taking her eyes off me. “I’m going to need you to stop existing for five minutes.”
Ledger laughed harder.
I joined him once, then the pull beneath my ribs reminded me that spite and hospital stitching were doing most of the work holding me together. Pain tightened my face before I could hide it.
Lila noticed immediately.
All the heat disappeared beneath clinical focus as she moved closer and checked the monitor, my lines, then the rhythm of my breathing. “And that,” she said sharply, “is exactly why you need to stop.”
I watched her instead of anything she was checking. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her head lifted, and for half a second she looked caught between glaring and laughing.
“You all need supervision.”
Nomad spread his hands. “Thought that’s what you were here for.”
She gave him a flat look. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t die, not referee whatever this is.”
My voice came lower before I could stop it. “You came.”
The room quieted.
Her eyes met mine, guarded and tired, carrying more than I could read from this bed. The joking disappeared as cleanly as though someone had shut off a switch.
“I said I’d check on you.”
I nodded because I heard the boundary inside it. She had drawn the line carefully, and every part of me wanted to lean against it just enough to see whether it moved.
“Everything look alright?”
Her attention returned to the monitor, and I could almost feel her relief at having something safe to discuss. “Everything looks fine. You’re stable. Which would be easier to maintain if certain people in this room stopped baiting you into acting like an idiot.”
Nomad looked offended. “I baited nobody. He came wired that way.”
Ledger lost the battle and laughed again.
Lila shook her head before looking at me. “I’ll stop by tomorrow after shift if I can.”
It should have been enough.
Where she was concerned, I was learning nothing ever would be.
“I’ll be lookin’ forward to it.”
Her lips parted slightly, the reaction so quick I might have missed it if I hadn’t spent half my life watching her. Then she gathered herself again and put all that softness back behind the wall she had been building since I woke.
“Get some rest, Jackson.”
She turned before I could say anything stupid enough to keep her there.
At the doorway, she paused and looked back at Nomad and Ledger. “And if the two of you rile him up again, I will absolutely find the meanest nurse on this floor and make you both regret it.”
Then she left.
The door shut behind her, and silence held for a beat before Ledger released a low whistle.
Nomad leaned back, looking far too satisfied with himself. “Mean little thing.”
I kept my eyes on the closed door. “Yeah. Always was.”
That sharp, stubborn fire had survived everything I had missed. She was angry with me, wary, and exhausted enough to be running on fumes, yet she had walked into the room and filled it simply by refusing to let any of us push her around.
My mouth pulled into a small grin.
She was still Lila in every way that mattered.
And God help me, I wanted back in worse than ever.