20. Alex

CHAPTER 20

ALEX

The nurse was none too pleased when she came in to check on Dylan and found him half on top of me, drooling a puddle the size of the Atlantic Ocean on the middle of my chest.

“You look like the kind of man who should know better,” she chided.

“I’m also the kind of man who doesn’t care.”

She grunted, then checked Dylan’s vitals and updated the white board at the foot of his bed.

“They’ll be coming shortly to take him for an MRI and then I expect he’ll be released.”

“Okay.”

Dylan stirred, groaning when he shifted toward his injured shoulder. I used my body to shove him onto his back before he put too much pressure on the injury. The shift involved me climbing out of his bed, which earned the nurse’s approval and Dylan’s dismay.

“Do you have your keys?” I asked him.

Dylan blinked at me, beyond groggy, mouth pulled into a deep frown.

“To your apartment,” I clarified.

“There’s a bag in here somewhere,” he said.

I looked around, finding the plastic bag on the windowsill. His clothes were folded neatly inside, and on top of his pants I found his dead cell phone, the screen shattered, and a carabiner with four keys on it.

“Are these them?” I asked, holding it up.

“The one with the yellow,” he said.

I shoved the keys into my pocket and sat on the side of his bed, the position I’d spent most of the previous night in before lying down beside him.

“They’re going to get your MRI done before they discharge you.” I told him what the nurse had said. “So I’m going to go get you a change of clothes and come back so we can head out once they cut you loose.”

He opened his mouth and slowly closed it. “Okay,” he said.

My eyebrows went up because I couldn’t believe I’d actually watched the protest die on his lips. He huffed and dropped his head back against the pathetically flat pillow.

“Can I shower there?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?”

“Tate wanted me to call him,” Dylan said, gesturing toward the bag of his belongings. “He wanted to pick me up.”

“Your phone is dead,” I told him, “but we can go to Brooks’ after we leave here if you want to.”

Dylan licked his lips. “Yes, please.”

The soft agreement did something to me, heat blooming at the base of my spine and between my legs. The hospital was no place to get an erection, least of all with Dylan trussed up in a sling and on pain medication.

And yet…

“I love it when you listen,” I said, brushing his hair back from his face and kissing his forehead.

He whimpered, body swaying toward me as much as the sling and the sheets would allow.

“I’ll try.”

I swiped my thumb down his temple and stood. “It’s okay. I like it when you fight too.”

Dylan snorted, cheeks flushing.

“Rest until they come get you,” I said again. “I’ll be back soon.”

I was reluctant to leave Dylan, but I needed to get him something to wear out of here that wasn’t his dirt-stained work clothes. With one last look, I stepped into the glaringly bright hospital hallway. I stopped at the nurse’s station and waited for her to look up at me.

“Where is your billing department?” I asked her.

“Fourth floor, west corner.”

“Thanks.” I tapped my hand against the counter. “How long do you think until he’s ready to go?”

“Probably after lunch.”

I checked my watch, relieved that after lunch meant I had enough time to not just get Dylan clothes, but to get fresh clothes for myself as well.

“Thank you,” I told her again.

On my way downstairs, I stopped by the billing department and put my Amex on file for whatever his stay ended up costing, then I called a car and headed across town. Stepping into my house felt like a time warp, so jarring to my equilibrium I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling over. I’d only been gone for one night, but so much had happened.

So much had changed.

I kicked my sneakers off and jogged upstairs to my bedroom, stripping out of my clothes as I went. Brooks, Tate, and I had departed from the farm in such a rush, I’d left my bag behind, including my toiletries. I did what I could with water and a toothbrush, then hopped into the shower and rinsed the stink and sick of the hospital off. I was looking forward to getting Dylan away from that place, bringing him back and giving him the same treatment, though I would probably be softer with my hands against his skin than I was with my own. Freshly showered, I dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, then headed out to get clothes for Dylan.

I don’t know what I expected to find at his apartment, but it wasn’t a dozen empty water bottles strewn across the floor of his bedroom, an unmade bed, and a pile of dirty clothes that reached toward the ceiling. Practically nothing he owned was clean, save for a pair of black basketball shorts that looked like they were probably pajamas, and a t-shirt that was the least wrinkled thing on top of the pile.

Digging under Dylan’s bed, I found a duffel bag, and I shoved the dirty clothes into it. I’d deal with getting them washed once he was settled at my house. I noticed his belongings were a mix of designer labels and discount brands, which indicated to me he’d been struggling without his parents’ money longer than he’d admitted to me or to Tate. I figured there would be other things he’d want to bring over, but we’d deal with all of that after he was discharged.

The one thing that was notably absent from the mess in his room was his guitar. He hadn’t made any mention of it at the hospital, nor had he asked about it, which led me to believe he either knew where it was or he knew he wouldn’t get it back. I imagined the topic would come up sooner rather than later, even though the injury to his shoulder meant he wasn’t going to be playing for the foreseeable future anyway.

God.

That had to be the worst of it, and when it clicked into perspective for me, I was suddenly worried that Dylan hadn’t brought it up at all. Guitar was his life, music, all of it, and to have it physically and emotionally taken from him all at once? It was the one thing he’d been actively trying to avoid for as long as I’d known him.

Sighing, I zipped up his duffel and locked the door behind me.

