by Lissa Kasey
Tomas nodded. “Anything for the panic attacks?”
“Just the normal stuff.”
“We’ll work on that.”
“On medicating me further?” I asked, focusing on Kade’s ears beneath all the hair.
“If we need to. It’s a balance. You haven’t been eating right.”
“I haven’t been hungry—”
“I understand that,” Tomas interrupted. “But even when your brain says no, sometimes your body still needs nutrients. When was the last time you ate?”
I didn’t even know what day it was. “Before Jacob and I spoke with Ashlyn. I ate sushi and sashimi.” My appetite had been good that morning because I’d been hopeful.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Okay, so it’s been more than twelve hours. If I bring you food, will you eat?”
I shrugged. “What time is it anyway?”
“Almost 2:00 a.m.”
No wonder the hospital was so quiet. “Good luck finding food,” I told him.
Jacob reappeared with Duke and another guard. I assessed my ex for a minute. Wondering at his motives, if I should say something, or just let it go for now. There were too many questions, and I was tired. Emotionally tired. Wanting to lie down and sleep forever tired. It was a bad feeling, knowing the depression had crept up and was already drowning me before I had realized it.
Chapter Seven
THE OTHER guard had a small dark bag in hand. Both Tomas and I gave him a bit of room, cramming into one chair together to stay on Kade’s right side, while the guard worked on trimming away the growth. Duke hovered the entire time. Jacob leaned against the wall, trying to fade into the background, it seemed. He wasn’t even humming, which was extremely odd for him.
In surprisingly little time, the guard had Kade’s face back down to his normally well-trimmed box beard. Not a single scratch or accidental cut to be found. Though he’d thrown away a large cache of hair.
“He might be a little itchy when he wakes from the little hairs getting away,” the guard warned before Duke led him out.
Tomas rushed into the bathroom to empty the basin and refill it with warm water. When he returned, I washed Kade’s face and neck again, then dug out my ChapStick and ran it carefully over his cracked lips. He didn’t stir, neither did Newt, who now slept with his head on his paws on Kade’s chest.
“This is real,” Tomas assured us both out loud. “We have him.”
I met his eyes and tried to let myself believe. Not yet. Maybe when we were home it would feel real again. Kade in the kitchen or lying with me on the chaise, arguing with me to eat or about how the cat doesn’t need to go grocery shopping with us. The normal things.
“I’m sorry.” It was Kade’s voice again.
I looked up at him, surprised to see his eyes open and staring at me. “Sleep, Kade. It’s okay. Just rest.”
He squeezed my hand and dropped a bomb on me. “I think my family killed Nathan.”
I blinked at him, trying to understand his words, reason out why, how, and what would possess him to say this now. He was already fading. Eyes closing, and then back to sleep. His breathing deepened. Like the relief of finally admitting a discovered secret took some of the weight off him. And maybe it did.
But as Tomas and I stared back at each other with likely mirrored looks of horror and confusion, I couldn’t help but feel the weight had settled on me instead.
Tomas popped out of the chair like his pants were on fire. “Food. I’ll go get us some food.”
FOR OUR trip home, I’d imagined helicopters or ambulances escorting us, with flashing lights and armed militia, the distance back to San Francisco. What we got was a decked-out tour bus with two bedrooms and a master bath that rivaled my own back home.
Kade was being released into my care with a batch of antinausea medication and a stern warning to call our local doctor with any issues that arose. They gave us a sort of cane for him that he could use to help walk. It was longer than his other canes, and an ugly metal. Maybe I’d find him a stylish one, with flames racing down the side or dragons or something. He’d need lots of therapy, and likely crutches for a while, maybe even a wheelchair, but we’d be limited until we got him home to his normal doctor.
I took the ugly one anyway so Kade would have options if he woke and wanted to move around. He was used to the leg not working well, but probably not to the total absence of it. Had he been coherent long enough to realize he’d lost it? Would I have to explain it to him? I sucked in a deep breath and tried to steady myself. I had him back, and having a panic attack over something that might not even happen wasn’t going to help anyone.
