Chapter 45
“Doyou think we should look into getting daycare or something for Bobbi-June? Just, like, a day or so a week, so Jesse can have some time off? He can go out and do stuff he likes to do, maybe ride his bike or something? I feel like I’ve trapped him at home. Maybe I should talk to Antony about working from home one day a week.”
I was sitting in the back of the giant Lincoln, glad that Rocco was driving it. The thing was like a tank and almost impossible to park, not that I’d ever admit that out loud.
Rocco shrugged. “He seems to enjoy it. I caught him watching that kids’ program with the dogs the other day while Bobbi-June was asleep.”
Hayes snorted in the passenger seat. “It is pretty funny. But you can always ask him. Besides, we both know if you stay home and look after Bobbi-June one day a week, Jesse isn’t going on rides anywhere. If anyone will be riding, it’ll be you.”
I laughed, but Hayes was probably right.
“I could always look after Bambolina a few days a week. It will give me a good reason to tell my agent no. I do enjoy that,” Rocco said wistfully. I didn’t envy his PR firm. Some days, I wondered if we should send them chocolates and a condolence card.
We’d started a little late today, and the traffic was insane. There was a pileup on the freeway, so we were going the back way to East Palo Alto.
Nodding, I slumped back in the seat. “We’ll talk to him tonight. Man, we are going to be late. My bad.” I didn’t actually regret it, though, because that thing Jesse did with his tongue was totally worth it.
Rocco cursed as the railway crossing boom gate came down and we didn’t make it across. I texted Antony that we’d be a couple of minutes late for the meeting, due to the traffic. I mean, traffic was a contributing factor. The other factor was Jesse’s dick, but that was a far less socially acceptable excuse.
Traffic built up behind us, and I sighed. I missed Miami and the sun.
Rocco looked in the mirror with a frown. “This guy behind me is right up my ass.” He hit the brakes a couple of times in warning, muttering swear words in Italian. For a professional driver, Rocco had a fair amount of road rage. He always protested that it was the Italian passion, but I just thought perhaps he’d spent too long being chauffeured around places.
“Yeah, the only person allowed to ride that ass is?—”
The truck behind us suddenly rammed forward, rear-ending us with so much force that my head snapped forward before my seatbelt locked and flung me back. It also pushed us through the boom gate onto the tracks, the airbags deploying with violent speed.
The next ten seconds happened so slowly, it was like a horror movie. Deployed airbags pushed Hayes and Rocco back in their seats, and the car turned off. The train horn blared through my brain like an echo of death, the sound so loud I couldn’t think. Hayes was shouting at me to get out, even though we all knew there was no time. I couldn’t even find my belt buckle before the rattling noise of a hurtling train was piercing my eardrums.
I screamed, but you couldn’t hear it. There was just the crunch of metal and glass, and my head slamming into the window, sending everything black.
I opened my eyes again to yelling and screaming. Sirens in the distance made me squint as a hand reached through the glass. “She’s alive. Help me get her out!” someone yelled, and I distantly thought they were talking about someone else.
Was someone else in the accident? Rocco. Hayes.
“Help,” I moaned, the world dimming at the edges.
A woman’s face came into my view. “Hey, it’s okay. Stay with me.” She had a nice face. Maybe she was a guardian angel. I needed one of those. But at least Bobbi-June wasn’t in the car.
“My name is Malia. What’s your name?” the angel asked.
“Tally,” I groaned out. Fuck, it felt like my whole body was bruised. I could hear other people talking, but I didn’t recognize any voices. “Hayes. Rocco. Are they okay? My husband?”
“Everyone is gonna be fine, Sugar. Just you wait there and be still. Does anything hurt?”
I did the assessment I’d done every time I crashed in NASCAR. Could I wiggle my toes? Yes. That was good. I could take a deep breath, but while my body felt sore to move, nothing felt broken. “I think I’m okay. Sore.”
“I bet you’re sore. It’ll be all right. Help is coming right now.”
Finally, someone appeared, gently moving Malia out of the way. “Miss, my name is Chadwick and I’m from the fire department. I’m just going to put this collar on you as a precaution.”
“Okay. Can you see my partners? Hayes? Rocco?” I yelled for them, but there was no response. Dread made my gut sour. “ROCCO! HAYES!” I yelled louder, but Chadwick the paramedic hushed me.
“It’s okay. My colleagues are taking care of them, I promise. What’s your name?”
“Tally. Tally Palmer-Passero.”
“All right, Tally. You know what year it is?”
“2024.”
“How about the day?”
