“Since when are you that easy to boss around?” he said. “She’s out having tests right now. I don’t understand half what they’ve told me, except that they really don’t know anything yet about what caused this or if she’ll be okay.”
I got to my feet and told the woman I was needed in cubicle six. I was buzzed in and made my way back there. It was freezing cold. There was a terrible quiet back there after the roar of televisions and phone conversations in the waiting area.
Rafe paced the length of a small curtained area. He was carrying Lexi’s purse.
“What are you doing with that?” I said.
“They offered to put it in a safe for her, for when she needs it, but I kept thinking, what if she wakes up and wants her lip balm,” he said, clearly needing something to keep his mind occupied.
“She’s hooked on the cherry lip balm, I know,” I said. I took it from him and set it on a chair. I stood in front of him, not knowing what to do.
“Jesus, Leo, she wouldn’t wake up,” he said, his voice fierce.
“It has got to be Watts. I wish I’d killed him,” I said, and I meant it. I, who had never considered taking a life. I spent my time saving lives, not ending them. Right then, I would’ve traded my soul for a chance to go back and kill the son of a bitch who put Lexi in the hospital.
“She was just found in her office unresponsive. She had a coffee cup with her. They think she ingested something. I don’t know how they figured it out or how someone would’ve been able to mess with her coffee. She wasn’t even really much of a coffee person.”
“Isn’t, goddammit, Rafe. She isn’t, not she wasn’t. She’s not gone,” I said. I needed to believe it, to make him believe it too.
He just nodded, and we took turns sitting in the single plastic chair while we waited.
“If she comes out of this, I’ll do anything,” I said.
“Give up meat and go vegan? Become a priest?” Rafe teased.
“I doubt they’d have me in holy orders, but I could be a tofu eating celibate if I had to.”
“Yeah, for about a week. What would be the temptation that took you down? Meatball subs or women?”
“Lexi, for damn sure,” I said ruefully.
“I’d give anything for her to pull through this,” Rafe said suddenly.
“Anything? Me, too.”
“I’d give her up to you. I wouldn’t even hesitate if that was the cost,” Rafe said.
“So would I. Or I’d just let her go. Let her live her life without me, without you. Never see her again as long as she was okay, as long as it was what she wanted.”
“Exactly.”
“It won’t work, will it? Offering God or the universe anything down to our lives—it won’t buy her a minute,” I said grimly.
Rafe clapped me on the back. I think it was meant to be comforting, but we just weren’t the hugging type.
I stood and paced, let him have the chair. It seemed to go on forever. At last, someone came in, a guy with an LPN tag.
“The toxicology report is back, and the patient is being set up in ICU now. Dr. Cavanaugh will be in to speak with you in a few minutes,” he said.
“Thank you,” Rafe said.
I couldn’t speak for a minute. Then I looked at him.
“ICU?” I said.
“At least she’s still alive.”
“Yeah,” I said faintly. “Anything that she might survive. Did she, has she been awake?” I said.
“No. They even gave her Narcan to try and bring her around. But since that didn’t work, they said it probably wasn’t an opioid. When they asked me on the phone what she was taking, and I said nothing, I told them it might be that. I knew Watts had a couple convictions for pushing Vicodin and fentanyl and shit like that.”
“That makes sense. It’s good that you knew that, that you could tell them.”
“It didn’t work,” he said miserably, as if he’d failed at CPR or something. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“You did everything you could. We just have to hope she’ll be okay.”
The doctor came in, a tiny redheaded woman with an iPad.
“So, it looks like acute overdose of a powerful sedative. That would explain why the opioid antagonist wasn’t successful. Her respiration is slow, but her oximetry is decent. I’m going to keep her in ICU until she regains consciousness, normally within forty-eight hours, and then we’ll assess where she is.”
“She’s going to wake up though?” I said.
“I can’t make guarantees, but she will most likely come out of the coma, yes. At that point we determine if she was without oxygen and for how long. Any length of time is damaging to brain function, and we won’t know if she’s lost until she’s responsive.”
“Thank you,” Rafe said.
“I’ll check in on her tonight to see if there’s any progress. Go up to the nineteenth floor and they’ll fill you in on the regulations.”
She left and we wandered out to the elevator.
“She’s not going to die,” Rafe said, his voice hollow with shock.
We were silent as we listened to the visiting restrictions and learned that we’d have to sleep in the waiting room. It didn’t make sense for us both to stay—we could switch off, sleep at home, could schedule a way to go to work. But we stayed anyway.
For two days we slept in short snatches, ate out of vending machines, shuffled silently into Lexi’s ICU cubicle, a cold glass box of sorts with a bed and a lot of noisy monitors and one chair. Only Janet from her workplace came to visit—no other friends, certainly no family if she’d ever had one.
Right after sunset the second night, while I had gone to see if they’d refilled the spicy hot barbecue chips slot in the snack machine on the seventh floor, she woke up. I wasn’t there, but Rafe was. When I returned, bitching about the snack offerings, the cubicle was full of nurses and doctors. Rafe beckoned me from the corner. His eyes were red.
“Oh God,” I said, searching his face for a clue. Had she flat lined? Coded?
