He lay there stunned from the hit for long moments, and I stalked forward, shaking out my fist. Straddling his body, I leaned down and grabbed a handful of his shirt, yanking his upper body off the floor.
His nose was bleeding all over the lower half of his face, but seeing him bleed didn’t give me any satisfaction.
“If you so much as breathe even an ounce of this hate near Drew and fuck up his recovery,” I growled, pulling him up a little farther off the floor, “I. Will. Kill. You.”
“Did you hear that?” Burke wailed like the chickenshit he was. “That was a threat! Call the police!”
I shoved him down, his body hitting the floor like a ragdoll. “I make promises. Not threats.”
Scrambling to his feet, he looked at his wife and then Ivy. “You see? This is what I’m trying to keep away from my son!”
I laughed. “If you were that worried about your son, you wouldn’t let him lie in the hospital room alone while you stand out here and toss insults at me.”
Adrienne gasped and went rushing down the hall.
“What kind of mother needs reminding of that?” I muttered.
“Why don’t we take a walk, son? Cool off.” Anthony cajoled, putting his arm around me to lead me away from Burke.
“I can’t go anywhere.” I protested.
“Just to the end of the hall,” he said.
“Just leave and don’t come back,” Burke said, his voice nasally.
I turned, pinning him with a hard glare. He faltered and took a step back, then hurried away, and I didn’t ask where he was going. Maybe to clean the up the blood dripping all over his face.
“I’ll stay with Drew,” Ivy offered, giving me a tentative look.
I softened, looking at her. She was afraid I would blame her for her father’s bigotry. “Thanks, sis,” I said, deliberately calling her that. “I won’t worry as much if I know you are beside him.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
I shook my head. “Don’t do that, okay? I know.”
Her arms went around my middle, her face buried into my chest. I hugged her back, trying to offer her comfort but unable to take any.
When she pulled back, she went down the hall toward Drew’s room, and I stared after her longingly.
“What can we do?” Braeden asked, bringing me back to the moment.
Anthony stepped into the empty waiting room, and we followed. He sat, and I dropped into a seat beside him. A wave of dizziness swept over me, but I pushed it back.
“You could file a suit petitioning for guardianship,” he told me but then shook his head. “But honestly, you won’t win. You have no legal claim to Drew.”
I dropped my head into my hands.
“As a lawyer, my first recommendation would be to try and work out a compromise with the other party… but considering what just happened.”
“He deserved a lot more than one punch,” I growled.
“So if Trent can’t take away his next of kin status, is there anyone else who could?” Braeden asked.
“A blood relative,” he answered. “Maybe Ivy.”
“No,” Braeden and I said at the same time.
Shaking my head firmly, I continued. “I’m not putting Drew’s sister in the middle of this. It’s already bad enough. I’m not doing that to her.”
Braeden slapped me on the back. “I appreciate that, man.”
“The easiest thing you can realistically do is wait for Drew to wake up.” Mr. Anderson surmised. “When he does, he will ask for Trent. It won’t matter what his father says or wants, because Drew will be able to decide for himself.”
A heinous, sickening thought haunted me. I started to speak, but I couldn’t choke out the words. Both men looked at me, concerned.
Clearing my throat, balling my fists in my lap, I pushed the words out. “What if… what if he has a…?” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to put it out there.
“What if he has some brain damage.” Braeden finished for me.
“Ah.” Romeo’s dad considered. “Well, if Drew is, ah, incapacitated…”
I made a sound.
“Then his father would be in charge of his care.”
I burst up out of the chair, wobbling from the force of the movement. “I—I c-can’t.” My voice cracked, and all I could think about was getting out. I had to get away.
“Trent.” B grabbed me, but I pushed him off.
“Let me go.” I begged, heading for the door.
Before stepping away, I turned back. “Please don’t leave him here alone.”
“I swear.” B vowed.
I made it into the elevator where I was blissfully alone. The second the doors cut me off from everyone else, I slid down the wall and cried.
14
Trent
* * *
Despite the strong desire to get away, I didn’t go far.
I couldn’t.
I was invisibly tethered to the man who lay upstairs.
Tethered by friendship.
Tethered by love.
And now tethered by blood.
He was such a part of me that sometimes it felt we were the same person.
But it didn’t matter. How could it not matter?
How could black and white words typed on paper mean more than feelings, more than physical bonds? How was it that a man consumed with so much hate could have the advantage over those who loved to the fullest?
This was why. Why I thought I’d been doing the right thing. Why I’d built the life we had.
I thought I was protecting Drew.
Was everything I believed wrong?
Maybe not wrong, but narrow-minded?
I laughed out loud at the thought. The hollow sound echoed through the empty hallway I’d escaped to.
Narrow-minded. It was comical and borderline ridiculous that I would consider myself this way, especially after everything that just went on upstairs.
Ever since our first kiss—hell, ever since I realized that I loved Drew as more than a friend—I had one goal.
Protect him.