He didn’t wake at all when they wheeled his bed out to the curb or when Ty lifted him and carried him, like he weighed no more than a doll, to the master bedroom area of the bus. My suitcase sat beside the bed that Ty set Kade on. He shifted the blankets around, pulling one up over Kade, but when he left the room, he closed the door behind him, leaving us alone.
I didn’t know if it was a good thing or not. Newt’s litter box sat in the corner, and he crept back up onto the bed, curling up in the crook of Kade’s right arm. His tail flopped in a contented rhythm as he looked at me as if to say, “I guard our human.”
It was now almost 4:00 a.m., and while I was tired, my brain ran in too many circles to actually let me sleep. Ty had demanded Kade be released as soon as the doctor on call determined him fit to travel. Something about Kade healing better at home. As long as I could stay with him, I didn’t care where we were.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at Kade for a few minutes. Maybe more than a few minutes since I felt the bus start to move.
My skin ached. Like it was just too tight. The stink of the hospital cleaners clung to me, and I got up to make my way to the attached bathroom. It was huge, with a full working shower. I stripped out of everything, leaving it all in a pile outside the stall. The water was warm, pressure good, and even without my normal body wash—I’d forgotten to take it out of my bag—I felt better when I stepped out.
A towel warmer sat beside the shower stacked with fluffy cloth smelling of fresh linen. I held a towel to my face for a minute, just breathing in the scent. It was calming. Soothing. A taste of home, though we’d never owned a towel warmer. Maybe we’d have to get one.
I dried off and made my way back into the bedroom, clothes in hand, but otherwise nude, to meet Kade’s gaze.
“Hi,” I told him, not expecting him to be at all coherent enough to recognize much more than my presence in the room. I set the suitcase on the corner of the bed and opened it to tuck my dirty things away and find a pair of undies that wouldn’t bother my skin. My brush seemed to be missing, though I knew I’d packed it.
“You’ve lost weight,” Kade said, his voice soft.
I froze. Was he seeing me? Like really seeing me? “Kade?”
“Did you bring lace undies? I like the little lace ones the best.”
I gaped at him as his eyes were all over me. “Are you really in there this time?”
He let out a long sigh. “I gotta pee.” He nudged Newt off his arm and slid toward the edge of the bed. I rushed to his side to help him. He sat up with my help and reached for the cane. “Been a long time since they let me pee on my own. So fucking happy to have that catheter out. Hope it still works,” he joked, glancing down at his groin.
He pushed the blankets back and stared at his lost leg for a moment, expression guarded. Finally, he glanced up to my outstretched arms. “Baby, let me pee and then I can appreciate that fine, if a little bony, body of yours.” He wriggled to the edge with his good leg and arms and pushed up. It took him a minute of unsteadiness to balance his weight between his arm, the cane, and his remaining leg. I caught him twice and helped while he took an experimental first step.
“Okay, this isn’t horrible,” he said.
I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. Was he really back? Was he awake? Was this just another elaborately in
coherent waking he wouldn’t remember later? Was he really this calm about losing his leg?
“Bathroom, Ollie. Else I think I’m gonna wet my pants.”
It was slow, but we made it. He brushed away my hands when I tried to help him lift the robe he’d been given. He was wearing boxers underneath. He never wore boxers. And it was easy to see he was frustrated with them too.
“Should have been a dancer,” he grumbled to me. “Would have better balance.”
“I can sign us up for dance classes when we get home,” I said. I helped steady him with an arm around his waist from behind, but tucked my face into the curve of the back of his neck to give him privacy. He sighed long and loud when he finally was able to release his stream into the bowl. He peed for a long time.
“Like that movie,” he laughed. “With the girl baseball players and Tom Hanks.”
I couldn’t stop tears from cascading down my cheeks. His teasing was so normal. It was like all was right with the world again.
