6
Lila
I stepped through the ER doors with my bag over one shoulder and coffee in hand, already feeling as though I had lived an entire day before clocking in. Blue looked up from the desk, and her expression changed the second she saw me.
“You look tired.”
I released a breath that almost passed for a laugh. “That obvious?”
“You look like your brain chewed on you all night.”
That wasn’t inaccurate. I set my coffee on the desk and adjusted the strap of my bag. “I came in a little early. I’m going to run upstairs and check on Jackson before my shift starts.”
Blue’s expression softened. “He made it through the night.”
“I heard.” The news should have helped more than it did, but the tightness beneath my ribs stayed exactly where it was.
She studied me for a moment. “You want me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “No. I just need to see him for myself.”
“Okay. I’ll keep an eye on things down here.” She watched me pick up my coffee, reconsider, and leave it on the desk. “You’ll be fine,” she added more quietly.
I managed a small nod and turned toward the elevators before I could lose my nerve.
The machines were the first thing I registered when I entered Jackson’s ICU room, steady and relentless as they tracked everything his body was still managing to do. Then I looked at him, and the awful tightness closed around my chest again.
Seventeen years had turned the lean, reckless boy I remembered into a broad, hard man who looked built to take up space and defend every inch of it.
His dark hair had grown long enough to pull back, though strands now lay loose around his temples, and a thick beard sharpened the stubborn shape of his jaw.
Bruises spread beneath the bandages. Tubes ran everywhere, his face too pale against the pillow, but even broken open beneath hospital lights, he still looked unmistakably like Jackson.
He had always seemed too solid to be breakable.
I stopped at the foot of the bed and forced my attention onto the chart. Vitals, drips, lines, and numbers. Things I could name. Things that required skill without asking me to feel anything while I used it. My fingers tightened around the clipboard as I checked each reading.
“Vitals are steady,” I murmured into the room. “That’s good. You hear me? That’s good.”
He didn’t move. Of course he didn’t, but I stepped closer anyway, my gaze catching on the bruising beneath his beard and the heavy brows over eyes I remembered far too clearly. Those dark eyes had always been watchful, even when he laughed, carrying more than he allowed anyone else to see.
“You always did have terrible timing,” I whispered.
The door opened behind me, and I turned fast, every wall inside me snapping back into place.
Priest entered first. He was built nearly as broad as Jackson, with tousled dark-blond hair, a rough beard, and pale blue eyes that assessed the room before settling on the bed.
Another man followed, leaner through the face but no less dangerous, his dark hair clipped short along the sides and tattoos covering his throat, hands, and one side of his face.
Where Priest carried his authority openly, the tattooed man held himself with a quieter edge, watching everything without offering a word.
“Oh.” I straightened and shifted the clipboard against my chest. “I was just checking on him before my shift.”
The other man’s gray-green gaze moved over me, quick and sharp, while Priest looked directly at Jackson. “How is he?”
“Vitals are steady. He made it through the night. That was the big hurdle. Now it’s day by day.” Professional language settled between us like a shield, and I took a small step backward. “I should get downstairs.”
“Wait.”
I stopped and turned. Priest studied me differently now, as though something had settled into place behind his eyes. “What’s your name?”
The hesitation before my answer annoyed me. “Lila.”
Something shifted across his face. “Lila,” he repeated slowly. “Deacon knew a Lila once. Talks about her all the time.” He glanced toward Jackson before looking at me again. “The memory of her got him through some rough days.”
The words struck like a slap, heat flashing through me before I could contain it. “Yeah?” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “Maybe she should’ve been more than a memory.”
Silence dropped hard into the room. Priest raised his hands slightly. “I didn’t mean…”
The door opened before he could finish. “Well,” Evan said brightly as he walked in, “Blue told me I’d find you here before shift.”
I closed my eyes for half a second. Of course she had.
When I looked at him, he was already taking in the room with one of his quick, incisive glances, coffee in one hand and trouble curling through his grin.
Beneath the performance, I caught the real reason he had come upstairs in the brief look he gave me, a quiet warning tucked under all that easy charm.
Wonderful.
“Oh hey.” Evan glanced between Priest and the tattooed man. “You again.”
“Evan,” I said, already tired.
“President biker guy is back,” he announced cheerfully, nodding toward Priest before turning toward the stranger, “and he brought hunky tattooed biker guy with him.”
The tattooed man went still, his scarred brow lifting by a fraction. I stared at Evan. “Please stop talking.”
He ignored me completely. “Quick question. Are you guys here to say goodbye, or threaten him back to consciousness?”
A strangled sound escaped the tattooed man before he caught it. I seized Evan’s sleeve. “Behave. You are in front of bikers and a coma patient.”
