Chapter Twenty-One
ALEX
My eyelids weighed at least twenty pounds each, and I could barely lift them, but it felt important. I needed to be awake and conscious of my surroundings.
Why?
Slowly, as I fought to open my heavy eyes, awareness began to seep into my brain. I shifted, and pain shot through my ribs.
Oh shit.
Events began rushing back to me at warp speed.
I’d been waiting for Kenny, and I’d gotten my ass kicked in the worst way.
As though the memory of the attack unlocked my nerve pathways, pain came roaring in from all angles.
My torso ached so fiercely that every breath burned like a hot poker in my lungs.
My head throbbed in time with my pulse, and every inch of my skin felt oversensitive in a fiery way.
Ryder was going to flip his shit when I called him.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t need to go to the hospital or anything like that.
And where was Kenny?
God, I hope he didn’t show up and end up hurt too. It was that fear and the worry Kenny might have strode into the house and ended up with the same fate as me that had me forcing my eyes open.
I frowned at the stark white walls that greeted me, and even that much movement caused a spike of agony to skitter across my face. This wasn’t my house. It was no longer evening, and I was not on my kitchen floor, where I had gone down.
It took a minute to blink my vision into complete focus, but the first thing I noticed, aside from the fact that I was lying in a bed, was my mother, tipped back in her wheelchair, napping.
Something beeped over my head, a familiar sound I’d heard all too often when sitting by my mom’s bedside in the hospital.
Shit.
If I’d been admitted to the hospital, where was Kenny? And where was Ryder? The sudden urge to see my boyfriend slammed into me with so much force I lost my breath. Had he seen me broken and bleeding on my kitchen floor? God, I hoped not.
Hopefully, one day I could look back on the immense effort it took to turn my head right and laugh about it, but today was not that day.
I’d had an easier time running miles outside with Ryder in the summer heat than merely turning to the side, but it was well worth the struggle.
There, seated beside my bed in a high-backed wooden chair with an open laptop balanced on his legs, slept Ryder.
He’d propped his socked feet on the edge of my bed and passed out at some point, probably while trying to slog through homework.
Ryder had dark smudges rimming each eye. His cheeks were scruffier than I’d ever seen him allow. My man enjoyed his face smooth, and his skincare regimen was complicated. If anything was going to make me worry about how long I’d been here and my medical state, it was an unkempt Ryder.
I shifted again, grimacing and grunting as pain accosted me.
Either the movement or the sound alerted Ryder, who must have been in the shallowest sleep possible.
His eyes flew open, locking with mine. He gasped and, for a moment, froze.
We stared at each other until he jolted as though stuck with a cattle prod.
“Alex, oh my God. Alex….” He dropped his feet, and the laptop slid off his legs, clattering to the floor with an awful sound that had me wincing. Ryder didn’t even notice, and why would he? He could easily drop five thousand dollars on a new top-of-the-line MacBook Pro.
He leaned forward, grabbed my hand, and buried his face against my upper arm. Immediately, wetness slid from his eyes to my skin. My jaw dropped as a strangled sob broke from him.
Christ, what had happened? Was I dying?
“Ryder…” I croaked, trying to contort myself so I could kiss the top of his head. Every movement was agony, but I managed to press my lips to his hair.
He sighed, then lifted his head. “Hi, baby,” he whispered. He leaned in, pressing his lips to mine in a long, slow, tear-laced kiss as though afraid to separate from me. “I am so fucking happy to see those gorgeous dark eyes,” he said when he finally drew back.
Usually, that kind of compliment would have made my face heat, but I had too much going on in my head to be embarrassed by his effusiveness.
“What…” I frowned. Why did my throat hurt and my voice sound like I’d spent a weekend screaming?
I tried clearing my throat, but it was so damn dry it only hurt worse.
“Shh, don’t try to talk. You’ve had a tube in your throat and a ventilator breathing for you for the past four days.”
My eyes bugged. Four days? “What—”
“Shh, rest your voice.” He kissed me again, then rested his forehead against mine. “Fuck, I missed that.” When he tried to pull away, I tangled my hand in his shirt with a weak grip, but he got the idea and kissed me again with a happy sigh.
“Tell me,” I managed to whisper when we separated again.
He nodded but didn’t straighten away from me. “Okay, um, I’m not sure what you remember, but you went to the house to meet Kenny.”
