Clay #2
For a moment, I was struck by how wonderful they were, one standing and looking calm as if everything hadn’t gone to hell, the other sitting so scrunched up and angry he could have been mistaken for human razor wire.
They were both here for me, but they were together as well.
I wished that Cade had been the one who had caught Isaac’s attention.
Sure, Cade was straight, but maybe he wasn’t as straight as he thought, and if anyone could have figured that out and helped Cade make peace with it, Isaac was the one.
Cade met my eyes, his brow crinkling. “Quit.”
“What?” I asked as someone mopped up the orange juice.
“You’re having weird thoughts,” he said with a shake of his head. “I dunno what they are, but you’re havin’ ’em, so quit.”
“You guys would make a cute couple,” I said, still a little lost and hazy, probably from whatever they had shot me up with after Isaac had choked me.
God, poor Isaac. He would have been so much better off if he’d never met me, if he hadn’t found it in that big heart of his to give me a chance to be something more than some horny dog practically humping his leg.
Now he was sitting there, a mark on his face, his eyes red from crying, looking furious and terrified at the same time, and just so. ..lost.
I knew the feeling.
“He’s not my type,” Isaac said with a roll of his eyes.
“Big ’n dumb?” Cade asked with a grin.
Isaac didn’t even look at him before smacking him hard in the stomach, making Cade grunt in pain. “Enough self-deprecation and self-destruction are going on around here as it is, don’t add to it, Cade. Speak about yourself like that again, and I’ll rip it off.”
“Rip what off?” Cade asked and then blinked, one hand covering his groin. He stared at me with big eyes, and I had to remember that I was technically wounded, so I wouldn’t laugh again. “Fuckin’ scary.”
“You’re like...two and a half of him,” I pointed out with a smile.
“I ain’t that scary,” he said, and I actually believed he was scared of Isaac.
That was fair. As upset as Isaac had been about what he’d done, he hadn’t wasted time putting himself in a position where he could choke me while waiting for help.
From the way everyone had been wary of him when I’d woken up, almost as wary as they were of me, I’d guess he might have been a terror while I’d been out cold.
“Weren’t you special forces?” Isaac asked dryly.
“Yeah, and I dunno if I would want someone like ya with me or not,” Cade chuckled, and I noticed his hand was still hovering over his crotch. “Better to have ya with me than against me though.”
Isaac sighed. “I’m about as terrifying as a wet kitten.”
Cade shot me a look that said he didn’t agree with that assessment but was keeping his opinion to himself. Now I was even more curious about what had happened while I had been out cold.
“Isaac,” I said, now the last person was gone. “C’mere.”
He unwound himself and got to his feet, coming to my bedside and taking my hand. His eyes lingered on the restraints, a shadow passing over his brow, but he managed a smile for me. “Hey, handsome.”
“Hi,” I said, and it hurt to hear Gina’s favorite compliment from his lips.
He wasn’t her, and she wasn’t him, but the two were so wrapped up in my head that I couldn’t think of one without the other.
That wasn’t something he deserved to deal with, and Gina’s memory deserved to be treated better than for me to treat a living person as a replacement for her.
I didn’t know how to do it, and I couldn’t do it right now. “Listen, you did good.”
His lip trembled again, and he nodded. “I didn’t...I didn’t want to—”
“I know,” I said, leaving out the part where I wished he hadn’t. That he had left me to bleed out on that floor. Maybe he would have mourned me for a while, and Cade would have been furious, but it would have been...better.
Or would it?
God, I didn’t know.
I didn’t realize I had closed my eyes before I opened them, smiling to ease some of the tension and worry in Isaac’s face. “You did what needed to be done to keep me alive, alright? Don’t you ever be sorry about that.”
“I could have seriously hurt you,” he said with a watery chuckle. “How screwed up would that have been? Trying to stop you from...from killing yourself, only to end up killing you in the process.”
“I believe that’s what they call irony,” I said, rubbing my thumb over his fingers in what I hoped was a soothing gesture.
“They said you’d be groggy, but you’re not as bad as they made it sound,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe they didn’t give you that big a dose.”
“Or my brain is so screwed up that drugs don’t work as they should,” I said with a smile.
