Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN_
HAZARD
I’ve been sleeping in this uncomfortable hospital chair for almost a week now, but even when the others have said they can take over the night shift, I haven’t let them. I've gone to the nearby hotel Trav has us staying at during the day to nap and shower, and that's all I need.
That, and knowing Decaf is going to be okay. Being by his side to make sure.
Gone are those mixed emotions toward him—one minute hating him, the next thinking he’s sexy, and then going full circle back to hating him again. Now, all I feel is gratitude. I knew it would most likely happen one day, but maybe not so soon after writing him off for good.
Of course, him saving my life has a lot to do with that.
Does sacrificing himself to save me make up for the past?
Probably not on a universal karma scale.
But in that split moment where I needed him to show up, he did.
He didn’t run away. He was there for me in all the ways he couldn’t be for my father, so I can’t exactly keep holding on to his past actions as ammunition.
The whole attraction thing is my main issue now.
If Decaf didn’t have history with my father, it would be a lot easier, because physically, Decaf is my type.
Older, a little stoic. A firm hand. But right before he passed out from his internal bleeding and collapsed lung in that parking lot, he squeezed my hand and called me Jesse.
He was near death, yes, but being mistaken for my dad? Not a sexy moment.
Even still, whenever he wakes long enough to meet my eyes, my stomach flutters, and this urge to touch him overwhelms me. He usually passes back out right after that.
I want to know more about him and my dad.
About their dynamic. As much as my mom says nothing sexual or romantic happened between them, she also said that’s as far as she’s aware.
With Dad and Decaf being deployed together, there would be a lot she would’ve missed out on.
She wouldn’t have seen the stolen glances, the shared smiles, or those nights where they could have snuck into each other’s bunks.
My stomach churns just thinking about it.
It’s not like I ever knew my father, so the sickly feeling isn’t from an immature “eww, my parents were once sexually active” standpoint.
It’s more that if Decaf and I are going to have any kind of relationship—dynamic to be determined: godfather/godson, friendship, something more—I wouldn’t want him to use me as some kind of surrogate for the man he wanted twenty years ago.
I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to use him as a surrogate father either.
That also doesn’t work for me, considering I’m attracted to the man.
And this overthinking could all be moot, considering Decaf’s penchant for running away. Maybe when he’s lucid and thinking clearly once again, he’ll take off, thinking he’s paid his debt to me.
When he is finally better, I’m going to take Iris and Saint’s advice and not scare him off.
I need to get to know who he is first before bugging him for information about my father.
They say patience is a virtue or some shit, but that’s not my experience.
Patience is a waste of time. I want to know everything, and I want to know it now. Is that so much to ask?
Apparently, yes.
I’ve heard the guys talk about how Decaf usually goes for younger guys, but there’s younger, and then there’s “I could legally drink when you were born” type of age gaps. Or close enough for him. Twenty years is a lot.
I tell myself to stop thinking about it because I’m letting my thoughts run away with ideas I should not be entertaining.
But I can’t help it when I’m sitting on this chair day in and day out, half-asleep, half-awake in that almost dreamlike state where a whole lot of scenarios featuring me and Decaf run through my head.
Will there ever be a day where he’ll look at me and not be reminded of my father?
Will he ever see me as anyone except Jesse Hazard’s son?
Will he even like who I am as a person now that I’ve stopped snarking at him? If I show him the serious side of me—the one I don’t let others see often—will he be disappointed? He was my father’s best friend, and while I have no idea if I’m anything like my dad, will Decaf hate me if I’m not?
Fuck, I have to stop thinking about this.
My only focus should be helping Decaf get strong enough to travel and make sure no one comes to finish what they started.
Once we get to Trav’s island, then I can get a good night’s sleep and obsess over Decaf after that.
When Trav said he bought a safe house, turns out, he meant a whole fucking island.
Because I never hit full REM here, the minute Decaf stirs, I startle to attention.
He still looks like shit, but he’s getting some color back, and he’s no longer bed-bound, which is good.
His chest tube and catheter have been removed, but he’s still all stitched up from where he had exploratory surgery to find and stop his internal bleeding.
He has to have his hand permanently in the suspended sling, making sure it stays above his heart so it doesn’t swell, but he can get up and go to the bathroom, and they’re encouraging him to move around so he doesn’t get a blood clot.
It’s slow going, and he insists he can do it himself, but I make sure I’m there by his side in case he needs me. Even if he protests and tells me to get my ass to Montenegro already.
“Why are you still here?” he asks as soon as I stand and hover above him.
“Why are you still fighting me on it?”
“Because I jumped in front of you to save your damn life, and here you are, putting it in jeopardy again. I can’t move fast enough to save you again when I’m like this.”
“What makes you think you’ll need to save me? Technically, you’re already one up on me, so I’ll need to return the favor to make us even.”
Decaf glares at me. “I could save you ten more times, and it still won’t make us even.”
I find it interesting that when I hated him and he’d agree with my snark, it would piss me off.
I thought it was because I wanted to fight.