I nodded, sending a spike of pain spearing through my cranium. I tried to disguise my reaction, but I couldn’t hide anything from Ryder, who frowned.
“I’m okay,” I rasped. “And I do remember that. I mowed the lawn, and Kenny was late. I was in the kitchen and heard someone come in. Thought it was Ken, so I called out to him. But it wasn’t Kenny.”
He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t.”
“He kicked my ass.”
Ryder snorted a half laugh, but more tears leaked from his eyes as he nodded.
“How bad is the damage?”
“I’ll tell you if you stop talking so much.”
I glared at him, making him chuckle. “Missed that glower almost as much as I missed you fucking me.
Jesus.
“Do you want water?”
I wanted an entire ocean’s worth, but I shook my head.
Then winced.
“All right, stop moving. I can tell you’re going to be a terrible patient now that you’re awake.
Stay still and stop talking.” He chuckled.
“Two things I never thought I’d have to say to you, but here we are.
” He blinked a few times as though clearing a fresh round of tears, then straightened his shoulders in a symbolic pulling himself together for a moment.
“You have bruises everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Um, three broken ribs, a broken eye socket, which I’ve learned is called an orbital fracture, and… ” He swallowed. “A skull fracture.”
My eyes widened. “Shit.”
“Kenny found you and called EMS. Your lung collapsed on the way here, and with all the swelling in your face and throat, the doctors were worried about you breathing on your own. They sedated you and had a ventilator breathing for you for four days while they gave you steroids to reduce the swelling. Earlier this morning, the ICU doctor determined you were stable enough to try breathing on your own, so they discontinued the ventilator and removed sedation. And now you’re awake. ”
My head hurt. I wasn’t sure I could process all that information with my rattled brain, so I just said, “Are you okay?”
Waving a hand, he laughed the most fake sound I’d heard from him. “Me? Of course. I’m fine.”
“Ryder…” My usual no-nonsense glare and serious tone were hard to project in a hospital gown with bruises, broken bones, and IVs.
He stared at me for a moment before sagging. “These have been the worst four days of my life. When I saw you that night…” He blinked and averted his gaze.
Fighting through the discomfort, I cupped his chin and forced him to face me. “You matter as much as I do here, Ryder. Tell me.”
So much sadness filled those beautiful blue eyes, even the green fleck I’d loved since before I allowed myself to really know Ryder had a somber hue to it.
“Fuck, I’d never been so terrified. I love you, and I’ve known that for a while, but I don’t think I fully understood what it meant until that night.”
I smoothed a hand over his stubbly jaw, making him nuzzle into me like a cat.
Damn, that felt nice. It’d feel fucking amazing between my thighs against my ass.
Perhaps we should revisit his policy on facial hair once I am fully functioning.
For now, all I wanted was to comfort him and let him expel whatever poison had infected his veins over the past few days.
“You were hurt, and I couldn’t do anything.
Nothing, Alex. For a while, I didn’t even know if-if you’d make it.
Fuck, I’d never…” He stared straight into my eyes, letting me see the torment he’d gone through over the past few days.
“I’ve never been that terrified. I could barely breathe.
It felt like my soul was being torn from my body and shredded right before my eyes. ”
An ache bloomed in my chest, deeper than the broken bones and bruises. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“I kept thinking I needed you by my side to comfort me over your injuries.” His chuckle held no humor. “Sounds crazy.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It sounds like trauma.”
Running a hand over his face, he huffed. “Listen to me, complaining like a jackass when you’re the one in a goddamn hospital bed.”
“Hey.” I gripped his hand and drew it away from his face, once again revealing his pain-filled gaze. “Don’t downplay the shit you went through. It’s just as horrible as what put me here.”
“We’ll get through it together.” He clutched my hand, kissing my knuckles more than once.
“Fuck yeah, we will.” I was done questioning my worth in this relationship. Seeing the fear, agony, and love written all over Ryder’s face was enough to erase any doubts I’d ever have. He sucked at hiding his emotions, and they were tattooed on my heart forever.
I wanted to stare at him for the next few hours to make up for the lost days, but as suddenly as I’d woken up, my energy vanished. “Shit,” I whispered as my eyelids grew heavy and an exhaustion I couldn’t battle laid claim to me. “I’m so tired.”
“Sleep, baby. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”