Still the One

by Jill Shalvis

  beeping of monitors made her sigh. “I’m fine,” she said. “Why isn’t anyone listening to me?” She opened her eyes to peer directly into AJ’s concerned hazel ones.

  “I always listen to you,” he said. “I just don’t always agree with you.”

  Too weak to argue anymore, she closed her eyes again. She kept them closed as they stitched her up, though she let up on her AJ moratorium enough to allow him to hold her hand through the process. For his sake, of course.

  When the final verdict came—mild concussion—she was discharged with a prescription of pain meds that she turned down.

  AJ was watching her, and she lifted a shoulder as if it was no big deal.

  “Was that hard?” he asked.

  “It’s getting easier. This time I only want to cry a little.”

  He gathered her things but she shook her head. “I don’t want to go with you.”

  AJ made a point of looking around. He was the only one there.

  She grated her teeth. “I’ll wait for Wyatt or Zoe.” To prove it, she texted them both, telling them whoever could get to her first, she’d appreciate a ride. Zoe was still on a flight and Wyatt in surgeries but one of them would be here soon, she was sure of it.

  AJ had gone still, very still. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously low. “You’d rather wait in the hospital—which you hate being in—than get a ride home with me.”

  “That’s right,” she said as cool as she could manage. “Thanks for the rescue. And for all the good times, too.”

  “Thanks for the good times?” he repeated. “Are you kidding me? What the hell’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that I started to think maybe the whole love thing was a better deal than I’d given it credit for. But Xander walking away reminded me that I can’t count on anyone but myself.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s not,” she said. “Look at Kayla. You thought you could bet on her, but you couldn’t. I’m more like her than you think. I’m not someone you can bet on either, trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” he said. “Which is why this whole thing is utter bullshit.”

  “Knock knock,” Emily said at the door. Wyatt’s fiancée was wearing a white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope with a tiny stuffed kangaroo on it. “I got here as fast as I could. Wyatt sent me. He’s almost done with surgery and is meeting us at the house.” She looked back and forth between Darcy and AJ. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “Yes,” AJ said.

  “No,” Darcy said at the same time, and moved to leave. “Get me out of this place.”

  “Darcy,” AJ said quietly behind her. “We’re not done.”

  But they were.

  At home, Darcy peeled out of her sweater and kicked off her shoes on the way to her bed.

  Oreo was already there, the bed hog.

  “Move over,” she told him.

  He didn’t.

  She simply crawled onto the bed next to him, set her head by his big fat one on the pillow, and accepted a face lick from chin to forehead. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Oreo sniffed at her stitches.

  “You’re a good boy. You’re the best boy, the best in the whole wide world.”

  She got another lick for that compliment, and then she crashed. She woke God knew how much later when Wyatt sat on the bed.

  “Name and serial number,” he said.

  “Go away.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Go Away. I’m here to make sure your brain isn’t set to shuffle. Recite the alphabet, please.”

  “B-I-T-E and M-E,” she spelled out.

  “Sorry, not even close to correct.”

  She flipped him off and he nodded. “Getting closer.”

  With a groan she covered her head with her pillow. “Seriously? Go away.”

  He pulled the pillow off. “Bitchy,” he noted. “So you are okay.”

  It was his tone that reached her. “More okay than you,” she said, and relented. He was in scrubs, which meant he’d come straight from work. She squeezed his hand. “You can stop worrying about me.”

  “Sure I can. Any second now,” he said dryly, but his eyes were dark and serious. “You took another five years off my life.”

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to be independent. You know, like I used to be, in the old days?”

  He laughed softly at that and his face cleared of a lot of the stress. “And just like the old days, your crazy streak is still intact.”

  “Hey,” she said. “Independent, not crazy.”

  “In this case, same thing. Now tell me why you were trying to go it alone? Why do you still think you have to?”

  “I knew you were busy at work.”

  “If you’d called and said you needed me, I’d have been there.” Temper flashed in his eyes. “Anyone would’ve been there. I get that a lot of you not believing it is on our parents, but at some point you’ve gotta open your eyes, Darcy, and realize that pushing away everyone who cares about you on the off chance they might hurt you is stupid and selfish.”

