All Bets Are Off

by Marguerite Labbe

  He nodded and stopped trying to climb up Ash’s leg in favor of attaching himself to Eli instead. “Unca?”

  “Oh, no, buddy, I’m afraid not,” Eli said with a spurt of panic. He’d never handled a kid this small before; what if he accidentally hurt him? “I’m a friend of Ash’s.”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” Jamie said, coming forward to scoop Brandon up in her arms. “He isn’t stranger wary at all. I’m Jamie.”

  “Eli, I’ve heard so much about you.” To Eli’s surprise he found himself engulfed in a hug from Ash’s sister. “I’m Melanie, Ash’s older sister.” The babble of greetings continued for a few more minutes, and it reminded Eli a bit of what it was like at his cousins’ homes in Tennessee, family everywhere and all talking at once.

  “Where is he?” Ash asked, glancing toward the bed. “Is he okay?”

  “They’re running some more tests on him. He should be back soon.” Jamie worried her lip. “Physically, I think he’ll recover and adapt. I don’t know, he just seems so worn down right now.”

  “He just needs some time,” Ash murmured to her, rubbing her back. “I think he was a little worn down before he was hurt. The best thing for him now would be to get him okay enough to be able to leave the hospital so he can go home. Brandon and Danielle are going to be the best medicine he’s ever had. He can do all the rehab he needs in Atlanta.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  There it was again, Ash’s tendency to take charge. He couldn’t not do it when there was a situation to be dealt with. Eli watched Ash console Jamie, holding Danielle in his arms, as he wished Ash would let Eli console him in return. He longed to take Ash into his arms and hold him until his barriers broke down and he let a little more of his heartache pour out. It made Eli ache to see him so strong and know that Ash was hurting so bad inside.

  “So you’re the one who’s finally run off with my brother’s heart,” Melanie said in an undertone as she plopped into a chair next to him.

  “Oh, I don’t know if it’s gone that far yet,” Eli replied in a voice just as soft. “I’m working on it.”

  Melanie’s hair was a more brilliant copper than Ash’s, and her eyes were a merry blue, but she had the same smattering of freckles on her face and her smile was as warm. “He brought you with him, didn’t he?” She cocked her head, giving him an appraising look. “Aren’t you his professor too?”

  Eli could feel his cheeks warm under the scrutiny as he resisted the urge to shift in his seat like an abashed teenager. “I do have that distinction, but the, uh, the relationship started before we realized he was going to be in my class.”

  “He seduced you, didn’t he?” Melanie shook her head as Eli coughed in surprise at her directness. “Dirty dog.”

  “Actually, it was mutual, or you could argue that I started by making eyes at him when I first saw him, but yeah, the actual seduction, very mutual.” Now Eli did shift and cast a pleading glance toward Ash.

  “Melanie, stop trying to dig smut details out of him,” Ash said, giving her a narrow-eyed glare. “At least give him a chance to get used to you before you embarrass him to death.”

  Melanie snickered and patted Eli’s hand. “It’s so refreshing to see you protective over a boyfriend.” She glanced at her watch and rose to take Brandon. “They should be back any minute, and the doctor’s not going to want a ton of people around while they get Kurtis back into bed. I’ll take the twins and Eli down to the cafeteria and you can text me when it’s safe to come up again.”

  Eli stood up as well, seeing the sense in that, even if he hated leaving Ash. He cast his lover a questioning glance, and Ash nodded as he handed Danielle over. “I’m fine, Doc. I promise.”

  “You’d better be.” Eli gingerly shifted Danielle in his arms, and she looked at him with a little frown at being disturbed. He hoped that he hadn’t upset her; he knew nothing of toddlers. “I promise not to drop you if you promise not to start screeching on me, okay, sweetie?”

  Melanie laughed as she led the way out of the room. “I wouldn’t show any weakness to these two if you can help it, Eli. They are expert manipulators.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Eli waited until they’d gone down the hallway a bit. “How is Kurtis, really? Ash is awfully worried.”

  “As good as he can be under the circumstances. He needs time. Time and care.” Her eyes were serious as they entered the elevator. “How’s my brother holding up? He sounded like ass when I first talked with him.”

  Eli choked out a laugh as Melanie shot him a quizzical look. “Sorry, Ash told me who your mom named you after, and the thought of Melanie Wilkes saying ass or asking about her brother’s sex life….”

  “Well, Mom got us all dead wrong. Our personalities couldn’t be further from those characters if we tried.”

  The cafeteria was fairly quiet at this time of day, and they found a table in the corner. Melanie held onto Brandon when he tried to wiggle and get down. “Oh, no, boyo, it’s time for you to nap. Look at your sister, she’s already half gone.”

  Eli glanced down at Danielle, and sure enough her eyes were half-closed, her cheek pressed against his chest. “Poor girl, they must be exhausted with all of this uproar around them.”

  “Everyone is.” Melanie studied him as she rocked back and forth with Brandon in her arms. “So you never answered my question. How’s Ash?”

