Chapter Six
Bob
By the time dinner rolled around, I was fucking exhausted. I wasn’t going to admit that to anybody, though.
Getting back to the island had been the only thing I’d thought about since I’d opened my eyes in that hospital and realized I wasn’t dead.
I wanted out of that bed. I wanted out of that room.
I wanted to be back where I belonged, surrounded by my brothers instead of nurses who kept asking me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten.
I’d gotten my wish.
Anchor had pushed me back to the clubhouse from the parking lot after I’d finally given in and sat my ass in the wheelchair.
I hadn’t liked it. Not even a little. There was something about having another grown man push me around that made me feel like I couldn’t do a damn thing for myself, even though I knew that wasn’t true.
I could walk. Just not very fucking far.
And apparently, standing in a parking lot for five minutes while everybody argued about the weather and Shay’s tits counted as overdoing it.
So I’d sat my ass down and let Anchor push me.
I’d also managed not to tell him to fuck off more than twice on the way back to the clubhouse.
Now I was parked at the end of one of the tables in the common room with a plate of food in front of me and a beer I wasn’t allowed to drink sitting in Push’s hand across from me.
Push took a long drink.
“Asshole,” I rasped.
Push lowered the bottle and smiled. “Skull said it was doctor’s orders.”
“Didn’t hear the doctor tell you to drink it in front of me,” I growled. “Give me the fucking beer.”
“No.”
I lifted my middle finger.
Push laughed and took another drink.
“Keep fucking with him,” Anchor warned from beside Pearl. “He’s going to get pissed off, try to stand up, and then we’re going to have to pick his ass up off the floor.”
“I can fucking stand,” I grumbled.
“Then why are you still sitting?” Push asked.
I looked at him.
He smiled. “That’s what I thought.”
I was going to kill him. I stabbed my fork into a piece of chicken and shoved it into my mouth instead.
The clubhouse was loud around me. Exactly the way it was supposed to be.
Someone had music playing from the speakers behind the bar.
Post and Lost were arguing about something at the other end of the table.
Piney was bitching because Wannabe had apparently used the last of some hot sauce before he left to stay with Erin and hadn’t put it on the grocery list.
Pearl and Shay were talking over each other while Anchor occasionally threw in a word even though I was pretty sure neither of them was listening to him.
Normal.
I leaned back in the chair and let myself take it in. I’d missed this. I hadn’t realized how much until I’d rolled through the clubhouse doors again.
The hospital had been too quiet even when it wasn’t. Machines beeped. Shoes squeaked down the hallway. Nurses came and went. The television was always on somewhere, but nobody was actually watching it.
This was home.
I took another bite and looked across the room. Ramona sat between Shay and McKayla.
Since we’d come back from the parking lot, I’d known where Ramona was every second.
When I’d been sitting outside while Piney and Post messed with the RV, she’d been close enough that I could hear her laughing.
When everybody started heading back toward the clubhouse, she’d walked beside my chair until Pearl pulled her into some conversation about the haunted house.
Now she was maybe fifteen feet away.
Close. In my orbit.
That was where she’d stayed all afternoon. I liked it more than I should have.
Ramona threw her head back and laughed at something McKayla said.
My eyes stayed on her.
Twenty years. That still didn’t feel real.
I’d gone twenty fucking years without seeing her, and now I couldn’t seem to go twenty seconds without checking where she was.
“You keep staring at her like that, you’re going to burn a hole through her head.”
I slowly looked at Cross.
He was sitting on the other side of me with his arms folded over his chest.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Right,” he drawled.
“I wasn’t.”
Cross nodded. “And Prime isn’t an asshole.”
“Fuck you,” Prime called.
Cross lifted his beer toward him. “See?”
I shook my head and immediately regretted it when the muscles along the side of my neck pulled.
Fuck.
My hand went to my throat, and I pressed my fingers lightly against the skin below the scar and waited for the tightness to ease.
It did eventually.
“Doing okay?” Cross asked quietly.
“Fine.”
“You sound like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“You looked like shit too, but I wasn’t going to mention that,” he smirked.
“You’re a good friend.”
“The best.”
I dropped my hand. When I looked across the room again, Ramona was watching me. Fuck.
Her smile was gone.
I wasn’t hungry anymore.
Actually, I hadn’t been all that hungry to begin with, but everybody had been on my ass about eating. Apparently, losing enough blood to almost die meant I needed protein, calories, fluids, and about seventeen other things I’d stopped listening to the doctor explain.
I managed another bite. Then another.
“Bob.”
I looked up.
Ramona was standing beside me. I hadn’t even seen her cross the room. “You need something?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?” I asked.
“Your voice.”
I cleared my throat. Bad idea. Pain scratched through it, and I winced.
