28. Ozzy
Ozzy
“ O zzy…He’s gone…”
Jackson’s choked words barely register over the phone.
I’m out the door before I have time to think.
Barefoot, shirt damp with sweat and panic, my medic bag slamming against my back.
The grass is cold and wet, but I don’t stop.
I don’t feel it. My legs push forward, my lungs burn, but none of it slows me down.
I’m running faster than I ever have in my life, and all I can hear is Jackson’s voice in my head. Just his broken voice.
I try to tell myself he’s wrong. He’s not a nurse. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Morris’s medication affects his heart rate. It makes him groggy sometimes. It’s probably a reaction. A side effect. A fluke. That’s all it is. That has to be all it is.
It’s movie night , my brain reminds me. His medication tonight doesn’t make him sleepy.
And that little voice I’ve tried to quiet for months—the one that reminds me nothing good ever lasts—starts whispering louder.
I make it to the barn in under a minute. I don’t remember opening the gate. I don’t remember the door slamming behind me.
Jackson is standing beside the chair like he doesn’t know what to do with his body.
His hands are limp at his sides. His head is bowed.
He looks up when he hears me, and there’s something about the way his face changes—something I’ll never be able to forget.
Like he’s seven years old again and the world just tilted sideways.
“Ozzy,” he chokes out. It’s not really a word. I don’t answer. I don’t ask questions. I just shove past him and fall to my knees beside Morris.
He’s slumped slightly to the left. His mouth is parted. His chest isn’t moving. The sound in my ears is deafening, a roar of rushing blood and denial.
My fingers press to the side of his neck. They already know the truth, but I check anyway. I have to . That’s the job. That’s the only thing I can do.
He’s cold.
So, so cold.
My hands shake as I reach for his wrist, and when I feel nothing there either, something inside me cracks.
“Morris…” I whisper, my voice so soft it disappears into the air. “No. Come on. No. Please.”
I lean forward, pressing my forehead to his, willing him to wake up.
I’m supposed to stay calm. Be the professional.
But he wasn’t just a patient. He was family.
My family. The only father figure I’ve ever let myself get close to.
The one who teased me about my tattoos and held my hand through night terrors.
Who trusted me with his life when I barely trusted myself.
And now he’s gone.
My knees are digging into the packed dirt. My fingers grip the arms of his wheelchair like I can shake him back into existence. My forehead stays pressed to his, and I whisper his name again like it’s a prayer, or a spell, or a plea to whatever might be listening.
The barn is so quiet I can hear Jackson breathing behind me. I can hear the creak of the wind outside. Then?—
Dorothy.
Her scream cuts through the stillness like a blade. It isn’t a scream of surprise—it’s a scream of knowing. Of confirmation. Of something she already felt in her bones before she left the house.
“MORRIS!”
She’s running. Carter and Jensen are with her, but they can’t hold her back.
She shoves past them, past Jackson, past me, and collapses into his lap.
Her hands cradle his face. She kisses his lips.
Her tears hit his shirt, his neck, his jaw.
She’s whispering his name over and over.
Her body rocks like she’s trying to wake him by sheer force of memory.
I can’t watch.
I turn away and stumble backward until I reach the wall of the barn.
My back hits the wood. I slide down. My hands cover my face, but it doesn’t stop the sob that escapes me.
It doesn’t stop the second one. Or the third.
I curl my knees to my chest and bury my head in my arms as wave after wave of grief breaks over me.
I didn’t mean to love him.
I didn’t come here to get attached.
But somewhere along the way, he became mine. Just like this family. Just like this place.
And now I’ve lost him.
I lift my head just long enough to see Jackson fall.
His knees hit the ground like they gave out all at once.
He’s in front of the chair, fingers buried in his hair, shaking.
His face is tilted toward the dirt. His shoulders heave.
But the sound that comes from him is small.
Too small. Like he’s trying to scream when there’s nothing left inside him but air.
I crawl to him.
I don’t think. I just move.
