Chapter 27 Bent
TWENTY-SEVEN
Bent
TIA
Tia caught the arctic glare Forest shot from where she stood by the showers.
He corralled Ryker, tugging him in close for one of his monstrous hugs.
She didn’t envy Ryker for whatever conversation followed.
Forest only did that to people who pissed him off.
At least he hadn’t caught Ryker leaving her barracks.
That would have ignited a nuclear-level meltdown.
She’d made it all the way to the showers, only to realize she’d left shampoo behind.
This time of day, there wasn’t anyone to borrow from, which left her to head back to her room and dig it out of her pack.
The place smelled like sex and would need a good airing out.
She left the door propped open while she searched.
Late afternoon heat spilled through the open door, and sand billowed in on the gusting breeze.
Despite the dirt, the air smelled fresh, clean, and full of promise for a bright future.
Returning to the showers, she enjoyed an unexpected privacy and luxuriated in limitless hot water.
Not that she needed the heat. It was plenty hot outside as the sun baked the desert in its daily cycle of heat, followed by relentless cold.
However, hot water wasn’t something she enjoyed in the field.
There, it was cold water at best. At worst, a field shower with baby wipes.
That reminded her to visit the exchange before it closed.
She gave a soft laugh as water sluiced down her body.
One item was no longer on her list. That was probably a good thing.
No way was she slapping boxes of condoms down on the checkout counter.
With Ryker’s stamina, they would run through box after box.
Thanks to her IUD, pregnancy wasn’t a concern, and they’d had the STD talk.
No need for condoms. Baby wipes though? Never enough of those.
After her shower, she had about an hour before it was time to meet Ryker for chow.
She took advantage of her downtime and headed to the medical center, intent on checking in on the victims from the convoy.
Several men in that Humvee had sustained injuries.
She visited them, stopping by their beds, holding their hands, and asking if there was anything she could do or anyone they wanted her to call.
Their unit would notify next of kin of their injuries, but she wanted to do something special for them.
After checking in with each of them, she found herself beside the bed of Angel Fire’s bassist. Bent’s arm had been splinted.
He had a bandage wrapped around his head, and there was a splint on his leg.
Funny, she hadn’t remembered a leg injury.
His eyes were closed, but from the rhythm of his breathing, he was clearly resting and wasn’t asleep.
“How are you holding up?” She gripped his good hand and gave it a light squeeze.
He cracked open one eye, gave her the once-over, and then opened the other eye. “Much better now,” he said with a voice lined with pain.
“You sure? Are you in pain?”
“If you ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, I might reconsider giving you this kiss.”
“Which kiss?”
“The one I’m rocking in my head right now,” he said with a wince. “You’re fucking loving this kiss, by the way.”
She laughed and leaned down to kiss his brow. “There. How’s that?”
“Mine was way hotter than that,” he said with a frown. “Just saying.”
“I’m sure it was.” She turned his hand over and examined the scrapes. “You’re a little banged up.”
“Ya think?”
“What have they done for you? Did you go to surgery?”
“Hell if I know,” he admitted. “To be honest, I don’t remember anything. I kind of woke up in this bed a few hours ago.”
“Oh, that must’ve been terrifying,” she said. “No one’s talked to you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe? The corpsman says my memory is whacked.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Making herself comfortable, she hitched a hip on his mattress and cupped his hand.
“I’ve had worse,” he said with a sigh.
“Did anyone tell you what happened?”
“They said the convoy got hit.”
“Not hit exactly,” she said and then went on to explain the roadside bomb.
“Wow,” he said. “I guess we were lucky.” His lips pressed together. “Did anyone…”
“No. No deaths,” she said, rushing to reassure him. “Several were injured in the Humvee in front of us. You’re the only one who had significant injuries on the bus.”
“What about Skye? Shit, Ash is probably having a cow right now. Is he pulling the tour? Shit, that ass had better not do that. Shit, fucking shit.” He glanced at his arm. “Guess I’m kind of out of it.”
“You need to focus on healing.”
His fingers wriggled on his broken arm. “My fingers are fat.”
“They’re swollen. I’ll get the nurse to loosen the splint. It looks like they set your arm, but you don’t have a cast on.”
