Chapter 25
25
RYLAN
“Joss!” My body jolted, startling me out of a nightmare that felt all too real. My hand hit something hard as I flung it out, and it yelped. When I opened my eyes, I wanted to curse. It was Joss’s leg I’d punched, and the fact that I’d hit her, no matter how unintentionally, made me feel like an even bigger sack of shit than I already did.
“Fuck, Joss.” I wrapped my hand around her thigh, tugging her closer so I could press a kiss to her warm skin. “I’m sorry. I?—”
“It’s okay.” She twisted where she sat on the bed, pushing her tablet away as she slid down next to me and wrapped me in her arms. “It’s okay, Rylan. You’re alright.”
This was far from the first time she’d comforted me after a nightmare—another reason I felt like a giant dick. It should have been me comforting her—me taking care of her—not the other way around.
Still, I held her tight. The weeks with her by my side had been some of the best and the worst of my life. The best, because she was here.
The worst?
Because she was here.
I was incapable of caring for myself, and everything she had to do for me reminded me of that. I shouldn’t need someone to help me take a piss. I shouldn’t need someone to give me a fucking sponge bath because I was too damn weak to stand in the shower alone. I couldn’t cook for myself, couldn’t walk to the other room. Hell, I couldn’t even fucking walk . I’d taken to sleeping on my right side all night long because waking up and seeing her was far better than seeing the useless crutches where they sat beside my bed.
Joss smoothed her hand down my back and, despite my fucking pity party, my dick stirred. I wanted her. Wanted her the way I hadn’t had her since before I got shot. I wanted more than her sucking my dick until I passed out from the goddamn orgasms she somehow pulled through me. But she wouldn’t let me touch her—pleasure her—in any way.
As if to remind me of that, she stopped my hand from sliding down the back of her shorts. “Rylan.”
“Ah, come on gorgeous. Just let me touch you.”
“Not until you get?—”
“You know I can’t!” She jolted and damn near scrambled to the other side of the bed, my loud voice still echoing between us as she pulled back. I tried again, quieter this time. “You know I can’t.”
She swallowed hard and blinked rapidly like she was fighting off tears. After a long, painful minute, she told me, “I don’t know that. And neither do you. If you try again?—”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried enough? I can’t do it, Joss. I can’t fucking stand. I can’t fucking walk. You think I want to land on my goddamn face again?”
I could still feel the ache that fall to the floor had caused me. My leg had screamed, my hands and hip had throbbed, and my broken pride felt like I’d taken a one-two punch right to the face.
One time was enough. I didn’t need to provide an encore.
Joss turned her face away and shrugged her shoulder until it rubbed across her cheek. “No, I don’t think you do.”
“You’re right.” I couldn’t even sit up in my bed without a struggle. So I didn’t try. “And if you’re going to withhold sex because?—”
“I’m not withholding sex?—”
“It sure as hell feels like it! I haven’t fucked you in over a month!”
She didn’t respond, and I was getting damn tired of her silence. More and more lately, she turned away instead of talking to me.
Joss reached for her tablet where it landed on the mattress between us, but I grabbed it before she had a chance to stand up.
“What the hell is this?” On the screen, a truck slammed into an underpass, its top too tall to make it underneath. She tried to snatch the tablet from my hand, but before she could, the video switched to a new clip. A truck came flying out of nowhere, slamming into a car and causing them both to spin. “Why are you watching this?”
She grabbed for it again and this time she succeeded in taking it away. She turned it off and got off the bed. “It’s nothing. Just something to pass the time.”
“Something to—” Struggle or not, I pushed myself up. “This isn’t something to pass the time, Joss. This is fucking torture.”
With her head down and her eyes averted, she mumbled, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!” I shifted on the bed, trying to close the gap between us, only for her to back away from the bed. “Don’t you realize most of your anxiety is around driving and car accidents? And here you are, watching videos showing the exact thing you’re afraid of?”
She shrugged again, and again said nothing.
“Every time I see you, you’re on your goddamn tablet, watching these same damn videos of accident after accident. They’re not helping you, and they’re only making it worse. You need to stop reliving the past.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She turned her face toward mine, and my head jerked back when I saw the tears streaming down both her cheeks. “Don’t you think I realize how this affects me? I relive that accident every single night, Rylan. Every single night. But watching these videos remind me how much worse it could have been.”
“Right. Watching the videos of serious car accidents helps. So you’re saying I should watch videos of people getting shot so I can feel better about my leg?”
“I didn’t say that, and it’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right. It’s not. Because you’re up and moving and I’m the goddamn asshole still stuck in this bed.”
“Rylan.” She shrugged her shoulder, wiping tears from one cheek. Instead of saying more, she shook her head and turned to the space beside the dresser.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she pulled out her bag and shoved her tablet inside it. My voice pitched high as my throat started to close. “Where are you going?”
