Chapter 12 #3
And as Georgia sat beside me wearing my ring, I understood with absolute clarity that I had not survived the bullet.
Not really.
I had only lived long enough for every lie in my life to start bleeding at once.
By the end of the day, I knew three things.
One, surviving getting shot was not nearly as dramatic as people made it sound. It was mostly pain, humiliation, tubes, nurses asking if I had passed gas yet, and the slow discovery that every inch of my body had been involved in the injury, including places that had no right to complain.
Two, Georgia was stronger than me.
She stayed.
Through the doctors, the updates, the pain meds, the moments when I woke confused and the moments when I pretended not to be.
She sat in that chair with her ring on her finger and a brave face on, reading bridal blogs on her phone like normal could be forced back into the room if she held the door open long enough.
Three, Destiny Rourke was going to be the death of me.
Which was impressive, considering the bullet had already tried.
Georgia left just after seven.
Her mother had been texting all day, begging her to eat something hot and take a shower.
Georgia refused twice, then let Callum talk her into going when he promised two prospects would stay near the hallway and the ICU nurse would call if anything changed.
She kissed my forehead before she left, smoothing her thumb across my cheek like she had the right to be tender with me.
She did.
That was the problem.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.
“You don’t have to rush.”
Her smile trembled. “I know you think that sounds considerate.”
“It is considerate.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to give me permission to leave.”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
Her eyes lowered.
Then she adjusted the blanket at my waist, picked up her bag, and walked out with her shoulders straight.
Guilt stayed behind.
It sat in the chair after she left.
Occupied the room.
Watched me breathe.
I closed my eyes because I was tired of looking at it.
That was how Destiny found me.
Or how I let her think she found me.
I heard the door open. Soft. Careful. The kind of quiet a person used when they did not want to disturb a sleeping patient or a sleeping lie.
Her steps came closer.
I kept my eyes shut.
Coward.
Yes.
But I wanted one minute without having to decide what kind of man I was.
I wanted to feel her in the room before she put the armor on. Before Nurse Rourke swallowed Destiny whole. Before she turned clinical and careful and distant enough to make me want to tear my own stitches just to get a reaction out of her.
She stopped beside the bed.
For a few seconds, she didn’t move.
I could feel her looking at me.
That was not poetry. Not imagination. Destiny’s attention had weight. Heat. It moved over me like a hand she was too disciplined to use. My body knew when she was near, even half-wrecked and full of medication.
Then she exhaled quietly.
“Of course you’re asleep,” she whispered.
My mouth almost twitched.
She moved closer to check the IV lines.
The scent of her came with her.
Clean soap. Coffee. Hospital air. Something faint and warm underneath that belonged only to her.
The bed dipped slightly where she leaned in. Her arm crossed over my chest, careful not to touch more than necessary while she adjusted the tubing. A loose strand of her hair slipped forward, brushing the edge of my jaw.
Silk.
Blue-black under the ICU lights.
My body reacted before my conscience could stop it.
My fingers closed around her wrist.
Lightly.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to keep her there.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Dylan.”
I opened my eyes.
Her face was inches from mine.
Too close.
Not close enough.
Her mouth parted slightly, surprise softening all that hard-won professionalism. Her eyes were dark, tired, furious, and afraid of everything I could see in them.
“Caught you,” I rasped.
Her pulse kicked beneath my fingers.
I felt it.
God help me, I felt it.
She tried to pull back. “Let go.”
I should have.
I didn’t.
My eyes dropped to her lips.
Mistake.
They were right there. Bare. Soft. No lipstick, just a little dry from hospital air and too many hours without sleep.
I remembered those lips under mine at her mother’s grave.
Trembling. Warm. Brave. I remembered Cabo and all the reasons I had stopped.
I remembered Santa Monica and all the reasons I had left.
I remembered her whispering I love you when she thought I couldn’t answer.
“Stop this, Dylan,” she said.
There it was.
My name.
Not Patient Degan.
Not professional distance.
Dylan.
I let the sound of it drag through me like a match over dry paper.
“There it is,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “There what is?”
“My name.”
She pulled harder against my hold. I let her move just enough that she knew she could get free if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
“Beautiful,” I said.
Her face changed.
Pain first.
Then anger.
Good.
Anger was safer than what had been there before.
“How much drugs did the last nurse give you?” she asked, voice sharp. “Let me check your chart.”
