Chapter 28
Liam
The words smack into me like a freight train. They carry so much weight, so much force, that I don’t know how I’m still standing as silence hangs in the air between us.
Eddie King. My dad’s name. But that can’t be. She called him her husband, and my dad has only been married once, and that was to my…
Holy fuck.
The dots start to connect. I’m damn near the spitting image of my dad, especially when he was my age. In this woman’s drugged out mind—because clearly she’s high with the way she’s screaming and fidgets behind Jordan—she thinks I’m my father.
I say this woman, but this woman isn’t just any woman. After twenty-three years, I’m staring at my mother.
“Mom?”
The word comes from a dry mouth and scratchy throat. My voice is hardly a whisper, but she hears it loud and clear, making me instantly wish I could take it back as the needle dances dangerously close to Jordan’s neck.
“No!” she shrieks, jerking Jordan around as she becomes animated in her movements.
My stomach bottoms out while my heart pounds furiously in my chest, fear threatening to overwhelm me. I need to do something to get this situation under control before something happens to Jordan.
“Okay, okay! You’re right, I’m sorry,” I say, my hands up in surrender as I take a half step closer. If I see an opening I’m going to lunge and take her down, but only if I know Jordan won’t get hurt in the process. “It’s Eddie… let’s just take a deep breath, Sandy. Okay? Can you do that?”
The moment her name comes out of my mouth the anger diminishes. I watch her blink a few times, like she’s clearing her head and rejoining the land of the sane and sober. Her jerky movements stop, and she focuses directly on me.
I’ve never seen so much hope in someone’s eyes as I do in hers. “You remember?”
“Of course I remember. How could I forget? You gave me life.” The words slip past my lips before I can stop them, but I need to remember that I’m not playing myself right now.
I’m playing the role of my dad because that seems to be soothing her, and that’s what I need.
It’s what Jordan needs. “You gave Liam life, and he became my life. You gave me something to love forever.”
“Liam…” she whispers my name, and I can see the tremble in her chin. I can only imagine my seven-year-old face dancing through her memory. “My boy…”
I’ve spent years compartmentalizing things in regard to my mother.
I’ve had years of practice burying her deep down where I don’t think about her or allow her to affect me—at least that’s what I told myself.
Truth is, she’s affected me my entire life, and I refused to see it. Refused to deal with it.
Until Jordan.
Hearing this woman call me her boy makes me feel sick, but I can’t deal with my feelings or emotions right now. I can’t allow her to get to me. Jordan is in danger, and I need to do something. I need to play this cool and try to get that needle out of my mother’s hands.
My eyes dart to Jordan’s long enough to ensure that she’s holding it together while this woman holds a needle to her neck.
Her chest is rising and falling more quickly than I’d like, and a look of pure terror has turned her face stark white, but when she meets my eyes I know she’s okay. All things considered.
“Yeah,” I nod, urging my mother forward on the topic of me. Taking a deep breath, I put my dad’s shoes on and disassociate myself from the situation. “Yeah, your boy, Sandy. He’s not a boy anymore, though.”
“How is he?” she asks, taking a step towards me which has Jordan taking the same step. “Is he okay? You know I love him. I always loved him… But the drugs…”
That’s a new revelation to me. Then again, she’s high now—who’s to say she isn’t just twisting things with the past and present.
“He’s good. Happy. He’s a firefighter.”
A smile pulls at her thin lips, and I realize how gaunt and sickly she looks. Sunken cheekbones, dull skin, eyes that sink into her face with dark rings around them. This isn’t the woman I remember. The one that I knew. The one that tucked me into bed every night and told me she loved me.
“Married?” she asks, her eyebrows raising in hope. “Kids?”
My eyes slide quickly to Jordan before my attention is back on the woman. “Neither. But he does have a girlfriend. One that’s really good for him. One he’s very much in love with. Pretty sure she’s it for him.”
Behind me I hear two distinct gasps and realize that Quinn and Hailey are still there.
In front of me, Jordan has stopped breathing as she stares at me with wide eyes.
Was this the best way to tell her I love her?
No, definitely not. This isn’t the way I envisioned it at all.
But I’ve watched one friend lose the love of his life, and another nearly lose his, and I know one thing.
They both wished that they’d said it before it was too late.
I’m not making that same mistake. In case anything bad happens, Jordan needs to know how I feel.
“Oh, my boy. In love. I never stopped loving him, Eddie. You know I could never, right?”
My jaw grinds together, and I fight to keep my attention focused on her.
No, I didn’t know she didn’t stop loving me.
I thought that’s why she fucking left in the first place.
But I have a role to play, and that role has nothing to do with being a son that’s wounded and scarred from things that happened a lifetime ago.
“I know, Sandy,” I tell her, but the words are shaky at best. Clearing my throat, an idea strikes, and I take another half step forward, closing the distance in case I get the chance to leap. “Can I ask you something?”
Her eyes are still mostly clear when she nods, but there’s no telling how long it’ll be before another wave of the high hits her and pulls her deeper into the clutches of the drug.
“You would never hurt Liam, right? Never want to see him hurt?”
“No,” she breathes, shaking her head vehemently. The motion pulls Jordan back and forth, and she sucks in a gasp of air. “No, never. Eddie, you know it’s why I left. I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Right. Yes, exactly. You’d do anything to protect him, right?”
She nods, her body jerking some more. It makes me wince because with each movement, that needle comes closer to hitting Jordan in the neck, but by some miracle it hasn’t touched her yet. At least I don’t think it has.
“Okay, good. That’s really good,” I say gently, closing the distance with another measured step.
Sandy doesn’t seem jumpy by my close proximity, but I’m not sure how close she’ll actually let me get.