She let out a long breath. “I need to go home.”
“You’re leaving me?” I should have known. I should have known this was too good to be true.
“I have to feed my fish. I’ll be back later.”
Irrational fear swallowed me, as if she didn’t leave me daily to go to work. “So that’s it? You’re just walking out? I can’t fucking get to the bathroom by myself, Joss. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Lifting a hand, she gestured to the wall behind me, and it felt like she’d punched me in the gut. The damn crutches.
“You know I can’t use those.”
“I know you haven’t tried.”
“Dammit Joss! I have!”
A tear dripped off her chin and fell to the floor at her feet. She wiped the heels of both hands across her cheeks before tugging her hair off her neck and over one shoulder.
“I don’t have anyone else!” I edged toward her again, only to grab my leg as it throbbed with the movement.
“About that.” Something like a smile flashed across her face before it was gone. She turned her blue eyes up until they met mine. “Your parents should be here in a few minutes.”
My mouth fell open and time seemed to slow to a crawl as Joss turned back to the dresser and pulled a pair of pants from a drawer. She tugged them on over her shorts and snagged a sweater before turning back to me.
“What… What do you mean, my parents will be here? What does that mean?”
Sadness glimmered in her eyes. “I booked their flights and a hotel room, in case you weren’t comfortable with them staying here. Lee gave me the okay to pay with his credit card, since you refuse professional help?—”
“He doesn’t need to pay!”
“And you don’t have to do it all on your own! Don’t you get it? We love you and want to help you, and all your refusal of help is doing is pushing us all away!”
My ears rang like a gun went off. My arm felt heavy as I lifted it and wiped my hand across my mouth.
Joss pulled her sweater over her head, continuing on as if she’d never blown up, her voice now quiet and sullen. “They got in last night and they’re coming over this morning. They wanted to see you.”
They wanted to see me? I was shot over a month ago, was in the hospital for weeks after two surgeries, and had been fucking bedridden since I came home, and not once had they tried to come see me. But now they wanted to?
Joss took a can of peanuts from the windowsill— when did those get there? —and tossed it in her bag before zipping it up. “Would you like me to help you get dressed?”
I hated that she asked. I hated that she had to ask. Hated that I was incapable of taking my sweatpants and T-shirt out of my dresser when it was nothing to her. She didn’t bother waiting for my response, just came to my side and started dressing me the way she’d been doing it since I came home from the hospital.
“When are you coming back?” I asked as she turned away to grab my chair, not even bothering to broach the subject of crutches again.
“I don’t know, Rylan.” She pressed her hands to her temples, then slid her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. Later? If you want me to?”
If I wanted her to.
Why did her question make me feel like the biggest sack of shit in the world? If I wanted her to. Didn’t she know I wanted her? Didn’t she know?
As she helped me into my chair and wheeled me into the living room, I began to wonder if she did. She barely looked at me when a knock sounded at the door, only straightened her spine and pulled on a mask I wouldn’t have realized wasn’t her real face if I hadn’t seen her wiping her eyes in my room just minutes before.
“Knock knock!” My mother’s voice rang out loud and clear as Joss swung the door open, and for half a second, my throat clenched and my chest tightened. Then Ma stepped across the threshold. “Oh, now aren’t you gorgeous,” she said to Joss before her eyes zipped around my apartment, not once looking at me. “Would you looky here, Ray, this place is even nicer than that hotel they put us in!”
She brushed by Joss, then me, and went to the windows to look out. As I watched her, I heard the thunk of Pops’s prosthetic leg as he stepped onto the tile floor.
“You must be Joss.” I turned at his voice, and my throat tightened all over again as Pops shook her hand, then pulled her into a hug. “So nice to finally meet you.”
“It’s good to meet you too.”
When he released her, Pops turned his smiling face my way. “How’s my boy? You taking good care of him?”
Joss gave an unsteady laugh. “I’m trying.”
Pops came to my side and put his hand on my shoulder before he bent to give me an awkward hug. “Good to see you, son.”
My chest hurt as I tried to suck in a breath. “Hey Pops.”
“I’ll just get out of your way,” Joss said, stepping toward the door.
“You’re not staying?” Pops asked, causing Joss to stop. But before she answered, Ma opened her mouth.
“Now Ray, let the poor girl go. I’m sure she’s got more important things to do than sit around here keeping us company.”
Joss’s gaze collided with mine, and I could see the sadness that was there earlier hadn’t gone away. “Let me know when you want me back.”
I couldn’t do more than nod. My body wouldn’t let me. She was leaving me, just as she had on our wedding night. I watched her walk away, and this time I knew, it wasn’t her fault.