Chapter 34 #2
I believed every word.
We’ve been in the trenches together ever since.
“Nah.” Shaking my head, I give him a flat smile, while I run the towel over my sweat-slicked hair.
“I got it.” Tossing the towel over the handrail of the treadmill, I wrap my hands around my still quivering legs and lift while I pivot, first one and then the other, until I’m facing in the opposite direction.
“Gem made raspberry scones last night,” I say, shamelessly plying him with pastries.
“You should snag one before the cat eats them all.”
In other words: Get out.
Hearing me loud and clear, Bruce frowns down at me. “You sure?” he asks quietly, throwing a quick look at the back of Cade’s head. He might be a transplant but Bruce’s been here long enough to hear the stories. Cade Montgomery isn’t someone you should be left alone with.
Giving him a grim nod, I motion for my chair. “Positive.”
“Alright…” Turning away from me, Bruce fetches my chair and holds it steady so I can transfer myself into it.
Wrapping my hands around the treadmill’s handrails, I tell my legs to move and they begrudgingly respond.
Mapping my movements out in my brain, I have to tamp down my frustration.
What used to take me a few seconds, now takes me minutes.
Movements I used to make without thought now take careful planning.
Dr. Merrick was right—my body is adapting.
The relay between brain and implant is getting faster. Just not as fast as I’d like.
Stepping off the treadmill, I maneuver my legs, pivoting slowly so my feet don’t get tangled, until I’m facing away from my chair, hovering over it.
Facing him, I expect to find Cade watching the pathetic spectacle that is me, re-learning to walk.
He isn’t. He’s still faced away from me, watching the river like he could care less about the life and death struggle going on behind him.
Lowering myself into my chair, I grip the wheels. “I got it,” I tell Bruce, tempering my tone because he’s the only friend I have right now. “Now fuck off.”
“Oorah,” he mutters back on a laugh before he walks away. I hear the slide of the pocket door that connects us to the kitchen. Seconds later, Gemma’s recorded voice erupts behind it.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce… friend.
Everyone’s a goddamned friend but me.
What? Your fuckin’ feelings hurt or some shit, Marine? You can cry about it later—right now, you have bigger problems. Like the wife murderer on your deck who wants to have a conversation.
Right.
Gripping the wheels on my chair, I push myself across the floor, bumping over the groove in the floor while I move from inside to outside. Rolling to a stop beside him, I maneuver my chair around so that I’m facing him, back to the river he’s staring at. “What?—”
“She’s gonna lose this place,” Cade says, cutting me off without preamble.
“When Dent died, he left behind a mountain of debt—property taxes mostly. There was a life insurance policy—pretty sizable. She was able to pay down most of it but there’s a good chunk, still hanging over her head.
” Shaking his head, he looks at me. “She was working three jobs and barely making headway but she was making it… then someone challenged her tax debt the same day June fired her for being a decent human being. Suddenly, she’s down to one job and her prospects of saving this place became a whole lot bleaker. ”
I sit here, staring at him like a lump while I digest what he’s telling me. Gemma is drowning in debt. She’s about to lose her home. The only home she’s every felt connected to. The only thing that’s never left her.
The VA is paying me to take care of you Riggs Wheeler. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do my job…
When I make the connection, Cade must see it on my face because he gives me a flat, humorless smile.
“Right.” Bobbing his head, Cade flicks his gaze away from me to resettle it on the ribbon of rushing water behind me.
“So, when the rehab in Houston calls you to tell you that a bed opened up, you’re going to tell them you changed your mind.
That you’re fine, right where you are, and then you’re going to nut the fuck up and let Gemma collect her paycheck for housing your sorry ass because we both know it’s the bare fucking minimum compared to what you actually owe her. ”
Gemma must’ve told Colt. Probably trying to reassure him that my time here was limited and that their lives would be returning to normal, soon enough—and in turn, Colt told his brother.
“Fuck you, Montgomery.” Shame detonates in my gut, a black bomb full of guilt and self-loathing the second he says it. “What the hell do you know?”
“I know plenty.” Totally unbothered by my tone, Cade gives me a fuck you smirk in return.
“You’re the one with his head up his ass.
” Planting his hands on top of his thighs, Cade pushes himself out of his chair to stand over me.
“You and me—we fucked up. We fucked them up and then we walked away like it didn’t matter. Like they didn’t matter.”
I don’t like it. Hearing that he thinks we’re the same. That we made the same mistakes. That we both fucked up the one good thing we’d been given.
Mainly because he’s right.
“We’re nothing alike,” I growl at him, thick, black guilt oozing into every pore.
“You’re right.” Bobbing his head, he gives me another flat, vaguely disgusted smile.
“Because you actually have a chance to fix what you broke,” he says, his tone telling me just how stupid he thinks I am.
“You don’t want to take it—fine.” He gives me a who gives a fuck shrug.
“But you’re going to do this for her. You’re going to stop being a fucking coward.
You’re going to stop running. You’re going to stay right here, and you’re going to let her win for once. ”
“And if I don’t?” I ask, my perverse sense of curiosity getting the better of me.
“I’ve already been to prison, remember?” he reminds me with another one of his affable grins.
“It’s not much of a deterrent. Between you and me—” Leaning in a little closer, he drops his tone into a stage whisper.
“I actually kinda liked it.” Straightening himself, he walks away before I have a chance to answer.