Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
If Ryan hadn’t given up on so many things already—his wrestling career, his faith in reuniting with Jasper, shaving with any regularity—he might have given up on this, too.
But the carousel, which had finally been fixed by the capable and talented members of the only carousel restoration company within a thousand miles, deserved to shine.
Especially when, through the lens of Ryan’s terrible mood, it felt like he might never return to this park.
It was important to leave it looking as put together as possible.
Jasper didn’t have the time or money for frills like string lights hung through the trees surrounding the carousel.
But Ryan did. Ryan had nothing but time, and the only other use he had for it was to think about what job he might want in the future and what on Earth he could possibly do for the next forty years without Jasper.
Neither of those were a fun way to spend his time, one causing him unnecessary stress, the other causing the stitches in his heart to trail helplessly behind each new crack that formed by endless, inevitable run-ins with Jasper.
He almost laughed at himself over the melodrama of his mind, when Logan dropped a hammer on his foot and yelped.
Aiming to slowly toughen himself into something callused and unfeeling, he was microdosing irritation by spending more and more time with Logan.
It was working so far, since he was currently on a very tall ladder with Logan down below, clumsily handing him bungee cords and zip ties and whatever else Ryan asked for.
Ryan hadn’t sighed angrily in at least twenty minutes, despite his aching arms and sore back, and even managed to ignore Logan’s ten-minute phone conversation—on speaker phone—about his friend’s band’s latest tour drama.
He was pretty sure that meant his plan was working.
“I’m almost done with this tree,” Ryan shouted down to Logan. There was no response, so Ryan braved a look towards the ground and found Logan scrolling through his phone with one hand resting lazily over the fourth rung of the ladder. “Hey!”
Logan’s eyes shot up to meet Ryan’s before he slipped his phone in his pocket. “Sorry!”
“Can you focus, please? If I fall on you, you’ll die.”
Unsurprisingly, Logan laughed. He was always laughing about something, a trait in people Ryan often found charming—but not when his life was in their hands. Like right now.
“You’re so uptight about ladders,” Logan shouted towards the treetops.
“Yeah, dude. I’m eleven feet off the ground on a ladder not made for this use. Why would I not be uptight about this?”
Logan flailed his arms dramatically, shifting his feet to look unsteady. “Whoa! Watch out! I’m gonna fall!”
“Logan, I swear to God.”
“Oh no, a tree root!”
“I will drop this on you,” Ryan said, holding up a hammer.
Logan let out another belly laugh and placed both hands on the ladder. “I’m just kidding. I’ll hold on, just for you.”
“Not just for me. For anyone on a ladder. You know I’m not actually uptight about this, right? This is just a normal safety precaution.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes and moved back to the tree, wrapping a bungee cord around the trunk, securing the tail end of the final string of lights.
Logan yelled again, forcing Ryan to close his eyes and breathe deeply so he didn’t climb down the ladder and strangle him.
The screaming didn’t stop, though, and Ryan felt the ladder jostle slightly, like Logan’s hand was hitting one side of it repeatedly.
He looked down to find Logan flailing. Again.
But it was legitimate flailing this time, which freaked Ryan out enough that his footing slipped off the rung he was standing on.
Panicked, he reached out to grab both sides of the ladder and steadied himself.
“Holy shit. I’m sorry, I swear I wasn’t joking around. A spider fell on me! I don’t know where it went. I think it’s gone? God, that was disgusting. It touched my eyelash.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan muttered. “Okay, I’m coming down. I have to get to my niece’s dance recital.”
Before Ryan could secure his foot on the rung below, Logan let out another loud scream about spiders and flicked his arm, hurling something black and fuzzy directly into Ryan’s face.
Ryan reacted on instinct, slapping the spider against his cheek before thrashing so violently the ladder lost its balance and began to topple.
One second, he was braced against the tree, and the next, he was airborne, staring straight at the ground before crashing into it in a tangle of limbs and metal.
“Oh shit,” Logan said, running to crouch by Ryan’s side. His face was directly over Ryan’s and painted with panic.
“I’m okay,” Ryan choked out. He tried to move his arm to lift the ladder off his body, but instead, he screamed from a previously unfelt pain radiating all the way from his chest to his fingertips.
“Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit. Oh my God. Okay, shit.” Logan was upright now, pacing back and forth with his hands tight against his scalp. “There’s a lot of blood. There is so much blood.”