He shook his head, “Awake,” he managed.
I gripped his arm, “She woke up!”
He nodded. I started to pull him out of the cubicle to give them room to check her, but I heard her say my name. Over the din of voices and the beeps and noises of the machines, I knew her voice, though it was gravelly and low.
“Leo?”
“I’m here!” I said, probably shouting, probably too loud for the small room. I didn’t fight my way through the crowd—I wasn’t stupid enough to get in the way of medical professionals doing their job. But I knew she wanted me there, that she knew now that we were both sitting vigil for her.
“What did she do?” I asked Rafe as we sat in the waiting room, anxious for a chance to visit her after she’d been assessed.
“She kind of moaned, and I was holding her hand and talking to her—she moved her fingers a little. I went to let go, like maybe me holding her hand was uncomfortable with that damn oxygen thing on her finger, but she said ‘no’ like she didn’t want me to let go. Then I said her name and she said mine. I hit the nurse call button and that was it.”
We breathed relief and waited. It was hours later. He had fallen asleep, and my phone battery was low.
“You can see her now for a few minutes before they transfer her down to twelve,” the nurse’s aide said.
“Thank you,” I told her, jostling Rafe to wake him.
Lexi looked like shit. I went to one side of her bed and Rafe crowded in against the IV pole and the heart monitor on the other side.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “Welcome back. Don’t ever take a nap like that on us again.”
“You won, Lexi,” Rafe said, “You did it. You scared the living shit out of me.”
He scrubbed at his eyes. She tried to lift her hand toward his face, but it dropped weakly on the blanket.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice barely a rasp.
“No. No, no, don’t be sorry,” Rafe said, gathering he
r hand in both of his. “We’re just glad you’re awake. If they’d let us, we’d carry you out of here right now. We can’t wait to have you home.”
“Yeah, we still have to make those empanadas. Which means you’re going to have to figure out how to use the deep fryer. No lie, it freaks me out,” I said.
“You’re a fireman,” she said with a wheezy laugh. She was smiling. It felt so good to see her smile, but her weakness, the gray pallor to her lips were like a punch to the gut.
“You’re about to bust out of here to a better room. I hear they have TV and more than one chair. Maybe they’ll even give you breakfast in the morning,” I said.
11
Lexi
“What happened?” I said. Everything felt heavy. My skin was itchy. My eyes didn’t want to stay open.
“Oh, honey,” Rafe said, “You’ve had an overdose. Somebody drugged you.”
“Oh no,” I said, tears leaking from my eyes. Sobs shook my body, little gasps and coughs that racked my shoulders. Even crying felt wrong and different, everything seemed far away and frightening.
“It’s going to be okay. You’re safe now. We’re here, we’re not leaving you alone again,” Leo said.
I was two more days in the hospital before they pronounced me well enough to go home. Leo held my hand while I answered questions for police detectives, but I was still confused about what happened. Counselors and social workers talked to me and I was given a pamphlet on how to manage anxiety after trauma. Rafe made me pancakes and smuggled them into my hospital room.
They settled me in at home, and Rafe brought me a bottle of water. “It’s important for you to stay hydrated,” he said, waving the paper packet of discharge instructions we’d signed.
“I’m fine, guys,” I said. “I’ve got to take next week off to get back on my feet, but I’m okay. I’m a little weak, I get dizzy once in a while, but the doctor said in a week or so all the drugs will be out of my system.” I didn’t want them fussing, but mainly I didn’t want to inconvenience them any more than I already had. It was like I’d been plucked out of my life and dropped into a new, nightmare version where I was helpless, and someone had tried to kill me. I clutched the blanket over my lap, trying hard not to bite my nails or burst out crying.
“Tomorrow we have to go for a complete deposition,” Leo said, “but we wanted to let you know, we’ve worked things out at the station and the gym so that we’re working opposite shifts for a while. That way one of us will always be here with you.”
“No! You shouldn’t have done that for me. I don’t’ want you rearranging your schedule so you can babysit me. Please,” I said, the tears coming to my eyes again. Rafe sat on the edge of the couch and stroked my hair.
“It’s okay, baby,” he assured me. “We want to be here for you. You know, in case you need a foot massage or something.” Rafe teased, trying to get me to smile, but I shook my head.
“I’ve ruined your lives. It’s such a mess,” I said, sniffing.
“You have not,” Leo said. “All we did the last week was talk about how we can’t lose you.”
“Yeah, Leo said he’d become a celibate vegan if it would bring you back.”
“Wow, giving up bacon? You must have been serious,” I teased, but it wrenched me that I’d put them through all that worry.
“I’m serious,” Rafe said. “We talked this over while you were unconscious. This isn’t a competitive thing. I mean, we shared practically everything growing up anyway, right? The point is, I love you. And—” he looked at Leo and nodded.
“I’m in love with you, too. We had a kind of extreme situation to figure that out in, and it was pretty clear. We’re both in love with you. And we’d both give you up if it would make you happy. So when all this is over, when the Watts thing is cleared up, when you’ve had time to get your equilibrium back, we’ll all have a talk about how to move forward and what you want,” Leo said.