“I know you’d do anything in your power to keep him from getting hurt and making him happy. You see the nurse you’re holding onto?”
For the first time since she grabbed onto Jordan to begin with, Sandy’s head turns to look at her. I watch as Jordan’s eyes slide to the side, her head staying firmly in place while Sandy studies her.
“That’s Jordan,” I continue. “This is Liam’s girlfriend. She’s a nurse here at the hospital.”
Any faster and I’m sure Sandy’s neck would be broken with the way she cranks it back in my direction. There’s a squeak of horror that comes from her as her mouth falls open, eyes wide.
“No,” she gasps.
“Yeah,” I confirm, gaining more ground between us.
I’m within reaching distance of Jordan, but I don’t make a move for her, or the needle.
Instead I hold my hand out, palm up. “Why don’t you give me the syringe, Sandy?
Then we can talk this all out. I can tell you more about Liam.
Maybe show you some pictures. Would you like that? ”
She blinks rapidly, her eyes darting from me to Jordan and back again. The moments stretch into eternity while she debates her next move, but then I see the grip she has around Jordan’s neck with her free arm start to loosen, and I know she’s giving in to me.
The next thirty seconds are a whirlwind. The needle falls to the ground with a small clatter, and I immediately kick it away. Jordan is launching herself at me before the thing stops spinning, and then I’m pulling her away from Sandy.
I have no idea where they come from, or when they got there, but police converge on Sandy, coming from behind us and then in front of us as I turn Jordan and me around.
An officer’s arm is around me then, and we’re being ushered towards the ambulance bay doors, pushing through them to the inside of the big garage bays where patients are offloaded.
The last thing I hear as we go through the doors is my mother screaming my father’s name. A sound I know will haunt me for a long time.
Safety. Somehow we’ve made it. Adrenaline is screaming through me, my heart beating a mile a minute as I half carry, half drag Jordan towards the one lone ambulance. It’s Quinn and Hailey’s rig, and the one thing here that makes me feel any semblance of security.
We’re five steps away from it when I hear Nate’s voice shouting, “Liam!”
He’s outside at the entrance of the bay, an officer holding him back from crossing into the building.
Nate is calm, cool, and collected ninety-nine percent of the time.
Barring the flip out he had on Jordan and me, the only other time I’ve seen him freaking out was when Savanna was in a collision that could have killed her.
I was the first one on scene that day, and I understand why he looked the way he did. It was bad. Really bad.
That’s the Nate pacing the length of the garage door, trying his best to get past the cop. The one that looks like he’s about to lose his mind.
“We’re good!” I yell at him to alleviate some of his stress until we’re allowed to get to each other.
Then I realize I don’t actually know if we are good. I’ve yet to even look at Jordan. I’ve yet to assess any part of her. Physically or mentally. My heart seizes in my chest, aching so hard with panic and worry of my own that it hurts more than it’s hurt since the last time I saw her.
She’s wrapped herself around me, and somewhere between us charging out of the emergency department and now, I’ve enclosed her within the security of my arms, holding her tightly against my body. The way my arms are constricting around her, I’m honestly surprised she can breathe.
Relaxing my hold on her, I feel Jordan bury in closer, like she doesn’t want me to let her go.
I don’t want to, and I don’t intend to take my hands completely off her, but I need to make sure she’s okay.
Bringing my hands to the side of her face, I pull her away from my chest. Her own is heaving with shallow, quick breaths.
“You’re okay. You’re safe. It’s over, okay? I’ve got you.”
My hands slide along the length of her jaw and then travel down her neck. Every couple of seconds I check my fingers for any indication of blood, my eyes scouring for any sign that she’s hurt, or was nicked by the needle. But there’s nothing.
“I’m—I’m o—okay,” she stumbles, her words coming out much like her breath.
Seeing with my own two eyes, feeling with my own hands, and hearing with my own ears that she’s okay has me releasing all the air in my lungs. My arms wrap around her shoulders, and I drag her into my body, my face pressing into the hair at the top of her head.
Adrenaline is a normal part of my day. I’m used to it.
I thrive on it. But whatever the fuck I’m feeling in my body right now, while it feels a lot like adrenaline, is also completely different.
I’m vibrating from head to toe. My heart won’t settle down.
And fuck, the top of my nasal cavity feels awfully prickly.
Almost like I’m going to sneeze, but I know I’m not.
Jordan’s chest expands with a deep breath. The motion against my own chest, and my arms around her, grounds me. Then her head pulls back, and our eyes meet.
“Are you okay?” she asks tentatively. “That… that was… she’s your…”
I shake my head at her. There’s no way I can do this right now. I can’t talk about it. I can’t talk about Sandy. My mom.
Fuck.
What the fuck just happened?
It feels like I had the biggest out of body experience of my life, and I’m just now reentering my body.
Pins and needles are shooting through my skin all over.
I’m two seconds away from telling Jordan I need to sit down because I suddenly feel lightheaded, when she squirms her arms up between us to grab my face.
I dip my head, knowing what she wants, and our lips slam together.
There’s nothing innocent or sweet about this kiss.
It’s probably far from appropriate for our location, or what just happened.
But it breathes life into me, making my world spin for an entirely different reason.
She knew. Without saying a word, she knew, and she knew what would help.
“For what it’s worth,” she murmurs when we finally part, her hands sliding down to my t-shirt which she fists in her hands. “I’m really fucking in love with you too.”
My forehead drops down to hers and a smile slowly begins to tug at my lips as her words penetrate deep into my soul. “It’s worth every fucking thing to me, Fireball. It’s priceless.”
Absolutely fucking priceless.