Chapter 20 #4
From behind his eyelids, he saw a flash of bright light. Cameras. Press. Paparazzi. He opened his eyes. Of course.
They descended on him like locusts to wheat. He’d been Nadia’s student, so he drew himself up, pocketed his phone, and found the restaurant’s taxi stand. “Get me a cab.”
The attendant was wide-eyed. Zavier watched him flick a glance at the reporters, then he ducked his head. “Right away, sir.”
He tucked his fear for Ray deep down and schooled his features, then faced the cameras. They called his name, asking questions on top of one another. A miasma of sound that screeched across Zavier’s brain.
What happened to Ray Van Zeller? Was it true he was drunk? Were he and Ray lovers? Why had they taken away Carl Roberts in cuffs? Why wasn’t he at his boyfriend’s side? How did he feel?
He felt like knives were stabbing through every part of his body. That was how he felt. Ray had needed him—and he’d been helpless. Zavier swallowed the pain and held his ground. “I have no statement at this time.” He spoke low, but with force, like the deep boom of a bass drum.
Didn’t matter. The questions went on. Recorders and cameras were shoved in his face. He couldn’t duck them, couldn’t make them stop. Trapped and enclosed by bodies, Zavier’s every nerve said to fight, to escape.
Once—only once—in his life, he’d been bound. Held by ropes and cuffs and completely at the mercy and will of another. He’d submitted freely then, and had hated every second of that loss of control, but he’d endured, because that too was a type of self-mastery.
If you keep your head, Nadia had purred that night, nothing will ever faze you again.
She’d been so very wrong about that. He could be unnerved. There were some things—some people—that threw him off. Situations that cut to his bone. Ray did more than faze him.
But he’d never let this pile of camera-laden, ethically challenged humans know that. When his taxi pulled up, he pushed through the crowd and slipped into the cool, dark interior, and shut the shitshow out. They rapped on the window and yelled at him.
Only a thin strip of the driver’s face was visible in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
“Whatever the nearest hospital is. Wait—” There had been a text with the name. He dug his phone out and read the name of hospital off.
The driver pulled away, and the flashes of cameras and tapping on the window were gone. “You okay?” Concern in the driver’s voice.
“I’m trying to get to my friend.” Zavier held on to his phone, focused on breathing, and read the rest of the texts. That helped, somewhat. Ray was all right. Not well—but he wouldn’t die. Didn’t die. Would recover. That was all that mattered.
Except relief unlocked a faucet of emotions that churned through Zavier and roiled him with nausea.
He clutched his phone to keep his hands from shaking.
The bitter, bitter taste of helplessness.
Gratitude that Dom and Mish had been there to do what he couldn’t.
The awful what-if that lingered—what if he never saw Ray again?
He swallowed. Ray was alive. Repeating that took the nausea away.
Zavier sent a message to both Mish and Dom via a group text.
I’m on my way. Had to talk to the cops for a while.
Mish texted back with a room number in the emergency department. They want to keep him overnight for observation, but they’re waiting for a room to open up in the hospital.
Good. Bad. He couldn’t tell. He just wanted to get there and see Ray. Touch his hand. Verify what his logical brain knew was true. Ray was alive.
Zavier needed to see the rise and fall of his chest, feel the warmth of his skin.
Wanted to know beyond a doubt that everything was all right.
He cared for Ray more than he’d ever cared for any other friend.
Didn’t know what that meant, needed to examine it further, but there was no time, because the taxi pulled up to the hospital.
Thank goodness he’d shoved his driver’s license and a credit card into the pocket on his phone case, because he had no cash whatsoever.
His wallet was packed in some bag at the hotel, but he refused to be without some means, even at fancy dress parties.
He handed the credit card over. When the receipt came back, he left a sizable tip and signed.
Then he was out of the cab and heading toward the door of the emergency department.
There was a metal detector to get through at the emergency room, then an information desk. He explained who he was, filled out some paperwork while they checked out his license, then led him back.