I nodded, biting my lips to keep from crying. They both loved me. I didn’t have words to say to that, other than the obvious.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’ve got to head into the station in about an hour,” Leo said. I nodded.
“So I’ll be here,” Rafe said, sitting beside me and gathering me against him. I let my head loll against his chest. He reached for the remote and switched on some reality show I usually liked, but I was asleep in no time.
It was Leo who took me to the deposition while Rafe was at work. Then Rafe took off early the next day to take me to a doctor’s appointment. It was like having a pair of overprotective nursemaids—really hot ones. One of them was always there, making sure I drank water, took a short walk in the sunshine, got plenty of rest. Rafe brought me a burger from the diner and watched old episodes of The Office with me. Leo and I gave up on the empanadas after producing a greasy, inedible batch and we ordered a pizza to eat while we watched cooking shows.
They made me laugh. They held me when I was too scared to sleep. I could never hope to repay such care and kindness. The week I’d planned to take off work stretched into two and then three. Janet stopped by and insisted I take a formal leave until the legal action was resolved to give myself time to adjust.
I hated the sight of the police station, the small fear that knotted in my belly every time I had to go sign a statement or clarify an answer, or just to answer the same set of questions again. If I hadn’t had Rafe or Leo with me, I probably would’ve hidden in the car and said I was too sick to make it there. I was suddenly afraid of everything.
The first time I ventured out on my own, I went to buy a hot chocolate, the fancy kind that costs five dollars and has whipped cream on top. I paid the clerk and carried it out to my car. Then I sniffed it to see if it smelled contaminated, to see if, despite the fact that Watts was in city lock-up, maybe one of his friends could have gotten the barista to slip me something. I looked at it, told myself I was being silly, and went to take a drink. I couldn’t do it. I turned around and dumped it in the garbage. Sweating, I drove home and took a shower and tried to forget my paranoia.
The guys took me to the gym for sparring. I spent most of my time watching them after I was done on the treadmill. It had been a slow return to my usual level of activity, and I didn’t have all my endurance back yet. So I sat and watched them spar, and felt the flare of desire rekindle in me for the first time in a long time. Just watching the flex of Rafe’s broad shoulders, the way the muscles of Leo’s butt bunched and extended when he kicked made my pulse race. I felt like part of me was waking up after the coma, a part that had still been asleep all that time.
They stopped to take a break and drink some water. Toweling sweat off his face, Rafe asked me if I was okay. “You’re all flushed. Is it too warm in here for you?”
I cleared my throat, “Um, no. I need to talk to both of you later. When you’re done. There’s no hurry,” I said a little bashfully.
They wrapped up their sparring and took showers. I sat outside playing on my phone and trying hard not to think of them in the showers, two gorgeous naked men with water cascading off them, when all I wanted to do was to storm into the locker room and burst into their shower stalls. Probably inappropriate, especially since other people used the locker room and women weren’t allowed in there.
We rode back to the house in awkward silence. They tried to get me to talk about what was bothering me, and I shook my head, stared out the window. I was determined to have a real discussion about this, to let them each have time to think about it and talk about their feelings.
Inside, I grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and three glasses and we sat at the table.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” I started.
“You’re not moving out,” Rafe said.
“No,” I said, “I’m not. This morning I had a call that Watts has accepted the plea deal. He’s going to prison for five years. The soonest he can get out is in twenty months, and that’s with good behavior, which I think we all
know isn’t going to happen. So, he’s gone for a good long time.”
“That’s not as much as he deserves,” Leo said.
“But she’s spared having to go through a trial,” Rafe argued, “and that’s worth a lot.”
“I’m with Rafe on this one,” I said. “I wasn’t looking forward to facing him in the courtroom and having to go over everything again. Now I feel like I can start trying to put this behind me. Even my counselor said that it would be a big step for me once I realized I was free of him, that I didn’t have to look over my shoulder everywhere I went.”
“You’re safe,” Rafe said.
I nodded. “Listen, before all this—shit—happened, I had talked with Leo. I don’t know if you two have discussed this, but I need to say it. I’m in love with you, with both of you. I would never do anything to hurt you or to damage your friendship with each other. I want to be with both of you. If that’s something you’re okay with. I don’t mean the open relationship thing—that felt awkward to me, like someone was always trying to be polite and give the other two space—I want us all to be together.”
I blurted it out super fast in one nervous run-on sentence. I bit my lip and waited, palms sweating. It was too much to hope for, that they would agree to it. It seemed conceited to even ask it of them, to expect them both to consider it. I watched them look at each other briefly.
“So, um, is now a good time for you?” Leo asked, grinning.
“What?”
“Instead of having a long talk about it, why don’t we just give it a try?” Rafe suggested. “It’s different, but I, for one, think you’re worth it.”
“Dude, it’s not that unusual. It’s called a polyamorous lifestyle. Don’t you read Cosmo?”
“No. I’m a man.”
“So am I. We have a subscription at the station, along with Men’s Health and Forbes and a bunch of other shit. We’re well rounded. Educate yourself,” Leo said.
I laughed. The tension was defused. Smiling, I stood, held out both my hands.
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