CHAPTER NINETEEN
It had been nineteen hours. Benny had been unconscious for nineteen goddamn hours. And the hospital staff were just carrying on as if that was normal. News flash—it’s not normal.
Zach, who was sheltered side by side with Benny when they found them, was fine. Freaking dandy. He hadn’t passed out. And with a couple of fluid IVs, he’d been discharged. It wasn’t that Bethany wasn’t relieved that Zach was okay, she was, she was just so damn worried about her man.
My man?
Damnit. He was her man, and she’d never told him.
Not when there wasn’t an orgasm on the line, anyway.
The whole time, they’d been doing what they’d been doing, he had been the one to show his cards.
Declare his love. Tell her she was it for him.
And what had she done? Nodded along. She may have agreed to the direction he was taking things, but she’d never given him the words. The truth.
I need to tell him.
That was going to be really fricking hard considering he was still unconscious.
You need to wake up, Benny. Please, wake up. I love you. So much it hurts.
Swatting the tears before they fell, she straightened. She needed to keep it together. No falling apart until she got more information.
She’d been hovering outside the glass door of Benny’s room in the ICU for a few minutes.
Her eyes scanning the main floor. So over being told he was ‘stable’, she was determined to get more answers.
Results. Anything that would help her piece this puzzle together.
Ideally, before Benny’s mom and dad returned from their coffee run.
Gotcha.
The ICU attending finally made an appearance. Wasting no time, she was striding toward the silver-haired middle-aged man a moment later. She almost felt guilty as she reached for his arm just before he could get to the staff room door, he looked tired.
Yeah. Well. I’m tired, too.
“Dr. Win? I hope you don’t mind...but I just had a couple more questions about Benjamin Tucker...the firefighter in room twelve,” she choked out. Trying her hardest not to sound as desperate as she felt.
The man’s crinkled eyes gentled as he turned to her. Giving a calm yet assertive nod before encouraging her to continue.
“His EEG?”
An EEG was a test that measures electrical activity in the brain, a test they’d done on Benny earlier to check for seizure activity and to help evaluate his brain function.
No one had updated them on the outcome, so she was assuming everything was okay.
No news is good news and all that. But knowledge was power.
Because knowledge is going to go real well with your current crippling anxiety?
Now really wasn’t the time to troll herself.
Shut up and listen to the doctor!
“We’ve got neuro monitoring. No seizure activity. But...brain functions are sluggish. We’re giving it time. Sedation was minimal.”
Damn.
“The CT?”
“Clean. No swelling, no bleeding. No obvious hypoxic injury.”
That was good at least, although it didn’t sound like they were out of the woods yet.
“Why isn’t he waking up?” Her voice was thick, her tears threatening to spill again any minute.
Dr. Win’s sympathetic brown eyes held her in place. “His body went through hell. It needs time. He needs time.”
“How much more time?” Nineteen freaking hours seemed like a lot of time to her.
“Ms. Mayer, right?” She nodded, resisting the urge to make him call her doctor. Mostly because she didn’t feel like one right now. She felt like the overly emotional girlfriend she was. “Your boyfriend is a fighter. He’s doing better than most would. Just trust him. Trust us.”
She nodded again. Trying her best to hold it together. Just for a bit longer.
When Bethany returned to Benny’s room, she didn’t find his parents inside like she expected. Instead, sitting next to his bedside was Luke.
“Hey,” she greeted, taking a seat on the opposite side of the bed.
Luke looked rough. Like he hadn’t slept, either. “Hey, sweetheart.” He gave her a weak smile. “The guys wanted to come see him, you don’t mind us taking turns coming in, do you?”
She shook her head. She knew Benny’s teammates filled the waiting room.
Even Zach and Libby remained after getting the all clear.
She was both surprised and grateful they hadn’t insisted on visiting his room until now.
ICU had strict visitor rules, and they’d already pushed the two person at a time limit with Bethany and both of Benny’s parents being in his room for the past nineteen hours.
Both their gazes went to the hospital wires hooked up to Benny. You’d think after staring at them for so long, she’d be used to the sight. She wasn’t. Just like every other time her eyes lingered for too long, they began to mist.
“He’s too damn stubborn to die, B. Knowing Benny, he’d drag himself back just to tell me I’m full of shit.
” Luke’s gruff voice had her glancing back up and the beginnings of a smile forming.
“I wouldn’t put it past the fucker to be waiting for the right moment to open his eyes—like when he decides I’ve been talking to his girl a little too long. ”
That sounded exactly like something Benny would do. The thought alone enough to ease some of the tightness in her chest as she whispered a “thank you” to Luke.
His chin dipped at her thanks. Then he stood, clearing his throat and muttering, “Hunter’s up next,” before heading for the door.
Bethany laced her fingers with Benny’s. She needed to touch him while she internally screamed at him to wake up.
She couldn’t lose him. Not again. She barely survived the first time and everyone was still breathing.