He closed the lid before he flushed—a habit he’d ingrained in both of us after reading an article about bacteria released from flushes and open toilets—then hobbled to the sink to wash his hands. Once he had the water off, he just stood there with me.
“You’ve already showered, Ollie, but I’d really like one. Can I shower the leg? Or is that a no-no?”
“It’s mostly healed. Just pink scars. I think they covered it so it wouldn’t be as shocking when you woke up.” There were instructions and several compression socks left for him. I had yet to look through it all.
He snorted. “Yeah, that train left the station a long time ago.” He squinted at the shower. There was a large bench area inside. “Can you help me to that bench?”
He really only needed my help to steady himself. But we got to the bench, and he sat down in exhaustion. “Going to have to really work the left leg now.” He peeled off the gown the hospital had given him and glared at the boxers. I knelt in front of him and tugged them off his hips as he shifted from one buttcheek to the other, to slide them off. We both looked at the small, scarred limb.
Should I unwrap it?
But it was Kade who pulled the bandages off. He glared at it, and I was afraid to show him any expression for fear of how he’d take it.
“I’d understand,” he said quietly.
I shook my head.
“If it freaks you out.” He deflated a little. “It freaks me out a little.”
“It will be okay,” I assured him.
He tested the movement for a minute, flexing his hip. “Did they replace the stuff in my hip? I don’t feel it grating anymore.” He ran his fingers over one of the many scars that marred the right side of his hip and stomach.
“Just a couple of pins, I guess. I have a CD copy of the scan in my bag.” It was a backup just in case something happened with transferring the file to Kade’s regular doctor. The scars on his hip were pink surrounded by white. Old and healed but slightly different. I remembered his old scan after being injured in a blast meant for Jacob. The images didn’t look all that different from what he had.
He nodded as though it all made sense. “Maybe it’s just having the weight of it gone then, or the rod that was in the leg. Hell, maybe I’m still hopped up on pain meds.”
I tended to think it might be the last one as well.
“Do you think it’s ugly?” he asked me after a quiet minute.
“No,” I told him firmly. “It’s still you.”
He studied me and scratched his chin. “Guess it’s something we’ll both have to get used to. So long as you’re willing.”
“You know I am.”
He nodded again, then waved at the water spigot, which was too far away to reach from the bench. “Can you turn that on? Maybe start on lukewarm?”
I pulled the showerhead down from its perch on the retractable cord and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature before handing it to Kade. He let it run down his chest and over his legs and between them. He asked me to up the temperature twice until the bathroom was filled with steam and hot, humid air.
I returned to the bedroom to dig out some clothes for both of us, lace purple undies for me, and the softest cotton jock I’d been able to find for Kade. My brush was down in the bag beside my body wash. I retrieved them both before making my way back to Kade.
He almost seemed to be sleeping with the water rolling over him, but he handed the sprayer back to me after I set our stuff on the counter. “On or off?” I asked. “I have my bodywash. I can wash you.”
“On.” He nodded at the wash. I soaped up a hand towel and went to work. It didn’t matter if I got wet again, or that he had to lean on me when I scrubbed his back and his ass. He just relaxed into me, letting me take his weight when I could, and balancing himself against the wall when I couldn’t.
“You’ve lost weight too,” I told him.
He nodded. “Been craving Thai food something fierce. That pumpkin custard…. Oh, or rolled, salted fish. Anything other than beef or mushroom broth.”
“You’re really back, aren’t you?” I marveled at him. He seemed very coherent. I hoped he remained that way.
“I hope so, baby. I hope this isn’t all one really elaborate fucking dream. If it is and I wake up with a stiffy talking about you, my dad’s liable to give me those chemical castration drugs. He’s only threatened a dozen times. Probably the only time in my life I’ve been thankful that I don’t pop wood as often as most men.”
I gulped back my horror and hid my face on his shoulder instead. “You’re here with me. Not in that room. Not with your parents. We’re on a bus home. We’ll be back home soon.” I finished rinsing away the suds and turned off the water, then bent to retrieve a couple towels from the warmer.