  “Selfish,” she repeated slowly, working her way up to her own mad. Which hurt her mother-effing head, thank you very much. “How in the hell is me trying to figure out my own shit without bothering anyone selfish?” she asked.

  “Because you don’t have to fucking figure it out on your own! We’re a fucking family.”

  Wyatt rarely swore and usually only if sorely provoked. But that’s what Darcy did best, provoke. And she’d always been pretty proud of that fact, too, but at the moment she felt nothing but ashamed of it. “I know, Wy-Ty,” she murmured, using her childhood nickname for him, knowing it would soften him. Blatantly manipulative, but hey, she was the baby sister and manipulating him was her job. “I’m working on it.”

  He relented, sighing deeply, shoving his fingers into his hair. “Shit, Darce.”

  “I know,” she said again, more softly.

  “Just let us in,” he said. “Me and Zoe, that’s all we’re asking, okay? She’s out there blaming herself for not being around when you called. You know she’s like a mother bear when it comes to you.”

  A small smile curved her lips. “So are you.”

  “True.” He pointed at her. “But if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll find a way to cut you off from Gummy Bears.”

  “Hey,” she said. “No need to get hasty.”

  “AJ’s beside himself over what happened to you,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much he cares about you?”

  AJ did care about her, she knew that. He just didn’t care about her in the way she wanted him to.

  Which wasn’t his fault. She knew that.

  “I know I drive him crazy,” she said. “I drive all of you crazy. I also know I’m not easy to care about.”

  “Hold up,” he said. “I’m trying to cut you a break since you hit that hard head of yours, but you’re flat-out wrong. You’re easy to care about, goddamnit, and anyone who says otherwise—”

  “Mom, Dad, every teacher I’ve ever had, Xander, AJ—”

  “Mom and Dad were wrong,” he said fiercely. “And Xander’s got his head up his ass right now. But AJ? No. I don’t believe that. You haven’t seen him, Darce. He’s a mess over this, over you. You’re strong, one of the strongest women I know, and that makes it hard for you to let others in, but it’s worth it, I promise you.”

  She got that he was talking about Emily and how he’d found love with her and also a home base for the first time in his life.

  Darcy hadn’t been the only one her parents had screwed up. They’d done a number on both her siblings as well. But Wyatt was right. She was strong, strong enough to let someone in. She just needed that someone to want in.

  And to not break anything while they were there. And also to not ever let go …

  But she could no more force AJ to love her than she could force herself to love Xander. “I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me,” she admitted. “Love.”

  “Y
ou’re wrong about that, too,” he said. “But because you’re a Stubborn-Ass Stone, I know you won’t believe it until it hits you in the face. Get some more sleep.” He rose and brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Love you, Darce.”

  “Love you, too,” she murmured. “You big, obnoxious oaf.”

  “See? How hard was that to say?”

  She smiled but froze as she remembered. “Wyatt, there’s a dog at Johnny’s …”

  “Rest now,” he said at her door. “Dog later.” He closed the door behind him so she couldn’t argue with him.

  “Dammit.” She rolled over to get out of the bed and the room spun. She closed her eyes for a minute and woke up a short time later when Zoe came in and made her sit up to drink some tea and eat a piece of toast.

  “Eat,” Zoe said.

  Darcy ate some toast, trying to remember what was bothering her.

  “Do me a favor?” Zoe asked before Darcy could remember.

  “What?”

  “Don’t blow off what you feel for AJ like you blow off all your other feelings.”

  Darcy choked on her toast. “I don’t—”

  “You do. Promise me.”

  She stared into Zoe’s solemn eyes. “I’m not blowing off anything, but he doesn’t feel the same for me.”

  Zoe frowned. “He tell you that?”

  “No, but—”

  “Promise me.”

  Darcy blew out a sigh. “You’re more stubborn than Wyatt.”

  “That’s right. And you’re more stubborn than both of us put together. This isn’t about AJ’s feelings for you, which, by the way, you’re wrong about. This is about you and your heart, and for once learning to trust it.” Zoe leaned over her and tucked her in. “Now go back to sleep and let that hard head of yours repair itself. When you wake up, maybe your heart will do the leading for once.”

  But that was the problem. Darcy didn’t know how to lead with her heart.

  The next time she opened her eyes she could tell by the fading light that it was late afternoon. She’d slept the day away. She stretched and sat up, and then went still at the realization that someone was sitting on the bed at her hip.

