“Nothing to say. Haul ass, Nelson.” Harper turned away from him.
Fuck. Zack might never make this right again. They’d been friends once upon, leaning on each other to make it through BUD/S, celebrating together when they got their tridents. His worst fears were coming true. Fuck Cobb. And to top off, real pain continued to bloom in his lower gut, radiating up to his shoulder.
He pushed on, setting a faster pace to try to appease Harper. However, each step felt like wading through concrete, his muscles screaming.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” The pain in his side worsened, gut burning like he’d been shot. He pulled up short. Maybe he just needed to grab his breath, but he couldn’t go on.
“What the fuck, Nelson?”
“I’m...sick,” he admitted, each word costing him.
“Christ, really? You know what? Bring on the women on the teams. A girl would be better than you.”
“Sorry.” Zack tried to take a few steps forward, but his legs buckled. He turned sharply, reaching out to Harper.
“Fuck no. Don’t touch me. Is this some gay thing? Trying to get me to play doctor with you?” Each of Harper’s words sliced through Zack’s pain, creating fresh wounds.
“No. I...wouldn’t. Not...a come-on.” Zack’s words had to be forced out around this rising pain. “Sick.”
“And I said get moving. I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got the sniffles—”
“Harper,” Zack cried out as the pain reached a new, fresh level of hell. He fell to his knees, white blooming behind his eyes.
“Oh fuck. You’re not kidding me, are you?” For the first time, Harper seemed concerned, but it was too late. The pain was taking over and Zack collapsed into the muck, oblivion taking him. Pike. Oh fuck. Pike. What if he never saw him again? No. Not an option. Trying to summon the last dredges of his energy, he fought against the pain, but the pain was a brutal motherfucker and it was winning. He was vaguely aware of Harper bellowing into his headset about him being down and then...nothing.
Chapter Nineteen
Pike thumped his head against his desk. His latest quiz for Intro to Stats had yielded predictably dismal results. Thanks to Rosemary’s lead, more of the students had been seeking him out after class and for his office hours, and one-on-one he thought he was getting through to them, but as a whole, the class was still way underperforming. It was weird how much he cared about not flunking half the class. He had three pages of notes already for how he wanted to reorganize the class if he got the permanent job—new syllabus, new textbook, new activities. He wanted his students to get it right, wanted them to succeed, wanted more of those sparks of knowledge he could see when he worked with certain students.
Wait. What about some sort of bonus to bring their grades up for the students this term? Not from the book, but more of the real-world problems he’d been trying with Rosemary and the others? Setting aside the quiz grading, he turned to his office desktop, but he hadn’t done more than get the word processing program open when his cell phone rang.
Please don’t be Hector. Pike still hadn’t heard from Zack and it had been over a week. He was about to crawl out of his skin, and the last thing he needed was Hector pushing for an interview when he hadn’t had a chance to talk things over with Zack.
He looked down at the screen. Ryan. Huh. That was weird. Ryan had texted him maybe once or twice about game or party-related stuff, but they weren’t exactly close friends the way he was with Josiah.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answered the phone.
“Pike. Did I catch you at work?” Ryan’s voice was cautious, which set Pike’s skin prickling.
“Yeah, next class in an hour, but I’m just grading right now. You know how that goes.” Once a SEAL, Ryan was now a high-school teacher in Santa Monica.
“Endless.” Ryan’s laugh sounded forced. “Listen, buddy, could you do me a favor and shut your office door? I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”
Heart thumping, Pike quickly crossed to his door and shut it. Not bothering with getting back to his desk, he slumped in the visitor’s chair. “What’s wrong? Is it Jos?”
“Not Josiah.” Ryan inhaled sharply. “It’s Zack.”
Boom. Pike’s world detonated. “Is he—”
“He’s alive,” Ryan said quickly. “But very sick. He had a ruptured appendix while out on the training mission. They flew to the closest base where they did one surgery, but then the infection spread, and they brought him back to San Diego for more intensive treatment, and he had a second surgery.”
