14. Smoke
14
SMOKE
T he world is spinning whether I have my eyes open or not.
And I’m not sure all that barbecue I ate is going to stay down, because the urge to vomit is really fucking strong.
Especially with the pain of taking a blow to my injuries stabbing through me like a hot knife through…
well, my skin.
But above it all, above the sweating skin and the pathetic shame that comes from fighting with a brother, is the scent of lemons.
The door opens, and I hear mumbled words of thanks before it closes again.
“Quinn,” I say, offering out my hand in no particular direction.
There’s the shuffle of footsteps, of something being put down somewhere, and then I feel it.
The gentle warmth of slender fingers I know are strong from the way they knead all that dough.
They slip into mine, helping the world come back into focus a little.
I close my fingers around hers, holding onto her while I take a deep breath.
“Keep letting everyone down,” I say, as tears sting the corner of my eyes.
Even that is pathetic.
Crying, like any of this hurts me the way it hurt the rest of my team.
They’re dead, while I’m here feeling sorry for myself.
But that doesn’t seem to stop the trickle of tears escaping and sliding down my temple into my hairline.
Loud rock music thuds outside, a distant bass that matches my heartbeat.
“Ronan,” she says softly.
The use of my real name catches me off guard.
So does the tenderness.
It does little to ease the sudden leakage from my eyes.
The bed dips as she sits down next to me, taking my hand to her lap and pressing against the soft cotton of her sundress.
I hope her fall didn’t dirty it.
I open my eyes and see she’s holding an ice pack to her cheek.
“Shit. Are you okay?”
“I guess lots of bruising is on my bingo card for this summer. The bigger question is, are you?”
“A piece of me caught fire and burned to ash on the mountain. Don’t think I’m ever gonna get it back, Quinn.”
She strokes my hair back from my face, and I close my eyes and lean into the touch.
The hospital is such a shitty place.
Every touch is a violation.
Needles that poke, unidentified liquids you’re told are good for you are inserted into your veins, dressings being ripped off and replaced after a grueling cleaning of wounds.
But this, the whisper-light brush of her fingers over my skin?
It soothes the part of me that was close to losing its shit in the clubhouse yard.
I’m not the man I was when I left.
I can’t make decisions or finalize where I stand on things.
I’m doubting my own judgment, my own decision making, questioning myself a thousand times a day and I’m exhausted from it.
“I understand that kind of loss, Smoke. It?—”
“Ronan. Call me Ronan again.”
She smiles sadly.
“Fine. Ronan. I understand what it feels like to live your life with a piece of you missing. I wish I could tell you that it goes away, but it doesn’t. It eases, becomes less constant, but it’s never fully gone. Would it help to tell me what happened?”
God, I’m so fucking drunk.
Beer sloshes in my gut, and so do the whiskey chasers.
“I made the wrong call, Quinn. And now four good men are dead.”
I place my hand to my face as all the barriers I put in place to stay stoic fail at once.
“I tried…to resuscitate Tim. I couldn’t…get to Hassan. The wind changed so fucking fast.” My voice cracks as I sob.
“Hassan knew. He warned me. I was sure he was wrong. And now they’re dead, and I’m here. And it’s not fucking fair.”
“Oh, Ronan,” Quinn says, putting her arms around me.
It’s messy.
I’m lying down, choking on my own tears and snot.
She’s lying over me, avoiding my burns.
But I feel her.
I feel the weight of her.
Not physically, but, fuck, maybe spiritually.
I wrap one arm over her, holding her to me.
“It’s going to be okay, Ronan. I promise. You just have to get through today. Then, sleep. Then, do your best again tomorrow. You’re a hero for even being on that mountain in the first place. To jump out of a plane into a fire…that’s real bravery. You’ve got this, I promise you.”
She keeps hold of me until my sobs subside, until my chest calms. I continue to soothe myself by running my fingers through her hair.
“Thought if I drowned myself in alcohol and some club girls, I’d stop drowning in you,” I say quietly.
She lifts and leans over me, resting a hand on the bed by my hip.
“Did it work?”
I reach up and touch the bruise on the side of her cheek tenderly.
“Nope. Seems like it just fucked everything up more. It’s killing me.”
“What is?”
“This. You and me. Shouldn’t even be saying you and me.”
Quinn smiles softly.
It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a fair few sunrises in my time.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t. But in vino veritas .”
“What does that mean?”
“In wine, there is truth. But also, a lack of filter.”
I drop my hand to her chin and rub my thumb over her lower lip.
“How old are you, Quinn?”
“Twenty-seven. Just turned. Why?”
“Did you have a party?”
She huffs and shakes her head.
