Chapter Twenty-Eight Rome
S IX STITCHES . T HAT ’ S all I needed. I looked and felt like I had gone through hell, but a quick suture through my eyebrow was all that I needed.
The nurse joked that I would have a “sweet battle scar” for the rest of my life, bifurcating my left eyebrow.
One of my upper left molars cracked in half.
The root wasn’t exposed, thankfully, and I already had an appointment with a dentist for the following day.
No internal injuries. No concussion. Just bruises upon bruise, like someone had repeatedly bashed a plum into concrete.
They loaded me up with something faaantastic to take the edge off.
I think the ER doctor miscalculated my weight and gave me more than I should have received. That, or I wasn’t used to these things.
Everyone kept calling me Romo. No less than five nurses and techs stopped by to either gawk or say hello.
I didn’t mind. People being so friendly despite my obvious situation just meant that coming out was the right direction.
Not that I focused on that—I tried to, at least. To keep my mind from wandering.
“When can I see him?” I asked my nurse for what had to be the hundredth time in ten minutes.
“When they come by,” he said. A kind gentleman, I put him in his mid-twenties, short, and enough peppiness to fill a cheer squad. His name was Terry. “I know you want to see him but you gotta let the ICU do their job.”
I fidgeted with my hands. My shirt, previously decorated with blood, had been taken off when they assessed my body and did x-rays. I had yet to find one to put back on. Terry said they’d give me an XXL scrub top.
“Yeah, but when will we know more?”
Terry had been punching something into the computer beside me. His head came from behind the monitor. “Romo, we don’t know anything yet. But we will. All right?”
I shook my head. The room swayed. “I really can’t just sit here. Can I at least stand out in the hallway?” I held up my left hand and jiggled the IV line. “Do I still need this plugged in? I’m fine. Really.”
Terry put a hand on his hip that he cocked outward, like striking a pose to intimidate me. “Was he breathing when the ambulance came?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear or see how his blood pressure was during the ride in?”
I shrugged. “I think they stabilized it?”
“Okay. And his pulse?”
“Elevated, I think. But they didn’t do anything else.”
Terry nodded and returned to his monitor. “Those are the three most important things and if they weren’t off the chart…”
“Weren’t off the chart what?”
A sigh, exasperated with my game of twenty-one questions. Terry said, “I’m not making any promises. That’s not my game.” He reached out and put a hand on my arm. “Just be patient. You’ll see him soon enough.”
I worried at my lower lip for a good ten seconds before speaking again. “What if we go toward that area and flag down a nurse to—”
Abruptly, Terry stepped away from the computer and moved toward the exit of the room. “There’s been someone waiting to see you. Your brother-in-law, I think? I’m gonna go get him.”
“Brother-in-law?” I said in confusion, tracing my extended family. Then realized he meant Alex’s brother. I called after Terry as he left, “Alex and I aren’t married.”
He shouted from outside the room. “Well ya should be from the way you talk about him!”
The Moretti clan was already on their way.
Joe would beat them all since he was in the immediate area.
I already had a text from Hiroshi saying he was there, as well as other teammates.
Emma had been in Boston and was fighting traffic to get in.
Media channels had already picked up on it and the news was spreading.
I pushed that, all of it, out of my mind.
The last I saw of Alex was the paramedics rushing him to a bay in the ER while I was pulled into another.
They checked everything Terry had said while I had my face pressed against the glass to try and see over to him.
It took three nurses to calm me down enough to sit and let me be examined.
The IV needle slipped in easily enough and within moments, the concoction they floated my way allowed the examination to finish.
My heart broke when I saw them wheeling Alex away. Someone told me he was on his way to the ICU. Intensive care . An intensive feeling for an intensive loved one. Was he awake and scared? Did all of this remind him of when he received his cancer treatment all those years ago?
Was he mad at me for not getting there sooner? For not realizing what he was doing and stopping him before he left?
But imagine if you hadn’t checked the computer …
No. Those thoughts. Those images. They cut through me, into me, burrowing somewhere deep and dark.