I was zealously protective of Drew. Not only because I loved him, but because he loved me. Drew loving me was literally the most significant, precious gift that I would ever get, and it almost hurt to accept that love because I knew what a heavy price he would pay for giving it.
Once upon a time, I’d even tried to end the relationship before it barely even got started. Drew fought for us that night, and in the end, I couldn’t deny him anything. I couldn’t push him away.
So shielding us became my number one goal.
And now, as I sat here on this cold tile floor in an empty hallway of a hospital wing that quite possibly was abandoned, I considered something.
Perhaps I’d protected us too well.
Perhaps in my compulsive need to keep us safe, I’d actually made us vulnerable. And in that, I’d been too narrow-minded.
Instead of considering the world at large, I’d created one of my own.
How else could I explain the stunned shock still trembling my organs, still making it hard to draw in a breath? If I hadn’t been so narrow-minded, so trusting in the small world I’d created, I might have seen this coming.
I might have been able to block the attack.
I didn’t.
And now here I was. Here we were.
Drew and I weren’t so naive that we thought everyone accepted same-sex relationships. Hell, we knew entirely too well they didn’t. We both had been disowned by our parents. I’d been attacked and beaten, and there was a time when Drew thought he might lose his job.
In addition to that, the hate comments online overflowed. The disgusted looks and the muttered slurs never went away.
I think I’d become too good at blocking it all out. At keeping it away from us. Drew and I lived in a little bubble, a safe bubble of acceptance, and within it, we flourished.
Our blood might have shunned us, but our family enveloped us. Gamble opened his
home and took on an “underdog” in love with another man as the face of the NRR. GearShark Magazine, who had major influence and brand recognition, gave us a platform to tell our story and to gain support.
It wasn’t that we didn’t know how cruel the world was. It was that we created our own world where love was all that mattered.
I’d shielded us too well behind the walls of our family compound, behind the gates at the NRR, and by ignoring the majority of the hate flung at us online. We remained private but not secretive. Open but not in-your-face.
I’d thought it was the best thing.
I was a fool.
I didn’t want to rock the boat, mess with the perfection we’d found. I was afraid if we got married, it might shift something irrevocably.
Something shifted all right. But it wasn’t because we were married. It was because we weren’t.
Not fully committing to him, being openly together but not obtrusively married, was the most dangerous thing I could have done to Drew.
And now he was lying upstairs, victim to not only a horrible accident, but to his parents who only wanted to control him instead of love him.
If I had asked him to marry me, I would still be at his side. If I had taken a chance that a change in our relationship would have made it better instead of ripping it apart, then things might be different right now.
There was so much regret inside me. Could I have prevented that accident? Could I have protected him from his parents? Was he lying upstairs scared and feeling abandoned?
Letting my head fall into my hands, I felt the world tilt around me.
I messed up, Drew. How am I going to fix this?
15
Trent
* * *
It had only been an hour, but I needed to see him. The tug in the center of my body made me ache. My soul wanted him and rebelled against me for not being there. I had no doubt if it could escape its own body and go to Drew, it would.
Hell, the ache was so severe I considered cutting a hole in me to set it free.
The hallway was empty when I came around the corner, and I didn’t hesitate. I went briskly down the hall as if I weren’t doing something that would cause a ruckus. It wasn’t even necessary for me to go in the room. It would be enough just to see him, to gaze at him through the window or through a crack in the door.
Anything to reassure myself that he was okay would be better than not knowing.
Someone walked by, making me immediately duck my head. Nerves gripped the back of my neck and my shoulders tensed, but I kept going. The door to his room was ajar. My eyes briefly closed in thanks.
Glancing around once more, I crept close, peeking around the corner toward Drew’s bed.
It was empty.
Forgetting all about the rules and the care I took to be inconspicuous, I let the door hit the wall when I shoved it wide and barged into the room.
“Where is he?” I demanded, my eyes frantically searching every corner of the room. Rushing into the bathroom, I looked in there too.
Rationally, I knew he wouldn’t be there. He was in a coma, for fuck sake. He wasn’t taking a piss, but rationale didn’t factor into the intensity of my internal freak-out.
As I hurried toward the empty bed, all oxygen stuck in my throat.
A rough, hard grip wrapped around my forearm and pulled. “I thought I told you that you aren’t welcome in this room.”
“Where’s Drew?” I asked, my chest heaving from lack of breath.
“That’s not any of your concern.” Burke sniffed.
His nose was swollen, and there was dried blood on his nostrils. One of his eyes was blackening, but I didn’t give a damn.
“Everything about Drew is my concern.” He was still holding my arm, and I wrenched it away.
“I could take my son out of this hospital and put him somewhere else, and you would have absolutely no say.”
“You can’t do that,” I said, reaching out to steady myself on the side of the bed.
The empty bed.
Dear God, did this man somehow arrange to have Drew transferred this fast? Would he really put his own son at risk by moving him while he was in a coma?
He wouldn’t…
“I most definitely can.”