“What? How many days has he been sick?” Pike’s mind was spinning.
“A few. I’m not sure myself. I just got a call from someone I know who’s still with the teams.”
“Why didn’t they call me?” Pike couldn’t keep the anguish out of his voice.
Ryan didn’t reply, and that silence spoke volumes. Of course no one had called him. He wasn’t next of kin, wasn’t tied in to the SEAL network—almost no one even knew of his existence apart from the senior chief. He would have thought maybe the senior chief would call, but for all Pike knew some HIPAA nonsense prevented him from talking to nonfamily members about medical stuff. Or maybe—
“I don’t know,” Ryan said finally. “The rest of the team stayed behind to finish their training, I’m pretty sure. But you’re...not—”
“Family. I get it.” Words were not Pike’s friend as he struggled to speak. “But I can still go see him, right? He’s back in San Diego at the medical center?”
“Yeah, but about that...” Ryan paused, and Pike died a thousand deaths waiting for the next bit of bad news. Did Zack not want to see him? “Listen, you know Zack’s family situation, right? Conservative-as-hell parents. Well, word is that they flew out, and they’re probably at the hospital—”
“I don’t care. I have to see him.” Leaping to his feet, Pike paced in front of his desk.
“Had a feeling you were going to say that.” Ryan’s laugh was strained. “So I’m tying up some stuff here, then coming down first thing tomorrow. I’ll go with you, run some interference with the family—”
“No. Today. I have to see him today.”
“You can’t—”
“Out him. I know.” Pike didn’t need a warning lecture from Ryan. “I’m just a friend. I can do that.”
Ryan’s harsh laugh said he didn’t exactly believe him.
“I can. I have to go see him.”
“Okay. I’m still coming tomorrow, but let me tell you what I know so far.”
Pike’s brain was mush, so he grabbed a scratch pad and a pen and wrote down what Ryan told him about where in the sprawling Naval Medical Center Zack was. Seriously, his mind was oatmeal, and his hand shook writing down the information. He needed to get to Zack right that minute, not wait—
“Fuck. My class.”
“Can you cancel?”
“Gonna have to.” This was not going to look great for Pike’s reputation, but no way could he go in front of a classroom of students. He ended the call with Ryan and went off in search of the administrative assistant who handled things like scheduling for the department.
However, on his way there he ran into Professor Hu. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed. “Nelson? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Pike started to lie, then couldn’t hold it together, hands shaking all over again. “No. Zack—my roommate—is sick. Really sick. And I just now found out and—”
“You need to get to him and you’re a wreck?” She patted his arm. “Been there.”
“Zack and I...he’s not...that is, we’re not...”
“It’s okay. I get it. Years ago, Joanna was in a car accident. Hospital called her family instead of me. No one let me know, and then her family wouldn’t let me see her. They’re somewhat better the
se days, but back then it was a mess.”
“Yeah. Pretty much that.” God, it felt so good to talk to someone who got it. “No one knows, not really. Two of our friends, but even that was an accident. And now he’s sick and I don’t know...” His voice broke.
“What do you need?” Her dark eyes were kind, and her hand on his arm was a steadying force, keeping him from collapsing onto the carpeting.
“I can’t teach my afternoon class.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll have Madeline put up a cancellation notice on the door. Now, do you need a ride to the hospital? Joanna works over there as a nurse practitioner. I can have her meet us—”
“No. I don’t know what I’m walking into over there,” Pike admitted. “Probably better to go alone.”
“Do you have my personal cell number?” She pulled her phone out. “I’m texting you now. I want you to call me if you need anything. And drive safe.”
“I will.” Pike’s heart seemed lodged somewhere up near his sinuses, making it hard to function, but he managed to nod with what he hoped was gratitude.
Professor Hu gathered him into a swift hug. “We’re family here, Pike. Don’t forget it.”
