Chapter Fifteen #2
“I know,” he said. “I know exactly who you are. And that’s why I want to do this right. I want to show everyone that you’re not a secret. You’re the man I love. The man I want to be with.”
The way he said it—simple, matter-of-fact, without an ounce of the old shame—nearly unmade me. My throat went tight, my vision blurry at the edges. I swallowed, hard.
“We’re a mess,” I said.
He smiled. “Maybe that’s what makes us work.”
I was about to tell him he was an idiot, that he needed a psych consult, but the sound of voices in the hallway cut me off. Loud, aggressive, the timbre of someone used to getting their way. I recognized it instantly: the tornado that was Vivian Hardesty.
Floyd grimaced. “Oh, god,” he said. “I can hear her through three doors.”
“She’s like a bat,” I said. “Finds you by echolocation.”
He laughed, then immediately regretted it, clutching at his ribs. “Fuck. Don’t make me laugh. It’s like being stabbed by a butter knife.”
I let go of his hand and started to stand, figuring I’d get out of sight before Vivian bulldozed her way in.
Floyd’s scowl was immediate. “Hell, no. You stay right where you are.”
I hesitated. “She’ll lose her mind.”
“She lost that a long time ago.” He nodded toward the hallway, where the volume of the argument was rising. “Just… maybe find my service weapon. We might need it.”
It was the first time in days that I’d felt light, the first time the fear didn’t have claws. “Should I get a helmet, too?” I asked, sitting back down.
Floyd’s eyes never left the door. “Only if you want to live.” Floyd squeezed my hand once, hard, but didn’t let go. For the first time, I wasn’t afraid of what came next.
We waited.
Vivian Haresty’s arrival was heralded by the rapid-fire staccato of designer heels on linoleum, the seismic tremor of a voice tuned to dominate courtroom and bedroom alike, and a perfume so aggressive it could have been weaponized in a hostage situation.
She slammed into the room with her mouth already open for business, but the sight of Floyd and me—fingers intertwined, locked in some kind of post-battle death grip—brought her up short.
Her jaw unhinged, the first genuine pause I’d ever seen in her, then snapped closed with a force that nearly dislodged her dentures, which, if I knew Viv, were probably a decade premature, a power move against time itself..
“What is going on here?” she demanded, the syllables razor-edged and aimed to kill.
Floyd’s response was pure ice, the tone that had once made armed meth dealers choose surrender over suicide. “What are you doing here, Viv?”
She blinked, as if this was the most ludicrous question imaginable.
“You were injured. I came to take care of you, obviously.” She cast a withering look at me, as if daring me to contradict her, then turned her attention back to Floyd with a smile that had been honed for years on unsuspecting jurors.
I felt the urge to bare my teeth, but kept my face neutral, jaw tensed enough to crack a molar. Floyd’s hand tightened in mine. I could feel the possessiveness radiate off both of us, hot and brittle.
He said, “I don’t need you to take care of me, Viv. We’re divorced. Remember?”
She rolled her eyes in a slow, exaggerated arc, like she was stretching her whole soul.
“Details, details. You’re not thinking straight, Floyd.
You need rest and support. The hospital staff said you hadn’t had any visitors except this…
” She looked me up and down, the way you’d look at a rat that had just crawled out of your La-Z-Boy. “This person.”
“Ransom,” Floyd supplied, with enough emphasis to rattle the window glass.
“McKenzie,” I added, just to see if it would give her an aneurysm.
It almost did. Her nostrils flared. “Oh, I remember. You’re the one who put my son in the hospital three years ago. The tattoo delinquent.”
I wanted to tell her the real delinquency was that haircut, but instead I just smiled. “Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Hardesty.”
She turned back to Floyd, using that tone reserved for idiots and small children. “Listen to me. You’re not safe here. You need proper care. Let me handle things, okay?”
Floyd looked at her, then at me, then back to her. His face was unyielding. “No. I’m good right here.”
Vivian’s patience snapped like cheap pantyhose. “Move,” she said to me, marching forward with the intent to bulldoze.
I stood. I’m not small, but Viv was a force of nature, so I squared my shoulders and planted my feet, a human barricade between her and the bed.
She tried to step around me. I matched her, sidestep for sidestep. Her eyes blazed, a storm front of disappointment and rage. “Get out of my way.”
“No,” I said.
It hung there, a brick in a punchbowl. She wasn’t used to being told no, certainly not by someone she considered gutter trash.
She drew in a breath to launch her next salvo, but Floyd’s voice cracked through it, sharper than any blade. “Vivian. Go home.”
She hesitated, floundering for a script.
Floyd kept going, his voice rising with each word. “You’re not wanted here. You never were. The only thing you ever did for me was leave, and you weren’t even good at that.”
If I hadn’t been so invested in the moment, I would have given him a standing ovation.
Vivian’s mouth opened and closed. Her skin went blotchy with a surge of bloodless fury. “I’m here because someone has to take care of you. God knows no one else will.”
Floyd sat up as much as his injuries would allow. “I have someone. You’re looking at him.”
She jerked her head to me, incredulous. “Him?”
I took a step back, just enough that Floyd was in full view of her. He met my eyes—really met them, none of the old shame or sidelong glances. I saw love there, raw and exposed and so terrifying it made me want to scream, or kiss him until one of us suffocated.
Floyd’s voice was steady as a heartbeat: “My lover, Ransom McKenzie.”
The words were air, water, everything. My knees almost gave out, but I locked them, forcing myself to stand tall.
I didn’t care that the nurse behind Vivian was now staring, or that the heart monitor was ticking up like it was keeping score.
I didn’t even care that half the town would know by sundown.
What mattered was that he’d said it. Out loud, in public, with Vivian Hardesty as witness.
Vivian made a noise somewhere between a banshee’s wail and the last gasp of a dying transmission. Her hands curled into claws, her voice shrill enough to shatter the fluorescent tubes overhead.
“What the HELL is wrong with you?” she screeched, taking a swing at the air like she wanted to claw the confession out of existence.
Floyd only smiled. “I’m finally happy,” he said.
Vivian stood there, speechless for the first time in her life. I savored it like a cold beer on a hot day.
She made a noise in her throat, spun on her heel, and stalked out. The nurse, still hovering in the hallway, tried to offer a polite, “Have a nice day, ma’am,” but Viv just bulldozed past.