  Eli hesitated, weighing Ash’s tendency to be private against the obvious close relationship he had with his family. “He took it hard at first, but I think being down here and being able to do something, no matter how small, is good for him. He’s not one to wait by the sidelines for news.”

  “No, not when he can throw himself into the thick of things,” Melanie said as she patted Brandon on the back. “So you’re the reason why my brother is hedging on taking that job offer in Atlanta.”

  Eli’s heart lurched, and he glanced down at Danielle to mask his dismay. Ash had a job offer in Atlanta? That was news to him. “I don’t think Ash has made any decisions about his career after college.”

  “I don’t think he has either. But I do know that he’s fallen in love with that town he moved to. He won’t stop talking about it. He seems to have made a lot of friends there. I thought most small towns were supposed to treat newcomers like they didn’t belong there.”

  “Amwich is a college town, so they’re used to new faces coming and going.” Ash had made himself at home there and he’d gotten close with Jonas and Cooper and several others. “I don’t think it’s me so much as he’s comfortable there.” He didn’t dare believe that Ash might stay for him.

  “That’s what you think.” Melanie shot him an amused smile. “Eli, my brother never would’ve brought you along if he wasn’t a goner for you. And I just want to make sure that Ash isn’t going to suffer an epic disappointment if he decides to stay.”

  “You know, you and my cousin Lu would get along very well.” Eli hated the poking and prodding, but now that he thought about it, he was sure Ash had suffered the same at his cousin’s hands. “I’ll say this and no more: Ash means more to me than anyone in a long time, both as a friend and, well, you know.”

  Eli refused to tell Ash’s sister that he was in love with him until he’d told Ash himself.

  Melanie laughed and shifted the now-sleeping child in her arms. “Okay, I’ll leave you be. I’ve got what I wanted.”

  Eli’s lips twitched into a smile, despite his discomfort with the grilling. “Remind me to stay on your good side.”

  “Good idea.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ash’s stomach churned as he heard Kurtis’s voice coming down the hall, and he steeled himself for his first glimpse of his best friend. It lurched again when the door opened and he came into view. Ash’s gaze flicked down to the leg swathed in bandages. All of his half hopes that it was just a nightmare died and it was a struggle to remember the blessings. Then Kurtis saw him and his eyes lit up.

  “Who the
hell let you in here? Fuck, Ash, it’s good to see your ugly face.”

  Ash grinned back at him, and some of the tightness in his throat eased. “Confused again, buddy, you’re the one with a face like a horse’s ass.”

  He resisted the urge to help Kurtis lever himself onto the bed by jamming his hands in his pockets. Kurtis wouldn’t appreciate being treated as an invalid no matter the circumstances, and Ash put his hand on Jamie’s arm as she started forward. Kurtis heaved himself over and pulled the sheet up to his waist, grimacing in pain until he got himself settled.

  “Good thing I have such a big dick. It keeps me centered.”

  Ash burst out laughing and bumped fists with Kurtis, who winked at him. “You are a big dick, donkey.”

  Jamie made an exasperated sound and punched Ash on the arm before dropping a kiss on Kurtis’s lips. “On that note, I’m leaving. I’m going to lay the twins down at the hotel before they start terrorizing people. You going to be okay?”

  “No need to hover with Ash around, he’ll do it enough for you both.”

  “Bullshit, I am not hovering.”

  “You’re dying to. You’re practically twitching where you’re standing.” Kurtis made a shooing motion at his wife, but tempered it with a smile. “Go, but don’t be gone too long.” He didn’t come out and say the words. He didn’t need to. His eyes said how much he’d missed her.

  “And get some sleep yourself while you’re at it,” Ash added in as Jamie headed toward the door. Kurtis leaned his head back against the pillow, the pleasant mask fading as the lines on his face deepened. Ash had thought Kurtis had lost weight before all this happened, but it was hard to tell on the screen sometimes. Judging from his appearance, he’d lost even more since they’d last talked.

  “Damn, Kurtis.” He hooked a chair and sat down, struggling for a joke that would ease the knot in his chest and lighten the sudden serious mood. “I know MREs taste like shit, but you could’ve packed a few more of them on you. You look like Skeletor.”

  “You, sir, are no He-Man.” Kurtis touched his thigh and grimaced. “And I’m lighter because of this. There is a good chunk of muscle missing from my calf.”

  An awkward silence fell between them, and Kurtis closed his eyes. “The worst part is, there’s a tiny part of me that’s relieved,” he whispered.

  Ash shifted uncomfortably, reminded of his own feelings when he first heard the news. “How so?”

  “Not that I’m hurt and have to bust my ass before I walk again, but because now I can’t re-enlist when my time’s up. I’ve been struggling with the decision for months, to stay or to go. It was killing me. I wanted to be home with Jamie and the kids, not worrying when I was going to be shipped out again. But I also couldn’t bring myself to say I was quitting because I knew what I was signing up for and I believe in it.”

