Chapter 21 Caden
CADEN
My fists slammed into the heavy bag over and over again as sweat trailed down my torso. Usually, this release would be enough, but it wasn’t even coming close this morning. I threw a hook, followed by an uppercut, sending the bag swinging back and making the chain rattle.
“What demons are you exorcising?”
I whirled at the sound of Nash’s voice. “How’d you get in here?”
He rolled his eyes. “You gave me an extra key and the code, remember?”
“Regretting that right about now,” I mumbled.
He snorted. “You look like shit.”
“You don’t look so great either.”
“My sister’s house burned to a crisp last night. What do you expect?”
I grunted in response, my hands tightening in the boxing gloves.
“How about sparring with something that hits back?” Nash challenged.
I arched a brow. “You’ve let yourself go soft, man. Not sure you’re up for that.”
He scowled at me. “Let’s see who’s soft.”
Nash crossed to the gear cabinet and pulled out a set of wrist wraps and gloves. In a matter of minutes, he was ready to go. “Maybe I can knock your piss-poor mood out of you.”
“Whatever.”
We moved to the center of my gym, where I’d taped off a ring. We touched gloves and circled each other. Starting with testing jabs, we reacquainted ourselves with each other—it had been a while since we’d sparred.
“How’s Grae?” Nash asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Fine. She was still sleeping when I got up.”
A muscle in his cheek ticked. He’d thought I’d left her in my bed. In reality, I’d poked my head into the guest room before heading down to the gym.
Nash threw a hook shot to my ribs. I turned my body to avoid the worst of the blow and sent a jab to his chin but pulled back on my force at the last second.
Nash shoved me with his gloved fists. “Don’t hold back, or you’re not gonna get this out of your system.”
I hit him with an uppercut to the solar plexus.
He grunted and hit me with another hook, this one to my jaw. “That’s more like it.”
The blow stung and set off something in me. We traded blow after blow until my muscles burned and my chest heaved. I blamed my lazy defense on my fatigue when Nash’s fist connected with my cheek, and my head snapped back.
“Shit! Sorry.” Nash halted as I pulled off a glove and felt my face.
That would leave a mark.
I shook my head. “It’s okay. I was getting lazy.”
Nash studied me for a moment. “You gonna tell me what’s got you spiraling? It’s more than the fire.”
I ground my teeth together. Nash didn’t see me quite as clearly as Grae did, but we’d been friends for most of our lives. He saw enough.
“It was a long night, that’s all. A lot of shit has been going down.”
Nash shoved me. “Shit you should’ve told me about.”
“Gigi didn’t want me to. I wasn’t going to betray her. Not even to you.”
He let out a growl. “It’s more than that. You’ve been locking me out. You tell me some of what’s going on but not enough to let me actually be there for you. Something’s been eating you up these past few years, and it hurts like hell that you won’t trust me with it.”
I ripped off my gloves. “It’s not about trust.”
“The hell it’s not. When I was a mess over Maddie, I came to you. Told you shit I’d never confessed to anyone else.”
Raw guilt clawed at my insides. “I know.”
“So, tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
I threw my gloves against the wall, sending a photograph crashing to the floor. “I can’t care about her.”
Nash stilled. “Can’t care about who?”
My gut hollowed out as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks. “You know who.”
Nash’s nostrils flared as he struggled for composure. “But you do care about her.”
“I can’t.” Panic raced through my veins, leaving fire in its wake.
“Why not? I wasn’t crazy about the idea in the beginning, but it’s clear you two are good for each other. You get one another in a way I’m not sure anyone else does.”
Bile surged up my throat, and I swallowed it down. “I can’t care about her and lose her. I can’t.”
Nash stilled. “Caden…”
“I’ve been down that road. It broke something in me. I don’t know that I’m built to let someone in like that ever again.” Especially someone who was already at risk like Grae. Her diabetes meant any one of a million different factors could send her over the edge.
Nash stared at me, breathing hard. “I can’t imagine what you went through losing Clara—”
“Don’t,” I clipped.
“You have to talk about this. About her. This, the shit with your family, it’s destroying you. And if you’re not careful, it’ll ruin the best thing to ever happen to you.”
That invisible vise tightened around my rib cage again. I felt trapped. I couldn’t let myself go there with Grae, but I couldn’t let her go either. No matter what direction I moved in, petrifying fear awaited.
My lungs burned as black spots danced in front of my vision.
The ambulance sirens blared as we took each turn as quickly as possible, but my ears had grown numb to it over the past twenty minutes. My body had lost all feeling as I sat contorted in my seat in the front of the rig.
I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Grae. As if my gaze not faltering was somehow keeping her alive. Breathing. But barely.
She’d turned a color that almost matched her name, and all I could think about was how Clara had looked as she passed. The way her hand had gone limp in mine when she ceased to be.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. Grae couldn’t die. The Universe wouldn’t be that cruel.
“Heart rate’s dropping,” the EMT in the back yelled.