When I reach him, I press myself to his back and wrap my arms around him as tightly as I can, and he stills. Completely still for one long second.
Then he shatters.
His body jerks as the sobs finally rip free. His hands cover mine where they’re clenched over his ribs, and he holds on. Like I’m the only thing anchoring him. Like if I let go, he’ll break apart completely.
He turns, folding into me like he’s drowning. I pull him tighter, curling around him. My fingers dig into his hair. His face presses to my neck and I feel his tears hit my skin.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, again and again. “I’ve got you. Baby, I’ve got you. Always.”
Dorothy’s cries echo around us. I hear Carter call Theo’s name. Jensen shouting something about help. Someone else sobs. But I can’t make out the words. I don’t try.
All I know is this:
We loved him.
And now he’s gone.
And none of us will ever be the same.
I start with the sheets.
Fold. Tuck. Smooth. Strip the bed. Wipe down the tray table. Stack the pillows. Check the corner of the blanket even though I already fixed it.
My hands know what to do. They remember these motions from every hospital room, every hospice bed, every sterile goodbye I’ve ever had to give.
They move on autopilot, giving me something to focus on when my head feels like it’s floating somewhere five feet behind me.
Something I can fix. Something I can control.
Dorothy is curled up on the couch, asleep in Theo’s arms. Her face is puffy and blotched with salt-streaked tears, but she hasn’t stirred once—she won’t after the medication I gave her when she screamed to the sky as they came to take his body.
Jensen’s in the kitchen, still on the phone with Derek and Indy, trying to keep it together.
Carter’s in the corner with Wyatt, making cartoon voices, holding up plastic horses and trying to coax a laugh out of a little boy who doesn’t understand why everyone’s crying but knows enough to be afraid.
And me—I’m standing in the middle of it all, changing a bed that no one will ever sleep in again.
I don’t need to. No one asked me to. But I have to move. I have to do something. Grief clogs the air like smoke and I need a task. A rhythm. A purpose.
“You don’t have to do that right now.”
The voice comes from behind me, hoarse and cracked, like it had been screaming into silence for hours.
I don’t turn. I don’t need to. I feel him before I hear him.
Jackson. His grief is heavy, thick in the room like humidity.
I nod faintly and keep folding the top sheet.
If I stop moving, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart completely.
“I don’t mind,” I reply softly, keeping my eyes on the fabric in front of me. “It makes me feel useful.”
“You don’t have to be useful right now.”
There’s a pause. He flinches, just enough for me to feel it behind my back. Like he regrets the words the second they’re out. But I don’t hold it against him. I don’t hold anything against anyone tonight. We’re all broken. Bent out of shape by something too big to carry.
I finish folding the sheet and lay it down on the end of the bed, right where his feet would’ve been. My fingers graze the metal rail and pause there, stuck.
That’s when it hits.
The burn. The pressure. The ache that’s been waiting for an opening since the moment I felt Morris’s cold skin under my fingertips.
It builds fast, a swell of pain that rushes up behind my ribs and crawls into my throat until it steals away my breath.
My shoulders jerk. My knees wobble. And before I can stop it, a sob rips out of me—raw and full and fucking unstoppable.
I grip the edge of the bed, trying to steady myself, but it’s useless. The tears come hard and fast, blurring everything in front of me. My shoulders curl in like I’m folding around the pain; like if I get small enough maybe it won’t hurt so bad.
Jackson’s right there. I don’t know how quickly he moved. I don’t know if he hesitated. But suddenly, his warmth is beside me, one arm hovering behind my back, the other reaching to take my hand, his voice breaking as he asks, “What can I do, baby? Just tell me. Please.”
I can’t tell him anything. I can’t speak past the noise inside my chest. It’s all guilt and helplessness and the sharp, stinging awareness that I made the call to move Morris out of that room.
I turn to him, barely able to breathe through the sobs.
“I’m so sorry,” I manage, my voice hitching. “If I hadn’t said to bring him out there… If I just left him in that damn room?—”
“Ozzy,” he interrupts, not harsh but firm, both hands coming up to cup my face. His thumbs swipe at my cheeks, catching the tears that won’t stop falling. His palms are warm and steady. “Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t make this your fault.”