Her heart had only just found its way back to him, how was it supposed to keep beating without him?
A strangled sob made her body vibrate. She let the tears fall. She’d give herself one minute to fall apart. One minute to let the fear take over. Then she’d dry her eyes and get her shit together.
Thirty more seconds.
She shook harder. A whimper escaping as her head dropped to her lap.
“D-don’t c-cry.”
Bethany stopped breathing. Her gaze flying up in disbelief until she was looking into Benny’s bloodshot eyes. She still couldn’t breathe. But she forced herself to blink. Worried this wasn’t real.
Pinch yourself, too!
“B-baby. Please.” His voice cracked again. Each word sounded like it was being forcibly dragged from his throat.
It was real. Benny was awake. And just like that, she could finally breathe.
***
“B, baby?” Bethany ignored Benny and continued to load up his bedside table with water and snacks. “NeNe?” he tried again. And when that didn’t work, he whined, “Bethany?”
She was not doing this. Not again.
“No, Benny.” She attempted to scold him, but the mock-stern expression she was going for only made him smile wider.
Benny had only just been discharged and after resisting the urge to shower with him, she was tucking him into bed. Like a good girlfriend.
“It’s technically a form of self-care,” he argued. “No? Okay. It’s good for morale?”
She fought back her own smile and decided on a dramatic huff instead. “Yeah, yeah,” she scoffed. “You know what else is good for morale? Being able to breathe. So how about, you stop flashing that chest at me until we get the all clear on your inflamed lungs next week, okay?”
This was hard for her, too. She’d almost lost him. Again. Which meant all she wanted to do was climb him like a tree and never let go.
Benny’s head dipped to his bare chest, his gaze coming back to her complete with a devilishly sexy smirk.
“You like what you see, baby?” He winked.
“You’re a doofus.”
“Want me to get up, give you a little show...maybe turn around and show you the back? I may or may not have forgotten to put boxer shorts on.”
A giggle broke free just as he whipped up the sheet his lap had been covered with.
“Oh my God, Benjamin Tucker, you put that thing away before you take my eye out,” she snorted.
“Is that why you’re keeping both eyes on it, NeNe?”
“Funny,” she deadpanned, but instead of leaving him to rest, like she should, she crawled into bed next to him.
She wanted to hold him. Pinch herself again, maybe him too, just to check. He was here. Alive. And all hers.
“I want a cuddle,” she demanded as her head went to his chest.
Benny slipped back down the headboard, taking them both with him. Readjusting until they were lying flat and his arm held her tight.
“I’m okay,” he reassured her for the millionth time. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I don’t need your apology; I just need you to promise me that you’ll never die. Or you won’t die until you’re like a hundred or something, and only after I’ve died. Okay? Promise?”
Benny’s husky chuckle was quiet, but his body still shook. “Is that all?”
“Benny.”
“Okay, baby. I promise. No dying until I’m a hundred.”
Burying further into his chest, she let her fingers brush the dusting of dark hair over muscle.
They fell into a comfortable quiet. Benny’s hold loosening just enough to trail his fingers up and down the side of her crop top. Lingering longer on the exposed flesh that was now covered in goosebumps.
“I thought I was going to lose you again,” Bethany admitted to Benny’s pectoral muscles while the man himself dotted soft kisses into her hair. “I don’t think I’d survive it.”
Way to make someone else’s near death experience about yourself, Bethany.
She really wished her head would shut the fuck up. She was having a moment. It needed to chill.
Where’s your chill?
“I’m not going anywhere, NeNe. You’re stuck with me.”
“You promise?”
More kisses covered the top of her head. “I promise.”
“I love you, Benny.” She felt him suck in a breath but hurried on before she lost her nerve.
“I don’t think I ever stopped loving you.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that you were right.
..that’s why I couldn’t marry Doug.” The tears she thought she’d left at the hospital were back with a vengeance, but she was going to power through.
“Because my heart belonged to someone else. It belonged to you. I gave it to you willingly at fourteen and you never gave it back.”
Benny rolled them over until she was on her back looking up at his darkening eyes. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“What?” She sniffed. Surely, he couldn’t be mad at her for declaring her love?
“You can’t tell me you love me. Tell me I own your heart. Make me feel like the air’s been punched out of me. And then expect me not to take you. Show you just how much I fucking love you, too. And how my heart has only ever and will always be yours.”
Goddamnit. She wanted that, too. She was beginning to wish she’d waited a bit longer to declare her love.
Nope. You waited too frigging long as it is.
To stop herself rubbing against him like a cat in heat, she decided to lighten the mood. A smile tugging at her lips as she widened her eyes with feigned innocence. “Oops.”
“Oops. Seriously?” That mischievous smile was back. “You’ve got one week, baby. Then this ass is getting reddened.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Benjamin Tucker.”
Then he kissed her. And just like that, everything in the world felt right again.