73. Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Three
Jordan
At 8:41, Peach’s heart stopped.
For two minutes, the man that pulled my drummer from the burning wreckage was technically dead.
Blood loss. Shock. Complications.
There’s a whole myriad of reasons why it did, but none of them matter right now.
Because I’m trading off between staring at the squiggling heartline of his monitor and the rise of his chest.
He saved Mac’s life.
There’s a paper cup of sludge the hospital has passed off as coffee cooling in my grip and a pack of half-eaten Skittles on the stand next to me. Neither are sitting well in my rolling gut.
It’s been days.
Days since I answered Mac’s call and changed the course of everything.
I was supposed to pick him up.
I was supposed to keep him safe.
It should have been me in that car, not him. Not them .
Instead … he’s in the next room, comatose, with swelling on his brain.
And Peach is laying here with several broken ribs, bandaged burns, a maze of stiches and staples holding him together, and discoloration darkening his too-pale skin with each passing minute.
“How is he?”
I sniff at the rasp of Mac’s twin and don’t bother hiding the old tear tracks tightening my face when I glance up.
“He’s alive,” I croak out with rough, unused vocals.
My eyes burn all over again. Chest tightening.
I rub at the ache.
It only seems to spread. Deepen.
Crack wide open until the agony can swallow me whole.
Screams in Spanish.
Arms so tight I can’t breathe.
Singed hair. Clothes. Skin.
Deafening roars of blistering heat.
“I’m sorry.” The thickness of Rex’s voice filters through a fog of crackling timber and my chest studders painfully. “I’m sorry he pushed you away.”
A fissure snakes its way down the center of me and it’s like I can feel every inch of bone and muscles ripping apart.
“It was my fault,” I whisper to the blanket tucked around the cool packs on Peach’s sides.
“No, it was—it was mine.”
The outline of the bed blurs.
“He’s better when he’s with you.”
I shake my head, and it dislodges a tear clinging to my lashes. “Don’t you dare blame Peach for this.”
“No. No. ” Rex’s exhale is so deep that I hear it over the sound of the machines assuring Peach is alive between us. “I don’t blame him. Or Mac. Or you.” I would say the addition of me jolts me, but it doesn’t. “The asshole that chased them, now that’s a different story.”
Sniffing, I nod.
“But I do need you to get your head out of your ass.”
The statement is slow to compute and has me furrowing a brow at red-rimmed blue eyes. “Me?”
He juts his chin. “Stop running from him. He’s going to fucking need you.”
Another chip breaks off from that crack widening my chest. “He doesn’t need me. This is what I bring.” I tip my head.
“Bullshit,” Rex growls. “Don’t make me break your fucking nose. Again .”
I scoff and shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Except I do.” He points to his chest. “I fucking feel it, Jordan.”
Sighing, I lean back in my seat.
“He told me.”
I stiffen.
“Told you what?”
“That he fell in love with a straight man.” He looks around, then pins me to the spot with the intensity staring back. “How much longer are you going to make my brother wait?”
That crater inside me caves in, burying me in the rubble.
He told his brother that?
“When?” I rasp out, my vision blurring all over again. “ How long ?”
There’s a hand on my shoulder even though I didn’t see Rex move around the bed and I break just a little bit more.
“Six years ago, Jordan.” There’s a pause so loaded that I hold my ragged breath, the weight of his words pulling me so far under that I couldn’t stop the sob that breaks. “When a Thompson knows, he knows .”
Love him back.
Love him back or let him go.