I would harbor no what ifs or could haves .
Everything happened serendipitously and I had to believe that.
Otherwise, the monster of what might have occurred would devour me until all that remained was a tortured soul.
So I exorcised those thoughts like I would any doubt during a game. I thought the bad thought once. The image of being too late. Then flushed it. Gone. No more.
You were there. You saved him .
That was the only thought I needed.
Devin appeared in the room, his brow curled upward in a look he shared with his brother. He crossed the room and we gave each other a quick hug. “What the hell happened? I’ve been pacing the waiting room for almost an hour.”
I gave him the full story. His breath hitched when I described Alex’s state after finding him.
His eyes filled with tears as I told him how I grabbed my baseball bat and treated Ricky like a fast ball with loaded bases.
He squeezed my knee during that. Lips pressed firmly together.
His entire face had gone red and a vein in his neck pulsed.
“No one is telling me how Alex is,” I finished. “Can’t get a word out of anyone .”
Devin shook his head. “I hate being patient. It is not my strong suit.”
“Maybe you could get more out of them? You’re his family.”
Devin gave me a look I didn’t quite understand until he said, “So are you.”
Shoot.
My own eyes welled up and I looked away.
“No,” I whispered. “I meant… y’know.”
“Rome,” he said in a way that made me look up. “He loves you. You’re his partner. That makes you family.” He took in a breath and exhaled through his nose. “And thank God you are. You saved his life. I know you did. I know it in my heart. You saved my baby brother’s life.”
Control fractured like a baseball through a window.
I shattered, tears springing freely from my eyes as the lump in my throat burst into a sniveling sob.
Devin pulled me in as he stood next to me, wrapped his arms around me like a big brother.
The side of my face pressed into his chest as my body heaved.
“Thank you, Rome,” Devin said. “Thank you for being there. I’m so thankful you met him.”
“How do you know?” I said between cries. “How do you know he’s okay?”
Devin pulled back, then grabbed a nearby tissue box for me. “Because if he wasn’t, we’d know by now. He’s gonna be fine.” I yanked a tissue free and wiped my nose. “They’re gonna come around that corner any minute and tell us. You’ll see.”
So we waited. Terry brought back that XXL scrub for me.
It fit a little snuggly, but he told me the navy blue color brought out my eyes.
Devin sat in the guest chair and together we trawled social media on our phones.
Ricky had been apprehended and was now in custody.
Emma found a way to put out a statement (while still stuck in traffic) and would be at the hospital soon.
My agent had called no less than five times, all of them ignored.
He could work through Joe. I didn’t have the heart to talk to anyone at the moment except sit in that room and wait with Alex’s big brother.
A half hour after Devin came in, a new nurse poked her head into the room. “Hey, guys,” she said. A cute blond with a wide smile. “Is now a good time?”
I could’ve thrown my phone across the room if it meant she’d be out with the news faster. Devin sat up and tucked his phone into his back pocket.
“He’s stable,” she said. I almost crashed from the adrenaline fleeing my body now that I knew.
In fact, the room spun as my eyes, recently dried, sported a new misty sheen.
“He’s beat up pretty badly, I can’t sugarcoat that.
Three broken bones. Partial lung collapse.
Concussion. Some internal organ damage. He lost a fair amount of blood, too. ”
Each infraction took me in the gut like Ricky was there again using me as a punching bag. I don’t know when, but Devin had stood beside me, his hand across my shoulders.
“Is he awake?” I asked.
“No, he’s pretty heavily sedated. We didn’t need to intubate, which is a miracle.
I know all of that sounds like a lot but you should know he’s lucky.
Nothing vital was damaged. Ribs will take awhile to heal and he’s going to be in pain for awhile, but we can, of course, mitigate a lot of that.
” She held out her hands. “One visitor at a time. Who would like to go first?”
Devin practically pulled me off the bed and shoved me toward her. “He can go.”