Pike nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“And that boy cares about you. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”
“I won’t.” I hope. He hurried to his car in the faculty lot, heading to the sprawling Naval Medical complex, which encompassed many different buildings and clinics and a confusing array of parking options. He accidentally parked a long way from the main hospital where Zack was, but he used the long walk to try to calm himself, not that it worked.
Following Ryan’s directions, he finally reached the post-surgical floor. He paused outside Zack’s room, taking a breath.
“Look, here’s texts from Leslie and Paster Wooten. The whole congregation is praying for you.” A woman’s voice carried out to the hall.
Flattening himself against the wall, Pike peeked in. A curtain blocked Zack from view, but two middle-aged adults huddled near the bed. The man held a worn leather book in his hand, and the woman’s eyes and cheeks were pink, like she’d been crying. She held out a phone and a pale but muscular hand covered in tape and IVs reached out for it.
Zack. Pike had to shut his eyes against the rush of emotion that swamped him.
“That was nice of them.” Zack’s voice was high and thready and didn’t sound like the man Pike knew. “Tell them thank you. Leslie’s always...so sweet.”
Fuck. I can’t go in there. It hit Pike like the wet slap of an ocean wave he wasn’t expecting, knocking him flat, making him hang on to the wall for balance, grief threatening to pull him under. He stumbled to a waiting area at the end of the hall. I really can’t go in there.
He’d thought he could. Thought he could come here, be the casual friend who happened to stop by, not even mention the roommate thing if Zack didn’t. But he couldn’t. No way could he go in there. His feelings for Zack would be all over his face. He couldn’t not reach for him, not touch him. And if Zack was going to continue to play it straight, pretending interest in some girl...
Well, Pike’s heart just wasn’t strong enough for that.
I love him. The knowledge had been building slowly for weeks, but now, seeing Zack laid low like this, being so close and yet so far away, he couldn’t deny his feelings. And that love would be transparent if he ran in there like his heart and feet demanded. And he couldn’t do that to Zack, couldn’t be the one to out him to people Zack loved and cared about.
Pike hunkered down in his seat. All he could do was the one thing he hated more than anything in the world—wait.
* * *
Zack hurt. He’d broken his leg in a nasty parachuting accident during jump training, so he knew pain, but this hurt was something different, a deep cellular-level ache where even his fingernails hurt, and the drugs they were pumping him full of couldn’t touch the pain. He didn’t remember much after telling Harper he was sick. A brief vision of Morrison screaming for a chopper. Waking up in a strange hospital room, hot and miserable but not able to stay awake. Hurting. Being prepped for transport. A nice medic talking to him in a Southern accent. Waking up here, still hurting. Doctors talking in hushed tones. More hurting.
Then today, waking up, more alert, his parents there, crying over him because apparently he’d almost died a couple of times over. That was hard to wrap his head around so he just flat-out didn’t try. Trying to keep up a conversation was hard, so he did a lot of nodding.
And through it all, he wanted Pike. He’d had one or both parents in there all day, even when he drifted off for a bit, and it was killing him, not knowing where Pike was, if he even knew Zack was sick. He needed him here and he wasn’t and that was its own level of pain.
“You should go eat,” he urged his parents after one of the nurses left from checking his vitals. His voice still sounded strange to him, hoarse and high at the same time. The nurse had told him he might get food tomorrow, alerting him to the fact that he hadn’t seen his folks eat. “Really. I’m tired again.”
“Tired? Do you feel hot?” His mother hovered over him, her hand cool on his forehead.
“No fever. The nurse said my temperature is normal. I’m okay, I promise.” Actually, he was dying. Dying to contact Pike, to hear his voice, to know he was okay.
“Joe? What do you think?” As always she deferred to his father. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.” His father stretched in the chair he’d occupied most of the day. “And so should you. It’s late back home. We can come back after we eat in the cafeteria.”