“Monday.”
Chadwick listened to my chest. “That’s great. Good work, Tally. Any pain?” I answered his questions, but I kept trying to look into the front seats. All I could see was crumpled metal. “We’re going to send you to hospital for scans, but you’re extremely lucky.”
Someone got out a machine that popped the doors off the car, and they pulled Hayes out the passenger side. “Hayes!”
His face was coated in blood, and he had a collar on his neck too. “Tally,” he breathed, before his eyes closed again. I tried to stand, to go to him, but Chadwick pushed me back down.
“He’s okay. He’s going to the same place as you, and they’ll let you know when they know more. Now, let’s get you on the board and into the bus.”
They were still working on the driver’s door, and I wanted to vomit when I saw it. It was completely caved in, like a monster had put his foot through it. “Rocco,” I breathed. But then Chadwick was shutting the doors and driving away.
“You have to tell me about my husband, Rocco Passero,” I asked the nurse for the hundredth time.
She patted my hand. “He’s in surgery, but it’s going well. I promise you, Mrs. Passero, as soon as I know more, I’ll let you know.”
Hayes was in the room next door to me, with three broken ribs, a fractured tibia and a concussion. But he was alive. He would heal. They wouldn’t let me see him, but I knew he was okay.
I heard shouting from the halls, and then Jesse was in my room. “Sir, you can’t—Sir, that’s the wrong room!”
Jesse burst toward me with a wild and frantic look in his eyes, and Bobbi-June in her carseat, frowning, her lip jutting out like she was about to cry. “Tally,” he breathed, coming over to the bed and kissing me firmly.
“Mr. Banks, the person we contacted you about is one room over.” A pissy nurse, not mine, appeared in the doorway. She blurred in and out of focus, and I realized I was crying.
“This is my partner. That’s my baby.”
My nurse looked so confused. “Your husband is in surgery.” She was definitely going to give me another cognitive test, like I’d lost my mind.
I nodded, pointing to the next room. “That’s right. And the guy in there is my partner too. Jesse, please, go check Hayes is okay. I need to know.”
He nodded, not asking any more questions as he disappeared into the room next door, taking Bobbi-June with him. The ER administrator who’d chased him down followed along with a sigh.
My nurse came in and took my blood pressure once more. “I think, perhaps, you’re going to have to explain it to me slowly. So the guy who just left is…”
“My boyfriend. Well, more than that. My partner. It’s not a throwaway thing.”
“And the guy next door?”
“Same thing. Also Jesse’s best friend, which is why he was his emergency contact and not me yet. We didn’t expect…” I choked back the sob that wanted to bubble out. “We didn’t expect something like this to happen.”
The nurse patted my hand. “Of course not. Now, the guy in surgery, Rocco Passero, he’s your…”
“Legally wedded husband. I can only marry one of them, but if I could, I would marry all of them.”
The nurse nodded, adjusting everything. “I don’t blame you,” she said conspiratorially. “We’re just waiting for your scans to come back, but everything looks good.”
I still didn’t know what had happened. One second, we’d been waiting for a train to pass, and the next, we were on the tracks and in its path.
My brain was given the all-clear, and my nurse walked me next door into Hayes’s room, giving me another chair even though it was against policy. He looked way worse than me, his face all swollen and a cast on his leg. I burst into tears.
“Fuck, Tally. Fuck. I’m so thankful you’re okay,” he breathed, though it was slurred because his face was swollen. “Come here.” I gently laid my head on his, trying not to touch him too much and hurt him more than he’d already been hurt. “I heard you yelling about Rocco. Any word?”
I shook my head, the hollow pain in my chest making me fear the worst. I looked over at Jesse, who was holding Bobbi-June, though the baby was still frowning. I kissed her face over and over and over as I cried. It had been so fucking close. So close.
“I love you, baby. So, so, so much. Both of you.” I shifted to kissing Jesse, and he returned it with the taste of fear and pain on his lips. He looked like he’d aged a hundred years.
“I’ll take her outside and feed her, and call Rafa. Rocco’s family will want to know what happened and that he’s in surgery.”
I nodded, kissing him hard on the lips once more. “Call Will and Colin too.” He stood, and even just the idea that they’d be out of my sight made anxiety climb up my throat. “I love you so fucking much, Jesse,” I told him. I would tell him every two minutes, because for a split second, there’d been a chance I could never tell him again.
Just as he stood, two uniformed cops knocked at the door. “Tally Palmer-Passero? Hayes Davis?” I nodded. “We’d just like to ask you a couple of questions.”