“I’m taking away your joke privileges until you learn that they’re for coping healthily, not hiding how much pain you’re in,” he told me with a frown. “And don’t for a second think I’m joking either.”
There was a soft knock at the door, and though I was confused, I wasn’t surprised to see Dr. Ramirez standing there. He didn’t have his suit jacket on, and his tie was askew, but he was smiling gently and looked alert. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“But you were called up here,” Isaac said with a sigh. “And you need to do your job.”
“That’s the long and short of it, yes,” Ramirez said softly. “But I can always come back.”
“No,” I said quickly. If there was one person I needed to talk to, it was him. I didn’t want to, but I knew I needed to. “Isaac, Cade?”
Isaac sighed, trying to hide his sour expression but doing a bad job as he stood up. “We’ll be outside...out of earshot, but I’m not leaving. Reggie can fuss all he wants, but I’ll sic Luka on him.”
“You think Luka would stick up for me?” I wondered.
“I don’t know, but I know he’d stick up for me,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze, him and Cade leaving the room and closing the door behind them.
And then from outside in the hallway, I heard a muffled, “What do you mean sic Luka on me?”
Dr. Ramirez smiled. “I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the way Reggie handles things can be...a little funny.”
“It’s funnier that he thinks Isaac wouldn’t sic Luka on him, and even funnier that he thinks Luka wouldn’t give him holy hell given the chance,” I snorted, gesturing to the chairs. “Take a seat, I mean, unless you want to stand. You look like you dressed in a hurry.”
“It was meant to be my day off,” he said with a smile, taking the seat Isaac had been in before I’d woken up, and pulling it closer to the bed.
“And don’t apologize. Being here for my patients is what I knowingly signed up for.
..eagerly at that. You may have to apologize to my wife, though, she spent the better part of the afternoon preparing my favorite chili. ”
I grimaced, remembering I needed to speak as little as possible but knowing it was important to talk. I would just have to do it quietly and slowly. “Sorry.”
“She knew who she was marrying,” he said with a wink. “But it wouldn’t hurt to suck up to her when I get home, what do you think?”
“She a chocolate woman?”
“Dark, despises white.”
“Get her the good dark chocolate and a bottle of wine, then make sure you get up with the kids in the morning so she can sleep in,” I said, smirking. “And forgive me for being rude—”
“Go ahead,” he said, looking curious.
“If she lets you get in her pants? Make her cum...three times minimum,” I said, watching him blink in surprise.
He tilted his head back and laughed. “As far as making up to your spouse advice, you’re quite good at it.”
I fidgeted. “It’s the sort of thing that always made Gina forgive me when I was stupid, and I was stupid a lot. Some things don’t change.”
“And again we go back to the fact that you’re a deeply empathetic person who cares deeply for those around you,” he said gently.
“Apparently not, I scared the fuck out of Cade and Isaac, and I hurt Isaac.”
“As far as I’m aware, the piece of the mug that hit him was because it shattered near him, and you weren’t intending to hurt him.”
“Hurting someone by accident doesn’t make it suddenly okay.”
“True, amends must be made. But you must also be willing to forgive yourself,” he said gently, leaning back in his seat. “We are all fallible, we humans. If we can’t accept mistakes, both our own and those of others, then there is no room for growth and understanding.”
“I...” I choked out. Turning my eyes up to the ceiling, I tried not to let the tears come again, but it felt like I had an unlimited supply nowadays. “I’m not well.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
“Just okay?”
“It was an invitation to continue.”
I frowned. “Are you like, not allowed to say that I’m not well?”
“We’re...discouraged from it,” he said with a shrug. “But I think the last month or so of your time here shows you are not doing well. I think the only difference between now and say...last year is that you’re aware of it.”
“I’ve always been aware of it,” I snorted, gesturing around. “Except now I can’t get it under control like I did before.”
“Milk back in the udders, genie back in the lamp,” he said with a sigh.
“Once you let some things out, they can never go back. If I’m honest, and I try to avoid being this honest with my patients, but I think now might be the right time.
Between coming to our sessions and your obvious feelings for Isaac, something like this was bound to happen. ”
“It’s everyone’s fault but mine?” I asked bitterly, because fuck if that didn’t sound like something I would never say.