“Not really. Ember dropped by with cupcakes, and Dawn gave me a bottle of champagne. It was nice and quiet.”
“I’m officially too fucking old for you.”
Quinn stands.
“Stay there. I’m going to get a few things.”
“Take the key, it’s on the table.”
I wonder if the conversation about our ages made her leave.
Melody was older than Quinn.
She was eighteen and I was nearly twenty-one.
Three years in your thirties is nothing, but three years between twenty-one and eighteen seemed scandalous.
At least, Melody and Quinn’s parents seemed to think so.
Melody used to joke it was only two years and however many months it was.
But her parents? They’d say why is the older guy hanging around all the time?
Isn’t it weird he wants to hang out with you?
They turned it into something ugly when it wasn’t.
But now, the seven years between Quinn and I don’t seem quite so fucking awful, even though I’m still too old for her.
There’s a loud bang outside, and I guess someone is setting off fireworks.
A fucking terrible idea, given how dry the summer has been.
But I can’t bring myself to get up and go outside to make sure they’re being set off safely and responsibly.
It takes a while, but when the door finally opens and Quinn returns, her arms are full.
I prop myself up onto my elbows and can’t help but stare at the way her sundress dances around her thighs.
“You wearing panties beneath that dress?” I ask.
“You’re too drunk to be asking me that question. Here, I made you toast. They didn’t have any nice bread, so you got what they had. But you need to sober up.”
I pout, sticking out my lower lip.
“What if I don’t want to sober up? What if I want to stay drunk so I don’t have to take accountability for anything?”
She hands me the plate.
“Then I’d ask you how that’s going for you. Because I’m pretty sure being drunk has made it harder to ignore the things on your mind rather than making it easier.”
The toast smells amazing, better than all the fancy barbecue crap I ate earlier.
“Fair.”
I take a bite, and the buttery toast feels like comfort.
I chew slowly as I take in everything else she’s busy laying out.
There are two large bottles of water placed next to the bed, along with a bottle of some kind of painkiller.
A large plastic bowl from who-the-fuck knows where, scissors, a large, thick black garbage bag, and some tape.
“Are you about to kill me and bury me in the dirt?”
“Eat,” she says.
I do as she says and finish both slices of toast. “Feel like I could eat all that again.”
“Now drink some water and take two of those.”
I think about what Atom said about liking it when Ember plays nurse.
“You want to role-play being my nurse?”
She shakes her head.
“I want to role-play keeping you alive and not letting you choke on your vomit. Will that do?”
“Spoilsport,” I say, tipping two of the pills into my hand.
I chug them back with a large swallow of water.
Then another.
Fuck, the water tastes good.
I’m about to tip the bottle back again when Quinn takes it from me.
“Small sips. You’re gonna make yourself throw up if you keep drinking it so fast.” She screws the lid back on the bottle, and I feel like a naughty five-year-old caught drinking milk straight from the carton.
“Sorry, Mom,” I say.
Quinn rolls her eyes, but there’s humor in them.
“Now stand up and take your shirt off.”
“Yes, the getting-naked part of the day. Perfect.” I flip my shirt over my head and go to pull down my boxer briefs.
“No,” she cries, raising a hand.
“You can take them off in the bathroom.”
“We’re showering?”
“No. You are.” She gets the garbage bag, and with a few snips of the scissors, turns it into a skirt.
She wrinkles it up into a circle and then kneels to lay it open at my feet.
“Step into it.”
I look down at the garbage bag, then her, convinced I’m being punked.
Because there is no way it’s fair that Quinn is on her knees in a sundress I can see straight down the front of and it’s not for sex.
“What?”
“Just step in,” she says.
“If this is some asphyxiation kink, babe, you need consent for that.”
“Would it shut you up?” Quinn asks.
“I mean, I’d be asphyxiated…unconscious, so, yes, it would.”
The world spins a little, and, as if she’s given up on reasoning with me, she tugs the garbage bag up my body.
“You made me a garbage bag dress?” I ask.
She uses some medical tape on the edges and snips it in a few places.
Then she runs an entire band of tape around it twice to hold it in place under my armpits and around my pecs.
“No,” she says proudly.
“I made you a shield for your dressing so you can get in the shower to clean yourself up. You smell like a brewery.”
For a moment, I simply stand.
“You’re looking after me.”
“Wasn’t that our deal?” she asks.
“But I asked you to leave.”
She shrugs.
“You asked me when I was leaving. I said I’d leave tomorrow. I feel like my deal to help you stands until then.”
I reach out and touch her cheek.
Her skin is so fucking soft.
“Thank you.”
“Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I don’t have to leave tomorrow.”
At least, that’s what I think she says.
Because I forget the rest.
And when I wake, she’s gone.