I stumbled but rooted myself. I would not lose this argument.
“No. Absolutely not. You go first, Devin.” He started to protest but I cut him off.
“The two of you have been through so much together. I’m not, I refuse , to get in the way of two brothers.
I’m not arguing about this. You’re going first.”
?
The police finally showed up while I waited to see Alex.
The nurses and techs gave me privacy in the room while I spoke with an officer different from the one who showed up at the parking lot.
The biggest question came up: would you like to press charges?
I didn’t hesitate to answer yes. Joe had already called the family lawyer.
I had spoken to her and she coached me on the things I needed to say and what would happen next.
I had been working on not bullying my way into Alex’s life, on not assuming the things he wanted and what his schedule looked like.
However, when I spoke to our lawyer, I made a choice and said that she would be taking on Alex Edwards as a new client and that I would cover any cost. I didn’t know if Alex or Devin had a lawyer on retainer and perhaps it was judgmental of me to assume they didn’t, given the cost associated.
I would ask for forgiveness later. In that moment, I wanted everything covered and for Alex to not have to worry about Ricky or the court system or anything.
I told as much to the officer. The department would be in contact with the lawyer for both Alex and myself.
The officer gave me the rundown of what happened after the ambulance carted us away.
It didn’t take long for a second officer to arrive, and a third, who all tracked down Ricky not far from the parking lot.
He gave himself up easily enough, especially since he could barely walk on the one leg.
The officer gave me a look when he said that.
Per my lawyer’s instructions, I didn’t speak more on the subject.
Yes, Ricky assaulted both Alex and myself first, but my reaction and the damage I did to him would be carefully looked at.
And I didn’t care. I’d bash his other leg if given the chance.
The police were in contact with the landlord of Alex’s apartment building. There were outward facing security cameras but they didn’t know if anything was recorded or even captured. I’d knew I’d be interested in seeing that footage, if possible.
By the time he left, Devin was swinging around the corner and waving me into the hallway. The moment between standing up from that bed and arriving in the ICU was a blur. Later, Devin would tell me how I practically sprinted through the maze of the hospital to get to Alex.
I arrived to dim lighting and a darkened nurse’s station, a horseshoe of a structure sitting in the center of multiple ICU bays. A nurse in pink escorted me to a corner bay. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. The blood rushing through my ears.
I didn’t recognize him. I almost had to ask the nurse if she was sure this man was Alex Edwards.
His face, bruised beyond recognition, held no familiar traces of the beauty that I knew of my lover.
Both eyes swollen shut, lips cracked and caked with dried blood.
Innumerable splits and cuts painting his face like it was constructed from mosaic tile.
Bandages wrapped around his forehead, his sandy brown hair poking up in haphazard spikes.
Medical devices haloed his bed while things beeped and ticked all around him like a discordant symphony of old video game chiptune music.
The nurse stepped away as I lowered myself onto the edge of a guest chair. Instinctively, my hand sought his. Oddly pristine. No broken bones, no blood. Not even dirt under the nails. I brought it to my lips and kissed the back of it. I pushed my soul through me and into him.
I’m here .
I kept my lips pressed into his hand as droplets of tears rolled down my cheeks.
And I realized… they were tears of relief.
Not sadness. I felt relieved seeing him, despite his state of health.
He’d be all right. The recovery would require both of us and time away from the game, which I would willingly give up.
But he’d be okay. Devin was right—I had made it there on time.
I saved him from whatever doom Ricky had in his mind and heart.
He’d be okay. I wasn’t leaving his side for a second, unless he asked me to. The lawyers and police would take care of Ricky. Alex would never have to worry about that man again. The only thing he would focus on for the next few months was getting better and letting me love him, take care of him.
A new torrent of tears came in a shocking moment of realization.
For years, my biggest and primary focus had always been making postseason and eventually the World Series.
To stare at and hold the Commissioner’s Trophy.
My life had been built around this. But now?
I barely gave it a second thought. Alex came first.
I would set aside the damned World Series for him.