Ramona planted one hand on her hip. “Yeah. That.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what you said at the hospital.”
“Still true.”
“That’s what you said in the parking lot when you were sweating.”
“It was warm,” I reasoned.
From across the table, Shay lifted one finger.
Prime grabbed her hand before she could say anything. “Don’t.”
Shay frowned at him. “I was just going to say the temp is—”
“We know what you were going to say. Do not grab your boobs either,” he laughed. “You save that shit for me.”
“It was sixty-eight degrees.”
“Thank you, Shay,” I rasped.
She tipped her head to the side. “You’re welcome.”
Ramona looked down at me. “You’re tired.”
“No.”
Cross coughed into his fist.
I turned my head. “You got something to say?”
“Nope.”
“Then shut the fuck up.”
Ramona pulled the empty chair beside me out and sat down. “How long have you been awake?”
I shrugged.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t keep a fucking sleep diary, Ramona,” I growled.
“Bob,” she whispered.
“I’m just trying to eat my dinner.”
“Okay.”
I frowned. “Okay, what?”
“You’re done.”
“With what?”
“Today.”
I stared at her.
She stood.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
The entire table went silent.
Ramona froze.
Prime’s eyebrows shot up. Shay’s mouth dropped open. Cross slowly turned his head toward me.
I smiled.
Ramona closed her eyes. “That is not what I meant.”
“I’m okay with however you meant it,” I rasped.
Post laughed from the other end of the table.
Ramona pointed at all of them. “I mean, I’m taking him to his room because he’s exhausted.”
“Sure,” Prime drawled.
“You taking me to bed sounds good.” That came out rougher than everything else I’d said.
Ramona looked at me, then she moved behind my chair and grabbed the handles. “Let’s go.”
“I can push myself.”
“Great.” She didn’t let go.
I reached for the wheels, but she started pushing. “Ramona.”
“No talking,” she snapped.
I twisted enough to look back at her.
“Eyes forward,” she ordered.
“Bossy.”
“Pot. Kettle,” she sighed. “Remember when I said I was going to help you because you were going to help me? This is me helping. You’re going to bed even if you’re too stubborn to admit that you’re about to fall asleep in your chicken.”
I heard laughter behind us as she wheeled me away from the table.
“Good night, Ashland!” Prime called.
I lifted my hand over my shoulder and flipped him off.
Ramona laughed.
“You think that’s funny?” I asked.
“Very.”
“I’m kicking his and Push’s asses when I can walk again.”
“You can walk now,” she pointed out.
“When I can walk far enough to catch him.”
“Ah. Important distinction.”
I smiled as she pushed me down the hallway.
The noise from the common room faded behind us.
I hated the wheelchair. There wasn’t any way around that.
I hated having to sit while somebody else moved me. Hated knowing that I couldn’t just get up and walk down this hallway without my legs turning to shit halfway there. Hated how tired I was after doing almost nothing all day.
I rubbed my throat.
“Stop that.”
I dropped my hand. “Stop what?”
“Touching your throat.”
“It hurts.”
Ramona stopped pushing.
I looked back at her.
Her expression changed immediately. “It hurts?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Ramona.”
“How much?”
“Not much.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s supposed to hurt.”
“Did the doctor say that?”
“Yes.”
“Or are you saying yes because you want me to shut up?”
“Both.”
She sighed and started pushing me again. “Your voice sounds worse.”
“I’ve been talking.”
“Then stop talking,” she growled. “I don’t want you hurting yourself anymore.”
“What do you want me to do when someone talks to me?”
“Good point.” She went quiet. “Maybe just tell them to stop talking to you.”
I glanced up at her. “Stop talking to me.”
She rolled her eyes, and we started passing bedroom doors. “Tell me when to stop when we’re at your room.”
I looked ahead and waited till we passed two more doors. “Stop.”
The wheelchair stopped, and Ramona stepped around me. Then she looked at the door, and her eyebrows pulled together.
She looked at me, then at the door again. “No.”
I frowned. “What?”
“No.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“This is your room?”
“Yeah.” Had been for how many fucking years I have been a King.
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“What?” I asked.
“This is the room I’ve been sleeping in.”
I blinked. “What?”
Ramona pointed at the door. “This room. Pearl and Shay put me in this room.”
I looked at the door. “You’ve been sleeping in my room?”
“I didn’t know it was your room,” she insisted.
I started laughing. It hurt like a motherfucker, but I couldn’t stop.
Ramona crossed her arms. “This isn’t funny.”
“It is a little,” I rasped.
“Nobody told me.”
That made me laugh harder. I grabbed my throat.
“Stop!” She slapped her hands over her face. “Jesus Christ. Stop laughing.”
I tried. It took a second.