“My daughter really likes you guys,” the nurse murmured. He was a thin black man with a hard-to-place accent. “You’re a bit too punk for my tastes, but I’m glad you care for each other.” He slowed as they neared one room. “He’s in here.”
Zavier stopped at the threshold and sucked in a breath. Beyond the wooden door lay Ray, in a hospital bed, unconscious, pale, and in a hospital gown. There was an IV drip and wires running from underneath the sheets. One of those pulse monitors had been clipped to his finger.
Mish and Dom sat nearby, both looking as exhausted as Zavier felt.
“Hey, hon.” Mish rose from a nearby chair, still in her black dress, strangely somber and out of place against white linoleum and the green bed curtains. She pulled him into a hug.
The bubble of pain rose closer to the surface, and he pushed it back down. He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. Not now. But he did sag into her embrace and press his forehead into her shoulder.
“He’s gonna be okay,” Mish crooned into his hair.
He drew back and took in Ray and the equipment connected to him. Many of the numbers on the machines meant nothing to Zavier, but his pulse seemed good. Blood pressure, too.
Alive. Ray was alive. “I’m so, so...” Happy? That wasn’t the right word at all. “Glad.” Grateful. Relieved. “I wish I could have done more.” Done something.
Dom rose slowly from his seat, still decked out as Domino, makeup and all. Garish in the dim light and surrounded by the sterile environment of the hospital. “You kept your cool. Made me go with him.”
“Was the right thing to do.” The jealous part of Zavier thought it should have been him by Ray’s side. But Dom had the legal means where Zavier didn’t. That Zavier wanted that level of connection to Ray, that responsibility, meant something, too.
He shook his head and pushed the churn of questions in his soul back down. “You’re his friend, too.”
Dom nodded. “Still.”
Yeah. Still. But Zavier was here now. Ray’s chest rose and fell. The monitor showed his heartbeats. Zavier crossed the small distance to the bed and laid two fingers on Ray’s hand, the one that didn’t have the IV catheter in it.
And yes, he was warm. So warm.
He didn’t realize he was trembling until Mish steered him to the seat she’d vacated and pushed him down into it. “You’re gonna fall over. Where would you be then?”
He shrugged. “You and Dom do fine on your own.”
“Bullshit,” Dom said. “And you know it.”
Mish tousled Zavier’s hair, which he generally hated with a passion, but from her it felt fine. “You’re starting to sound like Ray when you say things like that.”
He did sound like Ray at the moment. He stared at his unconscious form. “What did the doctors have to say?”
Dom spoke. “What we thought—a severe allergic reaction. They got him under control, though. The EpiPen was a good idea.” He sounded bone-tired, and far closer to being Dominic than Domino, despite his state of dress.
“They’re running blood tests to figure out what was in his system, but he should be back to normal in a few days. ”
Zavier propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. Ray would be fine. If only his mind would catch up. In his mind, Ray collapsed into his arms. Over and over again. Carl’s sneer.
Fuck. Rage was a volcano inside him. He hissed out a breath and sat up. “That fucking asshole Carl drugged him.”
“What?” Both Mish and Dom spoke, both twitched away, as if Zavier had struck them.
“It was on the security video. He dropped something in Ray’s drink, probably trying to start an incident for the rumor mill, only it nearly killed Ray.”
Nearly. How much of a misstep would it have taken for Ray to have died? He didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t help running each scenario through his head.
Mish’s hand was in Zavier’s hair again, and she drew his head against her side. “Honey, it’s okay. He’s alive. He’s here.”
That was what he saw, yes. Ray alive in the hospital.
All the machines read the right things. No alarms. But in his mind, Ray was falling again.
And again. Zavier could only catch him and watch, helpless and ineffective, while everyone around him did what he so wanted to do—take care of Ray.
The tears he hated, that he fought against, slipped down his cheeks.
Mish pulled a chair over next to Zavier’s and took his hand. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I know.” He did. But he wasn’t so foolish to think that this night hadn’t changed anything. Everything inside Zavier had been flipped sideways and nearly crushed into bits.
He never wanted to lose Ray. Never wanted to come close to losing Ray again.