  Ash stared down at his hands, remembering another hospital room that time he’d been the one in the bed and it had been Kurtis sitting beside him. “You can’t let the guilt eat at you, man. It’ll tear you apart if you let it.”

  “It has been.” Kurtis plucked at the blanket covering his battered limb. “And I keep telling myself that this doesn’t make me any less of a man, but it just seems so fucking hollow when Jamie looks at me. It’s going to be a long time before I can stand on my feet again.”

  Ash didn’t know whether to let go of some of his tension because Kurtis wasn’t questioning if he’d walk again, just when, or worry more because the doctors were still considering amputation because of blood flow problems to the surrounding tissues. That would be another blow. “She’s damn happy to have you home alive. We all are.”

  “I know that. Fuck, it’s just knowing and believing are two different things. What if I lose it? How can she not look at me and not think she’s tied to a—”

  “Don’t say it; you demean both you and her. I’m not going to pretend like she’s not going to notice that your leg’s messed up when she looks at you, and that for a while it might be the first thing she does see. It’s going to be a reminder that she almost lost you. But she isn’t going to stop loving you because of it. She’s not like that. Come on, you know that.”

  “What about Brandon and Danielle?” Kurtis looked so damned troubled that Ash wished Eli were with him. He’d know what to say. Ash wasn’t as good with expressing himself, the words seemed to get all tangled up inside him at the worst times.

  “You’ve never not been able to do something that you set out to do. You’ve got to fix in your mind what kind of an attitude you want toward this. If you let it bitter you, then they’ll grow up knowing you to be that kind of a man.” Which Kurtis wasn’t. He wasn’t a fucking quitter, but Ash wasn’t sure how to remind him of that. “Or they can see you as a man who overcame a pretty harsh setback, but still remained the guy that Jamie fell in love with.”

  Once again, silence fell between them as Ash struggled to think of something to say. Had it been like this for Kurtis when Ash had been injured? All he could recall was pain and being muddled with drugs and knowing Kurtis was there. “You’ve got to find a way to keep going on, even if you’re angry right now, or scared, or whatever, you know? And you’ve got to give yourself time. This isn’t something that’s going to get straightened out in your head overnight.”

  Kurtis cast him a sideways glance, as if he was unsure whether or not he should say something. “I knew how freaked out you were when your Reserve unit got activated and you had to miss your spring classes for training. I never said anything, but I knew. And you still went back to Iraq without one word of complaint to anyone for the whole seven months you were there.”

  That had been one hell of a rough time. He’d known it was a possibility, but he hadn’t been as prepared as he’d thought he was when it had happened. For a while there, he’d thought he’d never get a full night’s sleep without reliving getting hurt in his dreams. Eventually that had faded. “I swore an oath.”

  “Yeah.” Kurtis rubbed his thigh with a grimace. “What was going through your head when you decided to opt out?”

  Ash remembered the same stay-or-go argument keenly, but it hadn’t been as much of a struggle for him as it seemed to be with Kurtis. “I was disillusioned,” he said, staring down at the scars on his arm. “With the military as a whole, not with the individual men I served with. It made the decision easier.”

  “But it still bugged you. I remember.” Kurtis laid back and looked up at the ceiling. “I never thought less of you for getting out when you did. I don’t know if I ever told you that.”

  Ash glanced down at his hands and nodded. “Thanks, that matters. I don’t think any less of you, either, you know that, right? I can understand being torn between two different duties, both of which you take seriously.”

  Kurtis nodded, but didn’t say anything as he continued to stare up at the ceiling.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Yeah.”

  The room grew quiet as they both got lost in their own thoughts. Ash was still worried about Kurtis. His recovery was going to be long and challenging, but at least he didn’t seem to be withdrawing in on himself as he’d seen other men do, as he’d almost done himself. Even if Kurtis was quieter than normal, there were still those moments, the jokes and teasing, that gave Ash hope.

  “You up to a little bit of company?” Ash asked, breaking the quiet. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

  Surprise flickered across Kurtis’s face. “You brought someone with you?”

  “I did. I hope you don’t mind.” Ash pulled out his cell phone to send Eli a text. “I can send him on to the hotel if you do.”

  “Wait a minute. You brought that professor you’ve been chasing after? Hot damn, Ash, I knew you were a goner.”

  Ash shifted in his chair as animation lit Kurtis’s face. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. We’re taking it slow.”

  The energy faded and Kurtis sighed. “I would like to meet him, but not today. I have therapy in
an hour, and that always gets me shagged. After that I have to meet with the fucking shrink. Right now I just want faces around me that I recognize. He’ll understand, right?”

  Ash quickly sent Eli a message and nodded his head. “He will. You’ll see when you do get to meet him. He’s pretty damn... I don’t know... special.”

  “Oh God, you’ve got it bad, man. Sap is oozing from your pores.”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’m not that bad,” Ash replied, shifting in his chair once again. Kurtis started chuckling, and Ash told himself that his friend’s teasing had to be a good sign.

  “Yes, you are. You should see your face right now.” It was hard to come up with any defense to that when Ash really wanted to have Eli here with him.