She reached for the tablet with her free hand.
I did not let go of the wrist I had.
“Dylan.”
“I feel dirty.”
That stopped her.
Not because it was smooth.
It wasn’t.
It was pathetic, probably.
But it was also true.
Her nurse brain snapped on before her heart could defend itself. “What?”
“My skin.” I swallowed, throat still rough. “Blood. Sweat. Hospital sheets. I feel grimy as hell.”
Her eyes searched my face.
Suspicious.
Smart girl.
“I can ask an aide to help you clean up.”
“I don’t want an aide.”
Her jaw tightened.
“No.”
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You finished before you opened your mouth.”
I almost smiled.
Pain tugged at my side.
Her gaze dropped instantly to the place where the bandage hid the worst of the damage. Concern flashed across her face, naked and fast before she buried it.
I wanted that too.
The anger.
The care.
The love.
All of her.
“I need you to help me,” I said.
Her eyes came back to mine.
The room warmed dangerously.
“Is this your attempt at flirting with me?”
“Depends if it’s working.”
She yanked free that time.
I let her go.
The loss of her skin under my fingers felt worse than it should have.
She stepped back from the bed, shoulders squared, cheeks flushed. “I am not your plaything, Dylan.”
The words hit hard enough to knock whatever heat had been building straight into shame.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t have to.” Her voice trembled, but not with weakness. “I am trying to be a professional nurse in an impossible situation, and every time your fiancée leaves the room, you start looking at me like?—”
She stopped.
“Like what?”
“Like you forgot she exists.”
Silence.
The machines kept talking because neither of us could.
I looked toward Georgia’s chair.
Empty.
Her sweater gone.
Her coffee cup gone.
But the ring remained in my mind, bright and damning.
Destiny stepped closer again, not soft now. No, this was sharper. This was the girl who had survived fire. The woman who had chosen not to become someone else’s tragedy and hated me for making that harder.
“Frankly,” she said, “I thought you were a better man than that.”
That one hurt.
Good.
It should.
“The man I…” Her voice snapped off.
The room froze.
I looked at her.
Her eyes closed briefly, like she could pull the words back if she refused to look at me.
Too late.
“Say it,” I whispered.
“No.”
“I heard you say it the other night.”
Her eyes opened.
There was no hiding now.
No chart.
No gloves.
No professional mask thick enough for what sat between us.
Her laugh was small and bitter. “Of course you did.”
“Destiny.”
“No, fine.” She threw one hand slightly out to the side, then dropped it, like even her anger knew better than to move too loudly around a healing wound. “Fine. At least one of us has the balls to be honest, so here it goes.”
My heart kicked so hard the monitor answered.
She glanced at it.
Then back at me.
Good.
Let it betray me.
Let something in this room tell the truth.
“If Georgia is the love of your life,” Destiny said, “if she’s the one you want to build a family with, have a couple kids with, plant a tomato garden with, grow old with—fine.”
Her voice cracked on the word fine.
There was nothing fine about it.
“But I am right here.”
The words landed in my chest and stayed there.
“I am right here,” she said again, softer, fiercer. “And if you fuck this up, if you marry her because you’re scared or guilty or trying to prove something to yourself, and we both end up heartbroken for the rest of our lives, I will never forgive you.”
“Beautiful—”
“I mean that.” Her eyes filled, but she did not look away. “I will never forgive you for making me the thing you wanted and refused. I won’t. I can survive you choosing her. I can. But I cannot spend the rest of my life knowing you loved me and married someone else because pretending felt safer.”
My throat closed.
She put one hand against her chest.
“At least I have the balls to say who I really love and who I really want.”
The words came out raw.
Not pretty.
Not sweet.
Truth rarely was.
“And it’s you,” she said. “It has always been you.”
Pain moved through me.
Not from the wound.
Worse.
“Destiny.”
“No. You wanted the truth? There it is. Ugly, inconvenient, probably immoral depending who you ask, but honest.” She wiped under one eye angrily.
“So don’t you dare flirt with me in secret and then hold her hand in public.
Don’t you dare look at me like that when you’re going to send me back into the hallway so she can sit in the chair. ”
I breathed shallowly.
Every word struck bone.
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” I said.
She stared at me.
Then laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was awful.
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“Sure looks like a pretend relationship to me.”
My jaw tightened.
“With Georgia?”