Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NASH
I slowly blinked. Where the hell was I?
There were strange sounds. Bleeps, rhythmic ones. Like a…monitor. A heart monitor.
My eyes widened, and I was suddenly very awake. A hospital. I was in a hospital.
What the fuck had happened?
In a reflex, I attempted to move, and Jesus fucking Christ, that was a bad idea. Pain lasered through my chest, my hips, my legs, so sharp it took my breath away.
“Sshh, don’t move…” Dayton stepped into my line of vision. “You’ll only hurt more.”
“What…?” My voice was nothing more than a croak.
“One sec.” Dayton grabbed some water and positioned the straw for me so I could drink.
I carefully took a few sips. Fuck, even swallowing hurt. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
My head hurt, but I inhaled carefully and closed my eyes, trying to think back. I’d been in the ambulance…with Kaelan… Oh, Jesus, that truck had rammed us dead-on.
I winced at the memory of looking sideways and seeing it come at me like a massive, angry bull. My stomach sloshed, and those sips of water seemed like a bad idea suddenly.
“Kaelan,” I gritted out. “Is he okay?”
Dayton nodded. “Minor injuries. The impact was on your side.”
“What’s…? What’s the damage?”
“Compound left femur fracture, a punctured lung, and what will undoubtedly morph into a vast collection of colorful bruises.”
I let that sink in, mentally cataloging each injury with the corresponding pain.
My lungs hurt when I breathed, so that tracked, and the pain in my hip was beyond anything I’d ever experienced, even with the painkillers I had to still be on.
But all I had to do was think of that truck coming at me to realize how this could’ve ended. How I could’ve ended. “I got lucky.”
Dayton sent me a somewhat sad smile. “Not sure I would call it lucky, but things could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, yes.”
“You always were an optimist,” Tameron said, stepping forward.
“I’d like to think I’m a realist, but that’s semantics.” If Dayton and Tameron were here, that meant… “Who knows?”
Tameron winced. “Everyone.”
I swallowed. “Forest?”
“The hospital called him as your next of kin,” Dayton confirmed.
Oh fuck. That must’ve scared the shit out of him. “Is he okay? Where is he?”
Tameron and Dayton shared a look, one I didn’t like at all. What were they not saying? “What’s wrong? Is something wrong with him? Is he having another flare-up?”
Dayton gently patted my shoulder. “He’s okay. Under the circumstances.”
“He’s upset about my accident?” I still wasn’t getting the whole picture.
“Creek showed up,” Tameron then said softly, and my breath got stuck in my aching lungs. “And he now knows everything. Forest’s diagnosis and the fact that you’re married.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was what I had feared the whole time, what I’d wanted to avoid by coming clean before he could find out. And now it was too late, and judging by Dayton’s painful expression, Creek had not reacted well. “He exploded?”
“Kinda.” Tameron sighed. “And then Forest dropped some truth bombs about why he’d been so reluctant to tell him in the first place, and things went downhill from there.”
I closed my eyes to hide the moisture forming there. Why was I even crying? Had to be the meds. Or the pain. “Where’s Forest now? I want to see him, make sure he’s okay.”
When neither of them answered, I opened my eyes again, tears and all, just in time to catch another meaningful look between them.
It hurt to see it, to be so aware of that still-growing bond between them.
They were so in love and in tune, and I wanted that too.
I wanted Forest. “Where is he?” My voice broke.
“He went home,” Tameron said with more sensitivity than I’d ever heard from him. “He didn’t think…” Another look at Dayton. “He didn’t think you needed him here, since we were all by your side.”
Knowing that he’d meant it, that he truly felt that way, hurt more than any injury ever could. “I’m in love with him…” I whispered. “So incredibly, head-over-heels, crazy in love with him.”
“Does he know?” Dayton asked, and I think it was more out of reflex than anything else because we all knew the truth.
“No…” I had to close my eyes again. They were still so heavy, even more so when the tears burned and stung. “I didn’t want to put pressure on him since he’s in such a vulnerable position.”
“Top,” Tameron said, and something in his tone made me look at him and meet his eyes. “It’s not so easy now that it’s you, is it?”
“Tam…” Dayton interjected, sounding a little shocked, but Tameron waved him off.
“He needs to hear this.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. I owed him that much. “What do you mean?”