Ryan tried rolling to his side, but the pain was so intense he let out a miserable howl. “Oh, fuck.”
“This is not good.”
“No,” Ryan groaned. He would have glared at Logan if he’d had the mental capacity, but all he could think about was the pain.
“Ohh, man, I’m gonna puke. There’s so much blood. I’m gonna puke. Oh, God.”
Ryan wasn’t sure how Logan could even see it, since his hands were covering his face as he paced around in the dirt.
“Can you help me up?” Ryan asked. “If you grab my left arm, you can help me sit. Or can you at least lift the ladder off me?”
“Yeah, um, okay.”
Logan made his way back towards the top of the ladder and accidentally kicked it, which jostled Ryan’s torso, causing him to cry out again.
“Sorry!”
“Logan, I’m begging you to just get the fucking ladder off me. I can’t breathe and it really fu—God,” he whined. With the shock of the fall wearing off, the pain was increasing, and fast. “Oh, it really fucking hurts.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Logan said, reaching to lift the ladder.
The relief of the pressure leaving his chest lasted all of half a second before Logan unleashed another sound that curdled Ryan’s blood—a mix of frantic whimpers and mumbled words that triggered panic as Ryan realized things were worse than he’d let himself believe.
“Logan, sit down.”
Finally, Logan stopped pacing, took a deep breath, and did what he was asked. He sat cross-legged by Ryan’s uninjured shoulder and grabbed his hand, but pressed his eyes shut tight. “I’m here.”
“Okay, can you—”
“It’s just really hard to look at you right now because I can see your whole bone. I have to keep my eyes closed, or I might throw up. Or pass out.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “Please don’t do that, because I’m getting a little dizzy from the pain. I feel kind of sick. Can you please call an ambulance? And hand me my phone so I can—ah, fuck. Just call the ambulance, please?”
“Yes, I can do that,” Logan said, squeezing Ryan’s hand. “You’ll be okay.”
Ryan was too afraid to laugh and move his arm, but he would have if he’d been uninjured—Logan somehow falling into the role of caretaker while Ryan bled out on the forest floor after a day of fixing up the theme park of a man who couldn’t promise he wanted him?
It was as pathetic as it was unbelievable.
“I can’t find your phone. I don’t know where it is.” Logan patted Ryan’s pockets. “Maybe it flew into the woods?”
By then, the pain was bad enough that Ryan was fading in and out of consciousness.
At least, he thought that was the case, based on the snippets of calls from Logan he overheard.
One describing the fall, one with a woman whose voice Ryan didn’t recognize.
With that, he used the last of his consciousness to ask for one more thing.
“Logan,” Ryan said.
Logan was back on the ground, holding Ryan’s hand and facing the other way to stare at the tree line across the way. “The paramedics on their way. I told them how to get through the gate and where we’re located. They should be here in a few minutes.”
“That’s great—but Logan, listen to me. Please text Jasper. Okay?”
“What? Why? What if he asks how things are going?” Logan asked, now facing him but with his eyes still closed.
Ryan took a painful breath. “Just tell him I will be late to the recital. If he asks about the park, tell him we were working on something other than the carousel. I don’t care what.”
“Okay. I will, but—”
“Just—” Ryan started, but his eyes felt heavy. He managed to get one more word out before he heard the paramedics making their way up the path. “Please.”
“I guess I can’t say I’m surprised,” Jasper said, fanning himself with a small program outlining Nina’s dance recital.
Stevie rolled her eyes. “He’ll be here. He still has ten minutes before he’s late.”
Jasper looked at her and nodded, tension curling in his gut.
Several months ago, Ryan being late for Nina’s recital wouldn't have surprised him.
Ryan would have missed it entirely, then tried to make up for it by throwing money at the problem.
The backstage area would've been littered with bouquets for every kid in the class, tables sagging under cookies and sweets he'd paid for, anything to soften the disappointment of his absence.
Jasper couldn't help feeling a flicker of nerves when he noticed there was no sign of Ryan—and no extravagant apology waiting in his place.
“Did you guys go backstage at all?” Beni said, finally reaching their seats. “I just got back from helping Nina get dressed. There’s a cotton candy stand back there, complete with a princess cotton candy chef.”
“Ryan?” Stevie asked.
Beni just laughed and nodded. “Where the heck is he?”