Priest gave a short snort, which only made Evan look more pleased with himself. I tightened my grip and pulled him toward the door. “We’re going to be late.”
He allowed me to drag him away without argument. At the threshold, he looked over his shoulder and gave the men a bright little wave. “Bye.”
The door slid shut behind us. The moment we entered the hallway, I released his sleeve and turned on him. “What is it?”
His grin faded enough for the concern beneath it to show. “Blue sent me to come get you.”
I blew out a breath and pressed the elevator button. Evan fell into step beside me, mercifully quiet until the doors closed and I folded my arms across my chest.
“What exactly am I walking into?”
He leaned against the wall, coffee still balanced in one hand as the last of his playfulness left his expression. “Your favorite admirer is downstairs.”
I stared at him.
“Blue spotted him about two minutes after you went upstairs,” he continued, lifting his brows. “She sent me to warn you before he started hovering around the desk asking questions nobody wanted to answer.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Of course he did.”
“On the bright side, I’m deeply prepared to be rude on your behalf.”
“That is not the bright side you think it is.”
“It absolutely is.”
The corner of my mouth twitched, but the knot in my stomach remained. Jude was the kind of man who mistook persistence for charm, and I had grown tired of both.
“I can handle him,” I said.
“I know.” Evan’s answer came easily, stripped of teasing. “That doesn’t mean you should have to.”
The elevator jolted softly as it reached the ER floor. I straightened my shoulders and exhaled. “Fine. But no theatrics.”
He looked offended. “You wound me.”
The doors opened, and there Jude stood near the desk as though he had every right to occupy the space.Dark hair swept neatly back from a clean-cut face, his jaw shadowed just enough to soften the polished-cop look without making him seem approachable.
His uniform fit too well across his shoulders, his badge catching the fluorescent light as he pushed away from the counter.
A smile slid into place the moment he saw me, and he approached with the loose confidence men like him always carried, as though a no from me marked the beginning of negotiations instead of the end.
“Lila,” he said warmly, like we were old friends rather than two people caught in a conversation I had avoided for weeks. “There you are.”
I kept walking. “Jude.” My tone was polite, clipped and final, years of professional restraint doing the heavy lifting.
He either failed to hear it or chose not to.
“I was hoping I’d catch you.” His gaze traveled over me and lingered long enough to ignite a hot spark of irritation.
“I was thinking maybe you’d let me take you out Saturday.
Dinner. Drinks. Something better than hospital coffee and fluorescent lighting. ”
Beside me, Evan made a quiet sound of pure dislike. “She’s not free.”
Jude looked at him, his smile thinning. “She didn’t say that herself.”
“That’s okay.” Evan smiled back, all teeth without a trace of warmth. “I’m saying it for her because I already know she has plans.”
Jude returned his attention to me. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Evan answered before I could. “Those plans are with me.”
I made a quiet sound under my breath and shot him a look. He ignored it, took a sip of coffee, and added, “Also, our ER is slammed, and unlike some people, we actually do work here. So, I’m going to need you to head out so we can get back to saving lives.”
Behind the desk, Blue lowered her head sharply as though hiding a laugh. Jude’s jaw tightened for half a second before he smoothed his expression. “I’m trying to talk to Lila.”
“And now you’re done,” Evan sing-songed, his smile bright and vicious.
I clicked my tongue at him and turned toward Jude before he could continue. “I’m sorry, but he’s right. I do have plans with him, and we really do need to get back to work.”
That part had become true enough.
I gave Jude a small, professional smile. “It was lovely talking with you, Jude. Bye.”
He finally looked unsure of how to recover. Good.
After a beat, he stepped back, still smiling even though the edges had tightened. “Another time, then.”
“No,” Evan said cheerfully.
“Evan,” I muttered.
“What?” He looked entirely unrepentant.
Jude gave me one last glance before heading toward the exit with the slow reluctance of a man unused to being dismissed. The doors slid closed behind him, and I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Blue looked up from the desk. “That went well.”
I stared at her. “Did it?”
“For us, yes,” Evan said.
“You are impossible.”
“And yet,” he replied, pressing one hand to his chest, “heroic.”
“You are not heroic.”
Blue pointed her pen at him. “No, let him have it. He’s going to be insufferable about this either way.”
Evan grinned. “Too late. I already am.”
I shook my head, but some of the tension finally loosened. Blue’s expression shifted back to business as she glanced toward the patient board. “Trauma room three is waiting on labs, room six has been asking for pain meds every four minutes, and one of the interns looks like he’s about to cry.”
I blinked once. “Okay. Good. Normal chaos.”
“The best kind,” Evan said.
I dropped my bag behind the desk and reached for my coffee. “If either of you mentions my social life again, I’m calling in a psych consult on both of you.”
Blue smirked. Evan looked delighted, and just like that, the floor swallowed me whole.