His voice shakes, but he doesn’t look away. He forces himself to hold my gaze even as his own eyes fill with sorrow. “You gave him a night under the stars. You gave him peace. You gave us these moments with him. That was the right thing, Tink. That was everything.”
He blinks fast, trying to keep his composure, but the tears fall anyway. Quiet and steady. His jaw tightens. His throat works. He looks like a man who’s trying not to crack in half.
“Goddamn it,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t—fuck, I know this isn’t very manly?—”
“Stop.” My hand presses to his chest, right over his heart. It’s beating so fast I can feel it through the fabric. “You’re allowed to cry, Jackson. You hear me? Don’t you ever say that shit to me again.”
He lets out a breath of a laugh, wet and shaky, and the corner of his mouth twitches like he wants to smile but doesn’t remember how.
“Can I hug you?” I ask quietly, already knowing the answer but needing the permission. Needing to ask, just in case I’m not the only one on the edge.
His eyes lift to mine and something in them shifts.
“Always,” he says.
I step forward slowly, carefully, like I’m the one who’s breakable now. My arms wrap around his waist. I press my cheek to his chest and let my body rest there, against the solidness of him. His arms fold around me a second later. Not too tight. Just enough. Just right.
I stiffen for a heartbeat—some part of me always flinching at any touch—but I make myself stay. I breathe through it. I listen to his heart and let mine try to catch up.
“You asked what you could do,” I whisper, my voice small. “Don’t let me go.”
“What?” His voice is low, muffled against my hair.
“Just… don’t let go.”
He holds me tighter. One hand cradles the back of my head. His body shifts to shield mine, like he could keep the world out if he pressed hard enough.
“Never, Tink.”
He lifts me off the floor like it’s nothing. My legs wrap around his waist before I even register the motion. He carries me down the hallway, slow and careful up the stairs, and uses his foot to push his door open. It clicks shut behind us, and everything goes still.
He sets me down gently, like I’m made of glass.
“I need out of these clothes,” he mutters while stripping off everything but his boxers. He walks to his dresser and grabs a pair of pajama bottoms. I take this moment to start removing my clothes as well.
“Can I borrow a shirt?” I ask, and he turns to say something, only to stare at me in shock and nearly fall over.
“Uh…y-yeah, shirt…there should be some in the tit–top drawer.” He shakes his head, scolding himself, and it brings a small laugh out of me.
“What? They aren’t old news yet?” I tease while grabbing a long-sleeved shirt. It has the Rowe Ranch logo on the back and on the front is Jackson’s name over the chest.
“Baby…” He gives me a light chuckle that sounds so tired. “Nothing about you will be old news to me. Now, there’s a sight.” He smirks, looking at me in his shirt. I playfully slap his chest before crawling into his bed. He smiles for real this time. It’s tired and crooked, but it’s there.
“Come lay with me before I have to go to sleep,” I plead.
Jackson climbs into the bed, and I curl myself next to him as has become customary since our date.
I usually lay here until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore and then go to my bed.
It’s safer this way, for both of us. I’m afraid I’ll have a nightmare or something in my sleep and lash out or hurt him, so it’s best I sleep alone.
“You could stay, you know,” he murmurs after a few quiet minutes. “I don’t care what happens. I just want you here.”
I hesitate. My fingers trace circles over his ribs. “I’m scared.”
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” he whispers, and the honesty in those small words hits me harder than anything else tonight. Because he never says that. Not Jackson Rowe.
I lift my head and kiss him softly.
“I’ll stay,” I whisper, “as long as I can.”
He nods. “Forever,” he mumbles into my hair.
And for once, I don’t argue. I don’t pull away.
I just stay wrapped in his arms. Wrapped in the memory of the man we lost. Wrapped in this moment of grief and love and breath that we’re lucky to still have.
Because for tonight, this is all we can do.
And for tonight, it’s enough.