My stomach was hollow and empty, yet I felt it heaving up whatever was inside into my throat. “Please just tell me where he is. Is he okay?”
I thought I saw a flicker of something in Burke’s eyes. Humanity maybe? But it was there and gone so fast I couldn’t decide.
Folding his arms over his chest, he glared. “You know this is your fault, right?”
“What?” I asked, trying to keep up. Why wasn’t he answering?
“Drew is in a coma right now. He almost died because of you.”
“I checked the car,” I said weakly. “I had the entire team go over his car.”
“He wouldn’t even have been in that car if you hadn’t convinced him to defy his family and become a driver.”
“That’s what he wanted. Drew has always wanted to drive. You know that.”
“All I know is that cars were just a hobby to him until he met you and turned his back on everything he was raised to be.”
I looked around the room again. “Did the doctor come get him? The nurse?”
“This is your fault.” He persisted, taking a step closer.
I felt like something terrible was closing in, like I was being cornered and trapped. My instinct wasn’t to fight back, though. Oddly, it was to fold in on myself. To retreat.
Where is Drew?
“I take responsibility for the accident,” I admitted. “It was my fault. I didn’t want this to happen…”
“If you had left him alone, if you hadn’t dragged him down with you, he wouldn’t be being punished right now.”
“Punished?” I questioned.
“Punished for this lifestyle. For…” His face twisted in disgust. “For living with another man.”
I made a choked sound, incredulous. “You think this happened to Drew because he’s gay?”
“My son isn’t gay. But you are. And my son got caught up in your punishment.”
The room tilted. I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying and not know about Drew at the same time.
“If you had just stayed away from him, he wouldn’t be like this. He wouldn’t be gone.”
All the noise in the room stopped. The silence was deafening. All my organs dropped toward my feet, and the soul still trying to tug out of my chest seemed to wither. “G-gone?”
“Whoever will you latch onto now that my son is not here?” the man taunted.
But I didn’t notice the provoking tone. All I heard were the words. All I felt was my entire life collapsing around me.
I sank onto the floor, the side of the bed the only thing keeping me upright. I felt as though I’d been dropped underwater. Like I was sinking deep below the surface of the sea. It weighed me down, made me sluggish, and muted the entire world around me.
Someone dropped down in front of me, shaking my shoulder and calling out my name.
Ivy.
Her face was pale, her blue eyes wide. I saw her lips moving. I saw her shaking me, but I heard nothing. I felt nothing.
Suddenly, she was gone. A much larger form dropped down in front of me. Blond hair. Blue eyes.
“Drew,” I said, reaching out, grabbing a fistful of his T-shirt.
“He’s fine,” a voice that was not Drew’s replied.
I blinked.
Grabbing me, giving me a rough shake, Romeo spoke again. “Trent, Drew is fine. He’s getting a CT scan.”
I yanked his shirt, aggressively pulling him close. “He’s okay?”
“I swear. He’s getting tests done. He’ll be back up in a few.”
Relief poured into me, restarting my life and filling my lungs with air. “Thank God,” I whispered, then grabbed Rome’s shirt again. “You swear?”
“I don’t lie to family.” Romeo confir
med, holding my stare directly. “C’mon, let’s walk downstairs and see how it’s going.”
I pushed up off the floor, Romeo giving me a hand.
Ivy bounced from foot to foot near Braeden, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adrienne standing on the other side of the room.
“What the hell did you say to him?” Romeo snarled, turning toward Drew’s dad.
“The truth.”
“He said Drew was gone,” I echoed, still feeling the boney, ice-cold fingers of death piercing my heart.
Ivy made a sound. “How could you? I told you how much they love each other. I begged you not to do this. Why won’t you listen?”
“How could I?” Burke said, staring at his daughter. “How could you?”
“Me?”
“Burke.” Adrienne intercepted meekly on behalf of her daughter.
Clearly, B thought it was just as meek as I did, because he stepped forward and spoke to his father-in-law in a calm, deadly manner. “There is a limit to my patience. My wife is off-limits to your sewage.”
Burke glanced between Ivy and Braeden for a few moments, then relented.
Ivy turned her back on him and came to my side. “Let’s go check on Drew,” she said, reaching for my hand. As she did, she realized it wasn’t empty. “What’s this?” she asked, gesturing to the bag I’d forgotten about in my hands.
“I got it for Drew.”
“Let’s go give it to him.” Ivy took my hand, and we started for the door.
“You’re sure he’s downstairs?”
“Positive,” she said.
“I meant what I said.” Burke’s voice stopped me at the door. When I glanced over my shoulder, I couldn’t see him because Romeo and Braeden had formed a formidable wall between me and Ivy and her parents.
Romeo hitched his chin at me to keep walking, to just ignore whatever he was about to say.
“If you won’t stay away from Drew, I’ll have him moved. I’ll put him somewhere none of you will be able to find him.”
All the blood drained from my face.
“This is one of the best hospitals in the country,” Romeo snapped, spinning around. “Moving him would only set him back.”
#Fate Page 7