“Why not? If I broke my arm, shouldn’t I have a cast?”
She pinched the nail bed of his finger.
“That hurts,” he hissed.
“It hurts because your arm as well as your hand are swollen after the break. They can’t put a cast on you until the swelling goes down. Imagine what would happen if they put you in a hard cast, and you swelled up even more?”
He squinted and gave her a smirk. “Doc, if that’s your idea of dirty talk, you need to work on it.”
She laughed. “Not talking dirty to you,” she said, “and I’m not a doc. I’m an anesthetist.”
“A what-a-what?”
“CRNA. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist.”
“Whatever the fuck that is.”
“I’m the one who puts foul-mouthed chatty men to sleep.”
“Hell,” he said, “there’s no way you’re ever going to put a man to sleep, hon. You’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Sweet talk won’t get you anywhere with Tia,” Ryker’s deep voice called from the door.
She spun around and just barely kept herself in check.
After last night, her first instinct was to leap into Ryker’s arms and wrap her legs around his hips.
Instead, she released Bent’s hand and crossed her arms over her chest. Her fatigues were thick, but her nipples had hardened at the sound of Ryker’s voice and could probably cut right through the thick fabric of her uniform.
“Ryker,” she said, surprised at the evenness of her voice, “what brings you here?”
He approached, lifted a hand to brush her cheek, and then withdrew sharply. “I need to talk to Bent,” he said.
“Awesome,” Bent said. “Pull up a chair, and join the party. Just don’t expect me to pay you any mind, not with this goddess sitting beside me.”
Ryker huffed a laugh. “Yeah, she gets that a lot.”
“I do not!” she exclaimed. Furrowing her brows, she gave a slight shake of her head to warn Ryker off from being too informal.
Despite what had happened last night, she was a major, and he was still very much enlisted.
Ryker didn’t seem fazed by her comment and continued to tease, “Yeah, I’m not supposed to say this, but she’s got all of us wrapped around her finger.”
Bent’s attention focused on her, and she prayed he didn’t notice the flush in her cheeks.
His gaze narrowed. “What did you need to talk with me about?”
“It’s about Angel Fire. Ash and the guys…”
She cocked her head, surprised at his hesitancy but understood his concern. Their request affected him on a level that went beyond simply butting his way into the band. She needed to ask him about it later.
“Yeah, where are they? I mean, no disrespect, Tia, but I kind of thought they’d be the ones standing beside my bed. Not you.”
“What do you mean?” Ryker asked. “They said—”
“Ryker,” she interrupted, “his memory is spotty. He doesn’t remember anything before this morning. I don’t think he knows what they did or didn’t say to him.”
Ryker’s eyes widened. “Shit, that bites.”
“Yeah,” Bent said, pointing to his head. “Everything is scrambled in here.” He paused and glanced down, losing himself in thought for a moment, but then he glanced up. “Is my memory fucked? Like, is this one of those brain injury things?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Want me to find out?”
“Only if I’m going to remember,” he said with a frown. “This is so fucked up.” His eyes brightened, and he turned to Ryker. “Hey! I’ve got an idea.”
“What?”
“Don’t let Ash cancel the tour.”
“I—”
“Nah, listen,” Bent pushed, “he can’t cancel. I might be fucked up, but you’re not.”
Ryker lifted both hands and took a step back. “Hey, I’m not so sure…”
“Fuck, Ash has been talking about this tour for the past six months. He’s been totally stoked about it.
I don’t want this to mess with that.” He rapped on the splint covering his arm.
“Who knows how long I’m going to be out of it?
But that’s no reason for the tour to suffer, not when we’ve got you. ”
“Bent,” she said, interjecting herself into a conversation that didn’t concern her, “that’s a lot to ask of Ryker. I know I’d feel a little weird about it if it were me.”
“Why?” His eyes cut between her and Ryker. “I think it’s a great idea. He knows all the songs. We only have a couple that are new, ones we wanted to premier on this tour. It won’t take but a second for him to learn them. It’s the perfect solution to a royally fucked up situation.”
“You want me to play for Angel Fire?” Ryker pressed two fingers to his forehead. “I just don’t know.”
“Shit, you gotta do this for me,” Bent begged.
