34. Sam

Chapter 34

Sam

T he phone drops from my hand. White noise assaults my ears.

Brixton…gunned down…parking lot…they don’t think he’s going to make it.

Jack shakes my shoulder. “Sam, what happened?”

Fear snakes through my bones, whipping around my heart and squeezing it like a vise.

My eyes slowly focus.

“Brixton. He’s in the emergency room. He was…” My voice cracks. “Shot.”

“Fuck.” He looks at me, his brows knitted together. “You want to go to him.”

He doesn’t ask it as a question because he knows. He can see it.

I nod, unable to speak.

He helps me adjust myself with the crutches once he picks them up from the floor. We don’t speak the entire car ride to Mercy. The silence is like clanging gongs. Deafening. Leaving me with nothing to blunt the horrible thoughts racing through my head.

Lunchtime traffic is brutal.

Jack weaves in and out of cars while I clutch the sides of his leather seat, as if digging my fingers into the cushions can somehow be a lifeline for Brixton.

As if I can hold onto him tighter to prevent him from disappearing from my life.

Because much as I hate to admit it, I want…no, need him.

He opened himself up to me and I shut him out.

I was afraid of the damage it would do when he broke my heart.

But it’s nothing compared to the devastation that would ravage me from losing him so tragically.

Scenarios tumble around my mind, each worse than the one before it.

My fingertips numb from pressing into the seats so hard.

It can’t end like this.

He has to pull through. After all he’s been through, after all he’s tried to correct in his life…it’s not fair for him to be yanked so viciously from it.

“You love him,” Jack says quietly.

I lean forward, my head in my hands. “I do. Not that it makes us right for each other. But fuck, I do.”

Jack rubs a hand down my back, his resigned sigh echoing in the small space.

“I hope you get the chance to tell him.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

I sit up straight against the seat. Jack turns the corner toward the hospital entrance and stops short. Police cars block off the road, flashing lights blinding me as Jack lowers his window.

One of the officers walks up to the window, barking about how nobody is getting through. Then he peers into the car, his jaw dropping when he sees us. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. Please go right ahead, gentlemen.”

Jack nods. “Thanks.”

The officer waves us around the barricade and the crowds of people horded around the top of the driveway. There are candles and flowers and pictures all around the perimeter. People hold up lighters, waving them in the brisk breeze, their faces somber. Some are tear-streaked.

Their expressions are like machine gun sucker punches right to my chest.

“It’s like he’s already—” I swallow hard but the words knot in my throat, choking me.

“Don’t say it,” Jack warns. “You won’t know anything until you get inside and talk to someone.”

We pull up to the revolving glass doors and I push open the truck door. I hop out of the truck on my good leg and pull my crutches from the floor of the backseat.

I don’t want to waste a single second.

Who knows how many more he might have?

“Sam, wait, let me help you,” Jack says.

I don’t. I can’t.

One of the crutches gets caught on the side of the door as I’m fishing it out. I give it a good tug and stumble backward a few steps as I pull it free. I stick them under my arms and hobble toward the door. I lean into the glass and give it a push, keeping it moving with my left shoulder. Once I’m inside, the smell of antiseptic cleaner immediately hits my nostrils. My gut churns, bile rising in the back of my throat when I see Allie’s tear-streaked face across the waiting room.

She runs over to me and hugs me tight .

My heart drops into my sneakers.

Please, no…

Chase is right behind her.

And in the corner is Martin, hunched over and hugging Jules tight.

“Is he okay?” I say, my voice hitching. “Tell me he’s going to be okay.”

They exchange a look and my stomach threatens to revolt.

Chase puts a hand on my arm. “Sit down.”

I shake it off. “Fuck that. Don’t coddle me. Just tell me.”

He sighs and brings a hand to the back of his head. “Brixton suffered penetrating cardiac trauma from the gunshots. He’s in surgery now, but…” He trails off for a second and averts his eyes. “There’s a lot of damage to his heart. It’s not looking good.”

“No,” I say. “Don’t you tell me that. He can’t…don’t let him…”

My mind spins like an out-of-control top.

“You can’t let him die. Please. He has to be okay.”

“Look, Sam. You need to understand the severity here. One of the bullets had a clean exit. No damage. But the other one really did a number on him. Tore through his chest and injured the right ventricle and surrounding vessels. I’m not a heart surgeon, but I know the ones working on him are the best in the state. They’re going to do everything they can to keep him alive. But you need to prepare yourself. The damage is extensive and his body is very weak right now from blood loss.”