“Yeah, I’ll probably sleep.” Zack knew he didn’t have to work to look exhausted. “But in case I don’t, did they give you guys my cell?”
“Your phone?” His mother shook her head. “They didn’t give us anything of yours. Do you need me to call someone for you?”
Yes. “Nah. That’s okay. Go on. Get food.” He waved them out of the room. Wasn’t like he had Pike’s number memorized, unfortunately.
Keep telling yourself that’s why you didn’t ask for her phone. His neck ached if he moved too fast and his head swam, but he did a quick view of the room. No phone that he could see. There was a call button for the nurse, but was “I need to contact my boyfriend” really something he should bug them with?
His finger hovered over the button. He was just about to press the button when someone came around the curtain.
“I need—” His mouth opened and shut with no words coming out, because there, as if he’d conjured him with his sheer force of want, was Pike. A very rumpled, stressed-looking Pike. He was in professor clothes—white shirt, wrinkled khakis, tie askew. You. I need you.
“You’re here,” he said stupidly.
“Yeah.” Pike blinked a lot, then scrubbed at his face. “Is that okay?”
“More than.” Zack’s face felt weirdly stretched. Huh. Probably his first smile in days. “My parents just left to get food.”
“I know.” Pike lowered himself into the chair Zack’s dad had just vacated. He scooted the chair closer. “I’ve been here hours.”
“Hours? But why didn’t you come...” In. Zack trailed off, brain catching up to his words. Of course Pike hadn’t come in. My parents. The same parents who didn’t know a thing about Pike or even that Zack was living off base.
“Because.” Pike cast a glance over his shoulder at the curtain, then gently took Zack’s hand. “This. I can’t not touch you right now. I need to know it’s you, that you’re here, that you’re going to be okay—”
“I am.” Zack scooted over against the far side of the bed the best he could. “Come here.”
“Don’t want to hurt you.” Pike gingerly moved to the edge of the bed, still too far away. Mindful of his wires and IVs, Zack tugg
ed him closer.
“You won’t.” Simply feeling Pike’s warmth kicked Zack’s heart rate up, made him smile wider. This. He’d been needing this.
“God, you scared me so badly.” Pike pressed a kiss to the side of Zack’s face.
“Man, I must be rank.” It hurt to laugh. “How did you find out?”
“Ryan called. Someone called him.” Pike’s voice was steamroller flat, all his usual animation gone.
“Oh thank goodness then. Glad he reached you.”
“Zack—” Pike sighed and shook his head.
“What?”
“Never mind.” Pike’s eyes were sadder than Zack had ever seen them, deep liquid pools of emerald. “Not right now. Not when you’re still so weak and I’m so freaking happy you’re not dead.”
“Not what right now?” Zack shoved futilely at Pike’s shoulder. All it did was jostle his IV. “Ow. Shit.”
“Don’t hurt yourself. You’ve been sick days, Zack. Days and days.” Pike swiped at his face. “Hell, I can’t do this. Should have stayed in the waiting area.”
“Hey now. I’m okay now. It’s all good.”
Pike’s answering smile broke Zack’s heart. “Yeah, you are.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Listen, I should probably get going. Ryan’s coming tomorrow. Do you want me to come back with him? Or...”
I want you here always. But he couldn’t say that because it wasn’t happening. “My parents...they’ll still be here, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Pike’s eyes were resigned, tired lines replacing his usual crinkles from smiling so much. “So I guess I’ll let you let Ryan know when you’re getting released, and he can tell me. If you want me to know.”
“Of course I do.” Zack thought he was already hurting as much as a body could, but every beat of his heart made ribs ache. Something awful was happening and he couldn’t stop it. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
Pike pinched the bridge of his nose. “If someone hadn’t called Ryan, I wouldn’t know you were here. And you work a dangerous job. This might have been some freak thing, but this isn’t the last time there will be a call about you.”
Off Base Page 18