Chapter 24 #2
“My what?” Bax looked down. “That ain’t my blood.” He couldn’t feel anything.
Beau snorted. “Your shirt’s all tore. Just let Jonesy or Shane look at you.”
“Okay… I just…”
“Andy.” Beau’s voice made him stop. “He did it. He won. It’s over. No matter what. Jase won. You get to take him home.”
“Okay.” He swallowed hard, the lump in his throat suddenly huge. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” His ears rang and he got a little lightheaded.
“Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up and go see Coke.” Beau sighed softly. “I hate this fucking place. I hate it so goddamn bad, man.”
Bax blinked. “Sports medicine?”
“No. Reno.”
Oh. Oh, shit. Yeah, Sam had been ruined for life here.
“Andy. Sit here.” Shane steered him to a gurney. “Shirt off.”
He stripped down. “How’s Coke?”
Shane shook his head, snapping on gloves. “Ambulance took him for X-rays. He was still out, last I heard. Doc’s with him.” He got a quick look. “Jason’s really blind?”
Bax nodded slowly. No sense lying now. “Yeah. Yeah, since he got hit so bad.”
“Jesus, brave, crazy son of a bitch. Good on him. Seriously.” Shane wiped him up. “It’s not deep. I’ll bandage it.”
“Thanks.” He winced when Shane cleaned out his scratch. Now he could feel it, and it had been a while. “I need to get back out to Jason.”
“Sam is there. So are AJ and Balta,” Jonesy said. “Chill. Breathe a minute, because shit is gonna hit the fan, Andy. But your crew is rallying.”
He looked up to Beau, who gave him a nod. “They can’t fight us all. They won’t. They’ll want to spin this to suit them. Trust me. I’m with you.”
Beau and Balta—they were three-time champs. They were on his side.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bax heard Kynan’s voice raised in the hall outside, then the slam of maybe a helmet against the wall. “I got beat by a fucking crippled blind dude?”
Bax saw red, and he was up and out before Beau could catch him, barreling into Kynan. “You don’t call him that!”
“What part of it is a lie? Oh wait—fucking crippled blind queer dude!”
The sound of his fist hitting Kynan’s jaw was fucking amazing—and it felt pretty good too. He was going to clean the floor with that fucker once and for all. “No one even likes you,” Bax screamed.
“Jesus, Andy!” Jonesy grabbed his arm, and Kynan took a swing, that Beau caught, whipping the kid around and forcing his hand behind his back.
“Walk it off, kid. You take it outside and walk it off, and I won’t beat you so bad you aren’t recognizable.” Beau’s voice was ice cold.
Kynan scoffed, but when Beau let him go, he was surrounded. Beau and Raul, Cotton and Hank. “Fucking old school bastards.”
“Go on. Go lick your wounds. You’ll be old soon enough.” Beau’s lip curled. “If you’re lucky.”
“Sim. Until he finds out we all get hurt at some point, no?” Raul stuck out that barrel chest, and that was it. Kynan stomped off.
Bax rubbed a hand over his ribs, which were bleeding again. “Sorry,” he muttered to all and sundry.
“Go get Bax a clean shirt, Cotton. I’ll finish taping him up.” Jonesy took him back to sports medicine. “Now, you need to keep your cool. When Jason leaves, he’s gonna need to be able to tell the reporters when and where his press conference will be.”
“I was gonna take him home.”
“Not now. News is already out. He’ll need to spin. Dillon is already out with Coke. So you need to talk to someone about getting a PR guy. Stat. Maybe talk to Steele.”
“Okay…” He couldn’t do this.
“I will do it. I will call Steele and Daniel, my publicist now.” Balta sounded calm as a still pond. “Sam brings Jason. We will talk to the press tonight. Seven o’clock. Then the rest is by phone. Daniel will help. Beau and Sam will help.”
“I’ll go get my truck,” Hank said. “None of these folks care about me. Y’all can sneak off in it, and I’ll drive yours back to the hotel.”
Jason walked in with Nattie, Sam and Ace, his lips tight and eyes hidden behind the dark glasses.
“We need to talk, Jason,” Ace started in.
“We will. I need a shower. We’ll meet at—what, Bax? Five-thirty?”
“Yeah. Balta is arranging the press conference at seven, probably at the hotel, if they got a room. That gives us time.” See him just brazen it out.
“I want to be in on that.”
Jason stood there, his hand on Bax’s arm. “We’ll talk at five-thirty. I’m leaving now. I need a shower. I need to find out about Gramps.”
“Hank is getting his truck for us.” Bax turned his back on Ace, because he couldn’t cope with that expression. He could hear Balta talking hard. Beau was babbling at Ace and they just slipped away.
Bax put on the shirt he’d been handed before they got to the outside door, and they slipped out into the crowd of people at the back. The reporters weren’t there yet.
Jason didn’t say a word. He just walked one foot in front of the other, jaw set.
Hank pulled up seconds later. “Gimme your keys. AJ and I will get your gear.” He handed over the truck, trusting them.
It didn’t take seconds before they were loaded up and moving, and they were on the road before Jason asked, “Gramps?”
“He’s at the hospital. That’s all they had so far. Scans and X-rays. Can you voice text Dill and see if it’s okay to call?”
“Yes.” Jason barked orders at his phone, and Dillon immediately called.
“He’s awake. It’s his fucking back. Cracked two vertebrae, right between his shoulder blades. He’s got sensation, movement. They’re taking him into surgery in a few. But he’s awake. He’s pissed, but he’s awake.”
“Thank God,” Bax said. “We got a meeting with Ace and a press conference. What do you need after that? We can bring shit to the hospital.”
“I already called the hotel and added some days for me. If I need you, I’ll holler, but you two need to deal with the fallout. Call Emmy.”
“Balta’s calling his publicist.”
“Perfect. Call Emmy. You want her there.”
“I’ll call her now.” Jason swallowed hard enough that Bax heard it. “Dillon, I’m sorry. I swear to God, I didn’t mean to—”
“No.” Dillon’s voice was firm. “He did his job. You did yours, Jason. You won. We’ll come to the beach and you can make it up to us by feeding us our weight in shrimp and brisket. Got it?”
“Y-yeah. You know it. I’ll feed you both. I swear to God.” Jase was fixin’ to lose it.
“Okay. Coke and I love you guys.” Dillon’s voice finally broke. “I have to call Nattie. Call Emmy. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah. After the press.” Jason hung up the phone, then sat back. “I don’t know what to do, Andy.”
“I know. Jesus, Mini. Jesus.” He was blown, his hands shaking on the wheel. “We gotta do what’s next.”
“Right. It was supposed to be amazing. A celebration.”
He pressed a hand to Jason’s leg, inching through the traffic. “It will be. We just lost a little control of how things happened.”
“They started the money transfer. That part is live.” Jase swallowed. “Are you hurt bad?”
“No. You?”
“My head hurts, I still can’t see, but besides that? I’m okay.”
“Cut on my ribs.”
His phone buzzed, and he looked since they were moving slow. “Cotton says Emmy will be there for the meeting with Ace. He already talked to her. Guess we get to meet those babies.”
“Guess we will. I know it isn’t as…right, I guess, but I did it. We did it. Together. We’re champions.”
“We did, baby.” They hit a red light, and he leaned over, tugging Jason to him to take a light kiss. “We did it. The rest is just spin. I love you.”
Jason nodded, and a ghost of a grin touched his lips. “Ditto, babe. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Bax just snorted. “I know.”