I made it back to the hospital and found Dylan sitting up in bed, looking more alert than he had the night before. He poked his spoon into a tub of orange Jello, cursing under his breath.

“Do you want help?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“No,” he snapped, jaw set.

“Alright.” He was going to be a handful. “Well, help is here if you need it.”

“Sure.”

“Glad to see you’re back to your old self.” I shoved off the door and stepped into the room, ignoring the glare he leveled at me on my way in. “Did they have something to say about your shoulder?”

“Not yet.”

Dylan gave up trying to scoop the Jello out of the tub and instead sucked it straight into his mouth like the world’s largest Jello shot. How it didn’t choke him to death, I didn’t know, but I definitely wasn’t going to make a joke about it.

“They are discharging me before the doctor reviews the results,” he said.

I dropped the clean-ish clothes I’d picked up for him onto the foot of the bed.

“I assume you don’t want help changing either?”

“You’d assume right.”

“Do you want privacy?” I asked.

He shoved the table away from the bed and scowled up at me. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

I stepped out of the room, leaning against the wall and pulling my phone out of my pocket. There was no way Dylan was going to be able to get his shirt on without help, but I’d let him come to that conclusion on his own. While I waited, I texted Brooks to let him know Dylan and I would be coming over, sliding the device back into my pocket when the nurse brushed past me and into the room.

“Everything okay?” I asked, following her in, my pulse immediately spiking.

“Just time to get Mr. Rivers signed out of here,” she said to both of us. Dylan was half out of the hospital gown, boxers on and shorts halfway up his legs. “Careful there, sweetheart. Let me help.”

She went to him, fussing over the hospital gown and the sling, far more meddlesome than I would have been…and he let her. He caught my eye over her shoulder, his stare steady and unreadable, but the grimace every time she jostled his shoulder was impossible to miss. I was just about to step in and push her off, but Dylan must have read my intent.

“She’s got it,” he said through a pained grunt.

So…

This was how it was going to be.

Better to get myself ready for it now than get him home and think it was going to be any other way. I’d told him I could handle the fight, that I liked it, and that wasn’t a lie. The question, though, was if he was going to like what the fight got him.

We’d both find out sooner rather than later.

Discharge went quickly and gratefully the topic of payment never came up. Dylan was not going to be pleased that I was covering the stay, but I wasn’t about to hear any argument over it either. It was something he’d have to learn to deal with if he wanted to be with me, which he said he did.

He remained silent and cranky the whole drive to Brooks’ penthouse, his anger only mounting further when I refused to give him the bottle of pain meds the pharmacy at the hospital had sent him home with.

“I’ll take care of this,” I told him, tucking the orange bottle into my pocket and out of his reach. The unspoken part of the statement, of course, was…I’ll take care of you .

Tate was asleep when we arrived, but the sound of our voices in the kitchen must have woke him because he ran down the stairs fast as a flashflood. Hearing his footsteps, Dylan climbed off the barstool he’d been perched on and met his friend with a hug. Brooks and I were on the other side of the island, quietly observing the reunion.

“Do you want some water?” I asked. “Coffee?”

“Water, I think.” Tate answered, but got it for himself before Brooks could manage the task He took a small sip and glanced up at me, eyes clearly still tired. “Thank you for picking him up.”

I didn’t know what to say, but Tate didn’t care to hear it anyway. He took the water over to Dylan, who had moved to stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows of Brooks’ kitchen. The two of them huddled together, talking in hushed tones, barely louder than the slow exhale of my own breath.

“Can you do this?” Brooks asked me.

“I can only do what he lets me,” I said.

“Is he going to?” he asked. “This time?”

“I think so.”

I hoped so.

I knew I could be what he needed, what he wanted. And being those things was also what I wanted. It wasn’t Dylan filling a hole that Beamer had left behind. It was a new shape, a new space entirely, made especially for him. If we couldn’t make things work this time, I was simply going to be left with the void.

“Dylan,” I called to him across the kitchen, “it’s time for your meds.”

I dropped the pill into his hand and slid him a glass of water. He made a show of taking the pill, cursing me under his breath before he swallowed.

“I’m not going to kill myself, asshole.”

Then he stalked back to Tate.

Brooks, the asshole that he was, laughed at me. Not loud enough for Tate or Dylan to hear. It was a soft noise meant only for my ears, and it sounded half like sympathy, half like understanding.

I flipped him off, finishing Tate’s water while the two friends continued their conversation. It didn’t look happy. In fact, Tate looked downright incensed at most of what Dylan had to say, but then the two of them laughed and Dylan took a half step away. He was beyond exhausted, the sag in his good shoulder and the curve of his spine clear indicators he was about to drop.

“I need to get him home,” I told Brooks.

“I’ll work on softening Tate.”

I gave him a tight smile, hoping it would be enough.

“You’re a better man than the rest of us, Alex,” Brooks said, “I hope you know that.”

I didn’t want to hear it, so I shook my head and lifted my chin in Dylan’s direction.

“Are you ready?”

If he had more energy, I knew he would have had a name to call me, but all I got was a slightly annoyed, “Yes.”

I stretched my arm out toward him and he closed the space between us, like there was a line from Tate to me, and Dylan was pulled strung the two. I stopped myself from kissing the top of his head, and even as he grumbled goodbyes to Tate and Brooks, he pressed into my side and whispered,

“Green.”