“You always taught us to speak truth, to live in truth. You called us out when we were hiding from ourselves, or at least trying to. You taught me that until I was acknowledging my demons, I wouldn’t be able to overcome them…but it’s not so easy now that they’re your demons, is it?”
My throat was so tight I couldn’t have swallowed if I’d been forced to. “I’m so scared of losing him, of saying or doing the wrong thing and having to watch him walk out of my life.”
“Like us.”
Oh god, he was going for my kneecaps now. “Tameron…”
“Be honest, Nash. For once, be honest, not just with me but with yourself. You’re struggling without us.”
I couldn’t stop the tears now as they escaped from my eyes, meandering down my cheeks.
And everything hurt too much to even make the effort to wipe them away.
“It’s killing me… I miss you all so much, but there’s nothing I can say or do because you’re doing exactly what I’ve always wanted for you.
You’re happy and living your best lives, and I’m…
not. I feel so…lost. Alone. The only time I don’t feel that is when I’m with Forest. He’s… ”
He’d become my everything. I hadn’t even fully realized it until I’d put it into words just now, but he was bringing me so much joy and a deep sense of satisfaction that went way beyond sex. I was happy when I was with him, despite all the challenges we were facing.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were struggling so much?” Tameron asked.
“Because I wanted you to be happy and not feel guilty. Besides, this was my problem, not yours. You couldn’t have done anything anyway. It’s not like you were gonna move back in…”
“You’re an idiot.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not sure I underst—”
“You couldn’t fix Creek’s missing leg, now could you? Or my hearing. Or Bean’s scrambled brain. But you were still there for us. You helped us carry the burden. Why won’t you let us do the same for you?”
It was the exact same thing Dayton had told me at the barbecue, when he’d hugged me so tightly. And I had vowed I’d do better…except I’d never gotten the chance, and now here we were, in this mess that I had helped create.
“Tam, sweetheart, I’m not sure this is the right time for this heavy of a conversation,” Dayton said.
“It’s never the right time,” Tameron and I said at the same time, and I couldn’t help but smile at hearing my grandmother’s wise words repeated.
“There is no perfect timing for this,” Tameron said. “I learned that from you, Top.”
Another lesson that had been much easier to teach than to apply to my own life.
Tameron had been paying attention, hadn’t he?
Much more than I had given him credit for.
In fact, he sounded like he was channeling me.
Hard to get upset with him when he was saying things I could easily picture myself telling him.
“I hate you a little right now. You get that, right?”
He shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”
I met his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Top.”
Dayton offered me another sip of water, and I took the time to gather my thoughts.
They were both right. I should have shared my struggles with them, should’ve been honest about how I felt about my brothers leaving.
But even knowing that, there was little I could do about it now. I couldn’t change what I had done.
I also couldn’t change that Creek had found out about Forest’s illness and our marriage. As much as I had wanted to prevent this, I hadn’t, and now I’d have to face the consequences. But that, too, was a problem for later.
I needed Forest. I needed to see him with my own eyes, convince myself he was okay. As okay as he could be under the circumstances, anyway, but I wanted to see him. The longing for him was so stark, it ached as much as the physical pain in my body.
“I want to see Forest…”
God, was that me? That vulnerable, almost fragile voice? That plea with a hint of desperation? It sounded like me, but at the same time, it was like I was looking at someone else. Like I was observing myself through glass, noting how much I had changed.
“I’ll go get him,” Dayton said. “You get some rest, my friend. You look like death warmed over.”
Just what I wanted to hear when I was about to tell the man I loved that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. For real, this time.
When I woke up again, Dayton and Tameron were gone, and Bean and Creek were sitting there, quietly chatting with each other. I blinked a few times to get rid of the floaters in my vision, then cleared my throat. “Hi…” I croaked.
They sat up straight. “How are you feeling?” Bean asked.
“Probably as bad as I look.”
My weak attempt at humor earned me a smile from Bean, but Creek’s face didn’t move a muscle. My heart sank. “On a level of mildly irritated to wanting to kill me, where are you at?” I asked him.
His jaw ticked. “Trying very hard to tell myself that it wouldn’t be fair to kick your ass when you’re already in the hospital.”
Fuuuuck. “I’ll do my best to recover as quickly as possible so you can have a go at me.”
Creek quirked an eyebrow, his face still not showing much emotion otherwise. “You’re gonna let me beat you up?”
“You have every right to be angry with me. Furious, even.”
“Is that so?”
“I went behind your back, so yeah. I betrayed you.”