Ryker had a deep-seated fear about stepping in and breaking up the band, but excitement lingered behind his eyes.
There was a desperation to his refusal, but Bent remained steadfast and insistent.
While they argued back and forth, she stepped away to take a look at Bent’s chart, worried about the extent of the damage to his arm and concerned about his memory loss.
There was more than a little swelling in his hand, and not all of his fingers had been moving when he wiggled them.
The possibility of nerve damage weighed heavily on her mind.
He might never fully recover, and that would have significant repercussions.
The door to the ward banged open, and five men entered, bringing the overall level of testosterone to a suffocating height.
Angel Fire had arrived, and behind them, the towering form of her savior surveyed the room.
Forest’s eyes latched on to her, shifted to Ryker, and narrowed with disapproval. Did he know?
Not possible.
She and Ryker had been careful. But why did it look like Forest wanted to rip Ryker a new one?
“Did you tell him?” Ash entered the room like he owned it, sauntering in with swagger.
His charismatic grin brought smiles to the faces of the other patients in the ward—men trapped on beds, attached to monitoring wires, and hooked to IV tubing.
He didn’t ignore them even though he clearly wanted to speak with Bent.
Ash and the others stopped at each bed, shook hands with the patients, and lightened the mood by cracking jokes and generally goofing off.
It was probably the best pain medicine those guys would see and one hell of a story for them to tell their friends.
Eventually, Ash made his way over to Bent. He gripped Bent’s good shoulder and gave it a shake. “Did you?”
“Did I what?” Bent said.
“Tell him about playing,” Ash continued.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, but Ryker and I were talking about him filling in for me for the rest of this tour.”
Ash glanced at Bash. A frown creased his forehead. “Um…”
Tia stepped up and explained, “Bent’s head injury is affecting his memory. Anything surrounding the crash and immediately post-op is gone.”
“Like gone, gone?” Ash asked.
“Hard to say,” she said. “Anesthesia can have an effect on short-term memory. It’s a nice benefit actually. That could be all this is.”
“Could be?” Noodles, who rarely spoke, came to the foot of the bed. “How serious is this shit?”
“Like I said, it’s too soon to tell.”
She’d read the scans. Bent had signs of a concussion but no other obvious injury to his brain. Still, she was concerned about his memory loss, but she didn’t want to upset the band. Not without more information.
“These things take time,” she said. “I wouldn’t be concerned about it just yet.”
Bent barked a laugh. “I’m not worried. My noggin hurts like hell, but it’s just a flesh wound.”
It was more than that, but she appreciated his Monty Python humor. “Right,” she said, “just a flesh wound.”
Normally, being surrounded by so many men wouldn’t have her feeling uncomfortable.
She lived in a male-dominated world where women made up less than ten percent of those present, but it wasn’t the men of Angel Fire who had her nerves vibrating with nervous energy or her heart banging away like a kettledrum.
Her skin heated as Ryker shifted to stand beside her.
He stepped close and broke the bubble of her personal space, making her breathing hitch in her chest. They’d worked in close quarters for months without her feeling a thing, but now, her entire being pulsed in Ryker’s presence.
Across the room, Forest’s gaze hardened.
“Um,” she said, backing away, “I’m going to go check on something.”
Ryker gripped her wrist. “I’ll come with you.”
“No,” she said, tugging out of his grip, “I’m good.”
He spoke under his breath, “What’s wrong?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What did you and Forest talk about?”
No way would Ryker ever tell Forest what had happened between them.
She trusted Ryker implicitly but knew Forest and his powers of deduction.
An odd bird, he operated on a whole other realm from the rest of humanity.
Skye had told her how socially isolated Forest had been as a teen, but he’d learned tricks along the way.
No one who didn’t know his past would believe his social handicap had once been crippling.
Ryker pulled her sleeve and backed her into a corner. Ash and the others gathered around Bent, joking about the accident, trying to make light of the seriousness of his injuries.
“He knows,” Ryker said with a whisper.
“How?”
“I don’t know. He went to find me earlier, and when I wasn’t in my barracks, he headed to yours. He found me leaving and inferred the rest.”
“Shit,” she said. Her stomach dropped, and the world spun. She clutched at Ryker for support. “This is bad. It’s really bad.”