Chapter 26 #2
They went straight to the desk. I watched the woman shake her head, watched one of them lean forward and say something I couldn't make out, watched her shake her head again. Family only. The same words she'd given me.
After a few minutes, they left. I didn't have what they had. I had stolen hours in hotel rooms and texts at two in the morning, and nothing I could show anyone.
At 2:17, the main doors opened, and a man walked in.
He was taller than Red but built the same way, compact and solid, with the same jaw and the same way of holding his shoulders. He had a carry-on bag over his shoulder and exhaustion written into every line of his face.
He went to the desk first. I caught fragments of what he was saying. Brother. Robert Piper. Flew in from Albuquerque.
The woman made a call, then nodded and pointed toward the double doors. He had a right to be here. He could walk through those doors whenever he wanted.
But he didn't go through. Not yet.
He turned and scanned the waiting room, and his eyes found me in the corner. Something clicked behind his expression as he took in my face.
Derek crossed the room and sat down in the plastic chair next to mine.
For a long moment, neither of us said anything. We just sat there, two men in a hospital waiting room at two in the morning, both of us too tired to pretend.
"He's out of surgery," Derek said finally. "They called me on the way from the airport."
My throat closed up. I nodded.
"Deep cut, tendon damage. They think he'll recover full function, but it's going to take a few months."
I nodded again. The words weren't landing right, weren't making it past the static in my head.
"He's on the fourth floor," Derek said. "Room 408. They said he'll be groggy for a while, but he can have visitors."
"Thank you," I said.
"He's my brother." Derek stood up, shouldering his bag. "I'm going to go see him. Give me ten minutes, and then you can come up."
He walked toward the double doors. At the threshold, he paused and looked back at me.
"He talks about you," Derek said. "Not by name. But I know my brother."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the waiting room with the clock still ticking and a cold coffee in my hands and permission I hadn't known I needed.
The elevator was slow, or maybe time had just started moving differently. The fourth floor was quieter than the emergency department, dimmer, the overhead lights turned down for the night. A nurse glanced up from her station as I passed, but she didn't stop me.
Room 408 was at the end of the hall. The door was cracked open, the blue glow of monitors visible inside, the soft beep of machines marking time.
I pushed the door open.
Red was in the bed, propped up slightly, his left hand bandaged and elevated on a pillow.
The wrapping was thick and white and went halfway up his forearm.
An IV ran into his right arm, and his face was slack in a way I'd never seen before, the sharp edges of him softened by whatever painkillers they'd given him.
Derek was in the chair by the window. He looked up when I came in, then stood and gathered his bag.
"I'll get some coffee," he said. "Give you two a minute."
He slipped past me and out the door. His footsteps faded down the hallway, and then it was just me and Red and the machines keeping track of him.
I crossed to the bed and stood there. Red's eyes were closed, his breathing slow and even. He looked smaller in the hospital bed, all that compressed energy gone quiet.
"Red," I said. My voice came out rough.
His eyes opened. It took a moment for them to focus, for recognition to filter through the haze of drugs and exhaustion. He blinked at me like I might be a hallucination.
"Joel?" He blinked slowly. "You're glowing."
"I'm not glowing."
"You are. There's like—" He waved his unbandaged hand vaguely around his own head. "A whole thing. Around you." His face scrunched up. "Am I dead?"
"You're not dead."
"Are you sure? You could be an angel. You look like an angel." He squinted at me. "A mean angel. Do they have those?"
"Red. You're in the hospital. You hurt your hand."
He looked down at the bandaged hand like he was seeing it for the first time. "Oh," he said. "That's my hand."
"Yes."
"It doesn't hurt."
"They gave you a lot of drugs."
"That explains the glowing." He looked back up at me, and his face did something complicated before settling into wonder. "Wait. Joel. You're here. Why are you here? You're supposed to be—" He frowned, chasing a thought that kept slipping away. "Somewhere. Not here."
"I was already in Vegas. I was going to surprise you."
"You surprised me," he said solemnly. "I'm very surprised." Then his face split into a grin. "Hi."
"Hi."
"You came."
He reached for me with his right hand. I took it. His fingers were cold, his grip weak, nothing like the way he usually held onto me. I wrapped both my hands around his and held on.
"Joel. Joel, you're here. You came." A smile spread across his face, slow and wide and completely unguarded, the kind of smile I'd never seen on him. "That's so nice. You're so nice. Did you know that? You're mean to everyone else, but you're so nice to me."
"I'm not nice."
"You are. You're the nicest." He tugged at my hand, trying to pull me closer. "Come here. I want to see your face. You have the best face."
I leaned in, and his smile got even wider.
"There it is," he said. "God, you're pretty. You're so fucking pretty. I think about your face all the time. Is that weird? That's probably weird."
"It's not weird."
"I want to tell everyone about you." His eyes were bright, unfocused, but fixed on me like I was the only thing in the room. "Not your name. But I want to tell them. I want to say, there's this guy, and he's beautiful, and he's mean, and I love him. I love him so much."
My throat closed up.
"Derek was here," Red continued, the words tumbling out of him. "He didn't even ask. He just looked at you and then looked at me, and he just knew. He's smart. He's so smart, Joel. And tall. Why's he so tall and I'm not? We have the same parents."
"I don't know."
"S'not fair." But he was still smiling, that ridiculous open smile.
"I had a plan. Did I tell you about my plan?
Gonna tell Derek first. Then my dad, if he's having a good day.
Then everyone. The whole world." His grip tightened on my hand.
"Gonna hold your hand in public. Kiss you after games.
All of it. I want everyone to know you're mine. "
My chest ached. Sober Red never would have said any of that. “Red…”
"Is that crazy?" he asked. "That's probably crazy. But I had a plan, Joel. A really good plan. I was gonna be so brave."
"You're already brave."
"No, but like, really brave. The kind where everyone can see." His eyes were drifting, struggling to stay open, but the smile hadn't faded. "You make me want to be brave. You make me want to be a lot of things."
I leaned closer, my thumb tracing across his knuckles. "Tell me about it later. When you're not high."
"M'not high." He giggled, actually giggled, and I had to look away for a second. "Okay, maybe a little high. They gave me the good stuff. But I mean it. I mean all of it. I love you."
“You wouldn’t say that if you were sober.”
"Mean." But he was still smiling. "Stay?"
"I'll stay."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"Good." His eyes closed, and his voice went fuzzy. "You're my favorite person. Don't tell Derek."
His breathing evened out and his grip went slack as he fell asleep holding my hand.
Derek came back eventually. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at us, then crossed to the chair by the window and sat down without a word. He didn't ask me to leave. He didn't ask me anything.
We sat there together in the quiet, two men keeping watch over someone we loved, and the sky outside the window slowly turned from black to gray.