I wanted him to defend himself and his actions, and I wanted an excuse to keep hating him.
It turns out it pissed me off because deep down, I knew he shouldn’t have been blaming himself for what happened.
Yes, it’s easy to point the finger at him for not doing anything, for sitting back.
But I know, and I’m certain I’ve always known, that in the moment, he had an impossible choice.
I would have chosen to try to save my father, but I also grew up in a time when being gay in the military wasn’t a huge deal.
There might have been a few odd glances, an asshole comment here and there, but my government wasn’t telling me to shut up about it.
They weren’t asking me to hide it from everyone or threaten to kick me out if I didn’t.
If I can forgive him, he needs to forgive himself. Eventually. I want to help him get there, but he’s trying to shut me out again.
This whole push-and-pull thing we’ve got going on is getting annoying really fast, but it seems to be how things naturally are between us. It’s not ideal, but at least I know when one of us is ready to give up, the other will come through. And it’s my turn to come through for him.
Decaf slowly turns so he can put his feet on the ground, and even though he holds his hospital gown closed as soon as he gets up, I get a glimpse of his bare ass.
With him being in his forties, with dark hair, I expected it to be hairy. It’s not. At least, not from what I could tell in the minuscule second I can see it.
I should really stop trying to see it.
“Need help?” I ask, rounding the bed and holding out my arm.
He lifts his head to look at the bathroom connected to his room and then back at me. “I can piss by myself.”
Yet, he’s so slow to cross the room.
“Hope it’s not an emergency,” I say as he lays a hand on the wall beside the bathroom door, hunching over like he’s trying to catch his breath.
“I’m fine,” he grumbles.
He’s trying to prove he can be left here by himself so the rest of us can leave him and get to Travis Island. That’s not its actual name but what we’re all calling it.
Trav’s paranoia was warranted. There are people after us, and no way in hell are any of us going to leave him behind to save our own asses.
Some of the guys have started making their way because of their own situations—like Atlas with Lemon.
They were also attacked that day of the car bomb, and Lemon was understandably shaken.
As soon as Zeus can figure out a way to get out of here with his niblings safe and a plan for a new life with them somewhere else, he’s going to leave.
Trav is waiting for Rogue to get leave from his DEA position so they don’t tip off any authorities that we’re all about to flee. In saying that, Trav’s made it clear that he’s not leaving Decaf behind.
So long as we’re not giving the government opportunities to get to us, find us, or take advantage of us when we’re by ourselves, I’m certain we’re going to get out alive.
I’m half expecting to hear a loud thud come from the bathroom where he’s fallen over, but he appears a few moments later, skin back to being pale and ashen, his usual sullen face as present as ever.
“You know, just once, I’d like to wake up and not see your face here,” he says.
I put a hand to my chest. “Such love coming from the man who literally dove in front of a bomb to save me.”
“I fucking mean it with love.” He sits on his bed and slowly turns to pull his legs up so he can lie down, but I’m too stuck on what he said to offer to help him get comfortable.
“You mean it … with love.”
He blinks at me, as if he’s not sure he said what he said out loud or if I can read minds, or maybe he doesn’t even know where the fuck his supposed love came from.
You and me both, old man.
“You know what I mean.” He puts his arm back into its hanging sling.
I really fucking don’t.
“I saved you for a reason, I moved in with you at Atlas’s for a reason, and everything I’m doing is for the same fucking goddamn reason. I promised your father I would protect you, and I’ve done a piss-poor job of it up until now.”
And there it is. Not love for me. Nothing to do with me. It’s all about my fucking dad. I don’t think I’ve ever been jealous of a dead person before.
“Yet here you are, still putting your ass on the line, and for what? A debt you don’t owe. Don’t make my one true sacrifice go to waste by hanging around here. Because it’s not a question of if others are coming for us. It’s a question of when.”
“And what are you going to do? Willingly give yourself up to them? If we all leave you, you’ll be here alone, and you’re in no shape to fend them off yourself.”
“The others can stay. I just want you gone.”
Okay, now it’s starting to fucking hurt.
Decaf sighs, and when he speaks again, it’s with a defeated tone. “I mean I want you safe. I … I don’t want you gone.”
Goddamn, that shouldn’t make the hurt disappear as quickly as it does. I also shouldn’t smile, but my lips don’t listen. “I think you’re starting to like me.”
He pulls back. “What do you mean?”
“Come on. Everything you’ve done since I walked into that war room has been because you’ve wanted nothing to do with me. Which I don’t really understand because if you ask anyone, I’m a fucking fun person to be around, damn you.”
Decaf rubs the side of his head with his good hand. “And you think that’s because I don’t like you? I don’t even know you, and I wanted to keep it that way.”
I bite my lip because I’m itching to ask the millions of questions I’ve had for months, but he’s finally actually talking and saying something worthy of listening to that I don’t want to scare him off.
“I think we need to have a long-overdue talk,” he says. “And I think I’m finally ready to have it if you are.”
Ready? Yes. Nervous about what he has to say?
Fucking terrified.