“What does that mean?” I asked, panic gripping my voice in a stranglehold.
The EMT next to me pressed his foot down on the accelerator. “That we have to move.”
My breath caught in my lungs as a series of beeps sounded, and the EMT in the back cursed as she pulled things out of drawers.
“Almost there,” the guy next to me said.
Tires screeched as he turned into the hospital parking lot. He gunned it to the emergency room, skidding to a stop.
An alert sounded from the back.
“She’s coding,” the woman shouted.
The back doors of the ambulance flew open to people with scrubs. “Get her to trauma three.”
The EMT climbed right on top of the gurney as they rolled it out and began chest compressions as a doctor covered Grae’s mouth with something.
I stumbled out of the ambulance, running after them. A woman stepped in front of me as we reached a set of double doors. “You can’t go back there. I’m sorry.”
“I’m with her. She’s my—” I couldn’t finish that sentence. My what? My friend? That didn’t come close to cutting it. Grae was my whole world.
The dark skin around the woman’s eyes crinkled in empathy. “The doctors need to work on her.”
“Please.” My voice cracked, tears filling my eyes. “I need to know she’s okay.”
The woman squeezed my shoulder. “Let me try to get an update for you. Wait here.”
I stepped to the side of the wide hallway as she disappeared. The chaos of the emergency room was just background noise. The only thing I heard was the pounding of my heart and the roaring of blood in my ears.
It felt like an eternity until the woman reappeared, but it might’ve only been minutes. Her face was a blank mask. “Are you family?”
“Yes,” I croaked. The Hartleys were more family to me than anyone else.
“Doctors are working on her now.”
“Grae,” I told the woman. “Her name is Grae.”
“They’re working on Grae now. Her heart stopped, but they were able to get it beating again. We’re stabilizing her, and then we’ll run tests to figure out what’s going on.”
Her heart. The thing that kept Gigi alive. Breathing.
Everything hurt. It was the kind of agony I never wanted to experience again.
The nurse cleared her throat. “We had to take this off Grae. Maybe you could keep it safe?”
She took my hand and placed a necklace in it. I stared down at the piece of jewelry. The present I’d given Grae on her thirteenth birthday. The sterling silver disc had a compass imprinted on it.
Because that was always what she’d been for me. The one person who could help me find my way. And now, I might lose her.
“Shit, Caden. Breathe. You’re going to pass out.”
But I couldn’t. Couldn’t get my lungs to obey. The vise was too tight.
“Follow me. Shallow at first.”
I could just make out Nash through the haze. He raised and lowered his hand in tiny movements. I tried to track them and get my body to follow.
There was nothing at first but a burning fire in my lungs. Then the smallest hint of reprieve came—a brief burst of oxygen.
“That’s it. Nice and easy.”
My breaths slowly deepened until the black spots abated. I collapsed onto the bench behind me, my chest still aching.
Nash stared down at me.
I didn’t say anything, couldn’t. I couldn’t even force myself to look at him.
“Caden…”
“It’s nothing.”
He gripped my shoulder, squeezing. “That wasn’t fucking nothing. That was you having a panic attack and almost passing out.”
I shoved to my feet, unwinding the wraps from my hands. “I’ve just been under a lot of stress, and last night didn’t help.”
“You need to talk to someone. If it’s not me, then maybe a therapist.”
My gut tightened. “I don’t need to see a shrink.”
“Then talk to Grae.”
I stilled, the wraps wadded up in my hands. She’d always been my person. The one whose feet I laid my burdens at. The one who understood me best. Maybe that was why my head was so screwed up now. Because I didn’t let myself fully have her anymore. “I’ll think about it.”
A muscle in Nash’s jaw ticked. “Don’t hurt her.”
I tossed the wraps into the hamper.
“If you can’t get your head on straight, if you’re not willing to try, then you need to let her go.”
Pain swept through me, a vicious flood taking out everything in its path. The idea of walking away from Grae and not having her in my life, even in this limited capacity, was almost too much for me to take. Even though I knew I should, I didn’t think I was strong enough.
“Tell me you hear me,” Nash gritted out.
“I hear you.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m always here for you. Whatever you need. If you decide you can trust me.”
Guilt churned low in my gut. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize. Just know I’m here whenever you’re ready. And don’t make my sister collateral damage.”
I jerked my head in a nod.
We put away our gear and headed up the stairs.
Music sounded from the kitchen; some oldies tune that was all sunshine and rainbows…the opposite of my current mood.
We followed the sound and the scent of something delicious.
As we came into the room, I stopped short.
Grae wore a pair of my basketball shorts that looked more like pants and a T-shirt that could’ve been a dress.
Her hips swung back and forth as she sang loudly and off-key about walking on sunshine as she pulled something out of the oven.
Setting the casserole dish on the stove, she turned around and shrieked. Her hand flew to her chest. “Geez, make a little noise when you enter a room, would you?”
Grae’s eyes narrowed on my face, and then her gaze snapped to her brother. “What the honeysuckle is wrong with you?”