“Kind of circular. Lost you on a bus, now we’re back on a bus.”
“Surrounded by a dozen guards, two of my ex-boyfriends, our office assistant, and a cop.”
He groaned when I put the warm towel to his skin and began to dry him. “This is heaven.”
“This is real,” I told him. I knelt to dry his legs, his cock, and all the way around to his ass. “I’m totally buying a towel warmer when we get home.”
“If I weren’t so tired, I’d take advantage of you in that position.”
I snorted. “I think we both need some sleep first.” In fact, I thought I might actually be able to sleep now. I helped him slide into the jock, then put my own undies on. Kade gave me an appreciative sigh.
A basket of other toiletries was wrapped and sitting on the counter for our use: toothbrushes, paste, razors, hand soap. Not all that unlike a nice hotel. Kade brushed his teeth and ran his hand over his face.
“One of Jacob’s guards fixed the beard,” I told him. “It was just so much hair.”
He nodded. “It’s okay. Feels better than it did.”
“I have your stuff in the suitcase if you need to fix it.”
“It’s okay for now. The hair’s a little weird.” It was a short spongy mop of almost bleach-blond tight curls on top of his head. “You must have fixed it.”
“Cleaned and conditioned, yes. Some taming cream.”
He just nodded. We made our way back to the bed. Newt was sprawled out in the middle of it with the dirty pair of undies I’d just put in the suitcase under his paw. I groaned.
“What the hell?” Kade asked.
“He’s been stealing my underwear. Only the dirty ones. Leaves them all over the house.” I reached out to grab the undies back, and Newt let me. Damn cat.
Kade laughed. He laughed so hard he almost toppled over, and I had to wrap both arms around him to keep him up. He wrapped an arm around me and breathed into my neck, still chuckling. “The cat is truly mad.”
“Do you believe I’m real now?” I asked.
“I’m hopeful.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” I called without opening it.
“Everything okay?” Tomas opened the door onl
y a crack. Our partial nudity didn’t faze him at all. He barely glanced at me, but his eyes were all over Kade’s face.
“We’re fine. Hungry,” Kade said, “but fine.”
“We can stop for breakfast or I can bring you something. The kitchen is stocked. Fruit, veggies, eggs.”
“Don’t stop,” Kade told him. “I want to get home. Bring me anything that’s not broth, I’m so fucking tired of broth, and I’ll be happy.”
“Okay.” Tomas shut the door.
I helped Kade back into bed. “I brought you other clothes.” Once he was settled, I pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
“It’ll be hours before we’re home yet, right?”
I nodded because we were sure to hit traffic no matter what route we took.
“Then I’m okay like this. We’ll eat, then sleep.” He pulled the blanket up, disturbing Newt, but held it open for me. “Come cuddle with me.” And I did.
Chapter Eight
WE SLEPT the drive away. In fact, I slept so deeply, Kade had to prod me to pull on some clothes. I opened my eyes to stare into his brown ones, and they were clear. “Hey.” I smiled at him. “How are you feeling?”
“A little nauseous, but I’m told that will pass.” He was dressed in the T-shirt and sweats.
“The hospital gave us some meds for that,” I said as I stretched.
“Tomas already gave me some.” He handed me a pair of shorts and a sweater. “We’re home. Just waiting for all the chest-beating to finish before we can disembark the mighty ship o’ Jacob.”
I squinted at him.
He squinted back.
“I think the bus is a rental.”
“Yah think?” he teased. “But who do you know who can get access to a luxury tour bus in the middle of the night?”
“Point.” I nodded. I tugged on the shorts and slid the sweater over my head. Newt was sitting in Kade’s lap. “Maybe you’ll steal his underwear now?”
Newt just blinked at me with a sleepy gaze.
“And you thought he didn’t like you,” I said.
Kade brushed my hair away from my face, studying me for a minute. “I love you.”