He took my mouth again, and I gave in to the need screaming at me, squeezing his length through the thin fabric.
Knock. Knock. Click.
I tore myself away from him, hands up like I was under arrest, and nearly fell off the bed. One-armed, Josh managed to lean and catch me, pulling me back in front of him just as the nurse came through the curtained partition.
Her eyebrows raised like she knew what we’d been doing, and my cheeks flamed. “I brought your meds. Name and birthday?” she asked.
Josh answered and swallowed the pills as she wrote in his chart. “Thank you.”
“We actually have an opening now, so we’ll be taking you to get your cast. Do you want to wheelchair it? If not, we can take the bed.”
Josh’s eyes darted to the crutches. Not so fast, rock star. “I’ll push the wheelchair,” I offered, tilting my head in a way that let him know I meant business.
His eyes flickered between me and the crutches before he sighed. “Chair it is.”
“Good choice,” the nurse replied. “I’ll go grab one.”
“I brought you wind pants,” I said when he plucked at his hospital gown. “They snap up the side.”
His forehead puckered in adorable lines, but I almost cringed when the gash above his eye strained at the stitches. “You went shopping here?”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “I bought them at home, but thought they’d be easy to get you into…and out of,” I finished with a slow nod.
He laughed. “Were you watching Magic Mike or something?”
“Hey, I just thought they’d be fun to rip off when you got home, and now look how useful my sexy purchase is.” I hopped down from the bed and rummaged through the small bag I’d left in his room, thankful I’d brought it from the hotel.
“Yeah,” his tone waxed sarcastic. “Real sexy, here. But hey, I’m alive, right?” his voice dropped to a whisper. “Can’t say the same for everyone else.”
I snapped up to see him examining the bandage across his thigh absentmindedly. All at once it dawned on me—he was going to have more wounds than the ones I saw…and I had no experience, no idea what I could say or do to help heal them. I’d gone so far into the deep end that this no longer qualified as a pool—it was the ocean, and if I didn’t get my bearings, I could end up watching him drown.
You are not your mother.
I stood straight and put the pants on the bed. Then I took his face in my hands and lifted it, leaning in to force him to meet my gaze. He did. I barely controlled my gasp as I caught him unguarded. Misery radiated from his eyes—pain, sorrow, grief…guilt. It was all laid bare for me to see for one precious second before he blinked it away. “You are alive. You are mine, no matter what.” I forced a smile. “And scars are sexy.”
Carefully, we got him buttoned into the pants and lowered into the wheelchair.
“Shall we go?” the nurse asked.
I moved to take the handles of the wheelchair, but Josh stopped me, gently clasping my hand in his. “Hey, babe, why don’t you check on Jagger for me?” he asked. “You won’t be missing much.”
I did my best to ignore the sting of his dismissal. This wasn’t about me. “Yeah, I can do that for you.”
“Great. Thanks.” He leaned forward, and I met him in a light kiss. Then he was gone, wheeled away to repair another broken part. Somehow it felt like if I’d been allowed to follow, I could have seen how to put him back together, too.
“I thought you were going to sleep?” I asked Paisley as I dropped into the seat next to hers in the waiting room.
She stifled a giant yawn. “I tried, I swear. But I couldn’t sleep knowing he was in there.”
“How’s it going?”
“They came out a little while ago and said it’s taking longer than they expected, but okay, I guess. They said he’ll have full use, but we’re looking at double casts for a while.”
“They’re alive.”
She nodded. “They are alive. I got in touch with Will’s mama. She’s not quite…sober yet. She’s a little angry that everything is in my name. I couldn’t give a fig about the money. It’s not like Jagger doesn’t have enough of it. But the choices… She wants him buried in Alabama.”
I swallowed, my throat instantly tight. “Is that what he wanted?”
“No. He wanted West Point. It was actually a stupid argument we had while we were together. He said that was where he became a man, and that’s where he’d spend his eternity.”
“You didn’t go there, so you couldn’t be buried there,” I guessed.
She nodded, her thumb spinning her wedding ring set. “We never really belonged together. I know that now. I knew it the minute Jagger put his arms around me.” Her teeth bit into her lower lip as she struggled for control, taking a shaky breath. “But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love Will in a different way.”
“I know,” I said, wrapping my arm around her as she dropped her head to my shoulder.
“And I’m so relieved that Jagger’s alive. He’s the other half of me, but I don’t know how to reconcile that joy with the gaping hole in my heart—knowing that I’ll never see Will again.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to be strong for Jagger and still feel like it’s okay to miss Will…like I traded one life for the other.”