  AJ.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “Take a guess.” Pinning her in with a hand at either hip, he leaned in and looked her over. “Better,” he said.

  “I’m fine. I just needed a nap.” Or a break from her life. Pick one … “I think I made things perfectly clear at the hospital,” she said.

  “Your car is in town for repairs,” he said, completely ignoring her statement. “The damage isn’t bad.”

  “The dog—”

  AJ patted his thigh and a dog’s head and torso appeared, his front paws resting on AJ’s leg. “This is Chance,” AJ said.

  “Oh,” she breathed, feeling gratitude nearly choke her. “Oh, he’s beautiful.”

  “Handsome,” AJ said. “Beautiful is too girly. Good boy, Chance. Lie down.”

  The dog lay back down on the floor.

  Darcy blew out a sigh, not wanting to soften toward AJ, but she couldn’t help it. “You went and got him for me.”

  “Not me. Xander.”

  Xander stood from the chair in the corner of her room and she couldn’t breathe. Just couldn’t breathe. She was so happy to see him that she lost all her words, too. Plus, she was afraid to say anything and scare him away.

  But he wasn’t going anywhere. He walked around to the other side of the bed, sat, and took her hand in his before finally meeting her gaze. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she managed around her tight throat. “Why do you have a black eye?”

  Xander’s gaze went to AJ and then back to Darcy. He let out a low laugh. “I walked into a door.”

  Darcy looked at AJ, too, at the shadow of a bruise still on his jaw, and felt her own jaw drop. “You hit him?” she asked AJ. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Actually, I took the first swing,” Xander admitted. She stared at both of them. “You two brawled?”

  “Only for a minute,” Xander said. “He kicked my ass with the return punch. And I deserved it.”

  Darcy squeezed his fingers, hating the image of the two of them hitting each other. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, because I’m ecstatic, but …”

  “Why am I here?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yeah. You were holding on to a really good mad at me, I know that much. Don’t tell me that my stupidity today made you soft.”

  Xander’s eyes went suspiciously shiny and he shook his head. “I’m here because what happened to you today made me realize something.”

  “That I should stay off the road?”

  “No. That I’m an asshole.”

  She choked out a laugh. God, she’d missed him. “No, you’re not,” she said. “You know, I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have two guys in bed with me. It’s not quite what I thought it’d be.”

  Xander choked out a laugh and brought their joined hands to his chest, not taking his gaze off of her.

  “What, did I break my face and no one told me?” she asked, trying to pull free. “Get me a mirror—”

  “No. You’re gorgeous,” he said. “But I once promised I’d never hurt you. And then I did. I’m so sorry, Darcy. So fucking sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I understand—” She tried to shift so that she could hug him but pain sliced through her head.

  “Just be still,” AJ said quietly. “I know it’s not your strong suit, but try.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Being still.” She squeezed Xander’s fingers again. “You got the dog for me.”

  “Yeah. Because AJ called me and asked me for help. He’d have gone himself but he wanted to stay with you, even though it meant letting that moneybags dick leave town without signing the deal.”

  “Xander,” AJ said in soft warning, but it was too late.

  Darcy stared at AJ. “Wait— What?”

  “Yeah,” Xander said. “Ariana said he walked away from a meeting to go find you. Which, by the way, was exactly what he was supposed to do, put you first. He always does and I never did.”

  Darcy felt overwhelmed and confused. Part of that was her concussion but it was also because it just didn’t compute. AJ had walked away from the deal with Trent and Summer?

  For her?

  Why? Why would he do such a thing when the deal had been what he’d wanted, needed, so badly? Slowly and carefully, she turned her head to look at him, but he was giving nothing away. “Tell me you didn’t lose the deal with Trent because of me,” she said.

  AJ shook his head. “I didn’t lose the deal because of you.”

  She let out a breath of relief. “Okay, good, because—”

  “I lost the deal because of me. Trent thought his time was more valuable than your safety. He was dead wrong.”

  “I’ll call them,” she said, patting around for her phone. Unable to find it, she started patting down AJ for his. Never mind that she’d thought she wasn’t speaking to him and now she wasn’t so sure—she had to fix this. She wouldn’t ruin this deal for him,