“And what about the shooter? Does anyone know any fucking thing about the shooter?” My voice rises and people look over at me.

Chase shakes his head. “Security is going through footage on the data feeds from the garage surveillance, but the shooter’s face was covered. Windows tinted. License plate covered. The cops aren’t confident they can find the person, or people, who did this.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” I yell.

“I know, but they can only do so much with what they have. They’re working hard, though. Nobody wants to see this go unsolved. There will be a lot of pressure to find the person, or people, responsible.”

Allie sobs loudly and I tighten my arm around her. “So we’re just supposed to sit around and wait?”

Chase nods. “And pray. Very freaking hard.”

Déjà vu washes over me as I hunch over the top of the pew in the hospital chapel. My mind trips back to the night two years earlier when I was praying for my family and Chase.

How the hell am I here again?

And what will the outcome be this time?

I breathe in the spicy scent of incense.

I ball my hands into fists and pound them on the shiny wood.

Will I be able to tell him how I feel about him?

Or will I have missed my chance because I was too afraid of what might have happened if I was honest with him?

So many questions.

And no answers at all.

The door to the chapel creaks open. I whip my head around, half-panicked about seeing Chase in his white coat.

But it isn’t Chase standing in the doorway.

It’s Allie.

She drops into the pew next to me. “I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”

I nod. “Of course. ”

She swipes at the tears on her cheeks. “It’s so wrong that he’s here right now. He’s a great guy. So few people get to see all the good in him. I know that’s his fault,” she says with a small smile. “But he opened up to you. In the whole time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him smile so big or laugh so hard as he did with you yesterday. I mean, before Martin showed up.”

I shake my head. “How could he say those things to Brixton? And worse, how could he mean them?”

Allie tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Their relationship was always rocky. They pretty much stayed out of each other’s ways. Barely spoke. It had gotten worse as Brixton got older and started the band from what Davis told me. B went kind of rogue for a while, attracting negative attention, getting into trouble. It was all a cry for help, according to Davis. But Martin didn’t know how to deal with it. He never really ‘got’ Brixton. And he definitely never got over losing his wife.”

She leans forward onto the pew, resting her head on her arms. “Both of them are so lost. And they’re hurting badly, especially after losing Davis. They need each other now more than ever.”

“At least he’s here,” I mutter.

“Yes,” she says. “Right where he should be. I just pray that he has the chance to make things right.”

“Did Brixton ever tell you that this is where we first met?”

“Yes, but only a couple of weeks ago. It was when he found out about Chase’s letter.”

“That letter turned him into a raging asshole.” A faraway smile lifts my lips. “It’s the reason why we ended up ‘together’ in the first place. If he hadn’t found it and hadn’t run into me at that bar…”

“So much would be different,” she muses. “But not necessarily better.”

“How do you mean?”

“I believe that everything happens according to a plan. We may not like the plan, but it’s all out of our control. You guys came together for a reason a couple of years ago. I don’t think it was coincidence. You’re connected through Davis because you both need each other. B hit rock bottom when he met you, and you helped him claw his way out of it. And you…I think you felt the need to help him because of what Davis gave to your family. I saw how you defended him at the press conference. It was deeper than just a surface-level show. And based on what I saw at my house, you found someone who could light you up in a way you never thought possible. Call it divine intervention or whatever you want. You were meant to find each other. You’re better together.”

I stare at her. “How could you possibly know?—?”

She shrugs. “I’m a bit of a hockey fan. I know all about you and Jack Larsen. You may have been America’s puckhearts, but I never saw you glow like a candle when you guys were photographed together. Not the way you did with Brixton yesterday. And I saw you for all of, what? Half an hour before all hell broke loose?”

“You’re pretty perceptive.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my job.”

I drum my fingers on the top of the pew. “You know, for whatever it’s worth, I always believed we were supposed to find each other again. I didn’t know how it might happen but I knew that night that when the circumstances were right, we’d run into each other. And I never told anyone but my brother Chase about meeting him that night. I always felt it was too personal. Too intimate.”

I cover my face with my hands. “And when it came time to tell him the most personal, intimate thing of all, I pulled away. I told him I didn’t want to be with him, that he needed to figure his own shit out. That I wasn’t in it.” Tears sting my eyes. “The last words I spoke to him were lies because I was too chicken shit to tell him the truth. He trusted me, but I couldn’t trust him back. I broke us, and now I might never get the chance to fix us.”