Night is Darkest

by Jayne Rylon

  Mason choked on the ice in his throat at the sarcastic remark. “Thank God you’re okay. What about Lacey? What the hell happened?”

  Tyler must have been more out of it than he wanted to admit. He shook his head then his brows knit together as he thought back.

  “Shit, I don’t know Mason. Get her out of here. She needs a doctor.” His anxiety ramped up as the initial shock of the impact began to wear off. He squirmed as he tried to face Lacey’s still form.

  “There’s an ambulance on the way, Ty. Hang in there. You’re going to be fine. Both of you.” He hoped he wasn’t lying. “I’ve got you.”

  “You do?” The question sounded fainter this time.

  “Yeah, but you have to stay awake.” Mason didn’t like the way the color had drained from his best friend’s cheeks in a rush.

  “You’ve got it under control, right?”

  “Yeah, you just relax. I’ve got you covered.” His attention split between reassuring Ty and checking the stability of Lacey’s vital signs with enough discretion to avoid alarming the other man further.

  “You won’t let anything happen to us.” With that, Tyler checked out.

  The distant wail Mason had caught a hint of had amplified. Paramedics would be on-site in less than a minute. Until then, he put one hand on Lacey’s shoulder and the other gripped Ty’s fingers. He held on tight while he murmured reassurances to them. And himself.

  Lacey woke in an unfamiliar bed. She struggled to surface through the fog threatening to send her back to oblivion for the fourth or fifth time since she’d first roused and found herself out of the hospital. On each return trip to consciousness she’d managed to stay awake a bit longer. So far she’d figured out the baby blue ceiling of the room she slept in had several cracks in it. She could reach both sides of the narrow mattress easily. The bright quilt covering her kept her toasty and the air smelled like sugar cookies fresh from the oven.

  “Mama Rose?” The scratchy whisper sounded nothing like the call she’d intended.

  “There you are, Lacey-love.” A plump woman, shorter even than Lacey, came to sit on the edge of the mattress. Her hand, showing wrinkles Lacey had never noticed before, reached out to brush a stray lock of hair off her forehead. “Don’t try to sit up yet, dear. Give it a minute. You’ve got a mild concussion and a few nasty bruises.”

  “What happened?” she asked aloud while she scrambled to bridge the gap in her memory.

  Mama Rose didn’t answer right away, letting her remember for herself. Distorted fragments of action patched together—flashing lights, people shouting, the ER—until she knew enough to be terrified. “Ty! Where is he?”

  The restraining touch on her shoulder kept her prone on the mattress though she should have been able to brush it right off.

  “Shush, darling. That son of mine is hardheaded. Probably dented the dash of your poor little car. He went to the station with Mason to file a report and wait for the results of a few tests. They’re going to find out who did this to you.”

  Through the confusion in her mind, Lacey had a vague recollection of the fight that had precluded their crash. Under the care of Ty’s doting mother, guilt swamped her. “I’m so sorry. I could have gotten him killed. So pointless…”

  “Don’t waste energy worrying about what might have been. Save it for learning from your mistakes and healing up now, you hear?”

  “How’d you get so smart, Mama Rose?” Lacey felt like a fool but the other woman surrendered a belly laugh at her serious inquiry.

  “By making lots of mistakes, of course. Now, do you think you can sit up for a bit? Let’s see if you’re still dizzy. I have a couple more pain pills the doctor sent home with you and some water here if you can keep them down.”

  No wonder this groggy feeling had been so hard to shake. Grateful for the supporting hands that cradled her as she rose, Lacey took stock of her condition. Her training kicked in while she conducted a self-evaluation. A moderate headache, slight motor impairment and some memory loss made up the symptoms she checked off her list but the lack of spotted vision or nausea reassured her. “I think I’m okay, Mama.”

  “Okay! Don’t be ridiculous! Of course you’re not okay, Lacey-love. But you’ll survive anyway. You’re one tough cookie.”

  The complete understanding destroyed Lacey’s inhibitions. She flung her arms around Ty’s mom and squeezed until she heard a muffled, “Ooomph.”

  “I love you, Mama Rose.” She wondered if empathy could be hereditary. The source of Tyler’s uncanny insight stared straight into Lacey’s eyes. The intensity of the woman’s piercing gaze made her a little uncomfortable as she imagined all her secrets laid bare.

  “You know I love you, too. Like you were my own.” The welcoming smile she usually wore morphed into a stern frown that transformed her from a harmless homemaker into a force to be reckoned with. “And sometimes that means laying down the law. I’ve watched the three of you kids tiptoe around this thing between you for far too long now.”

  Lacey sputtered, “Th-thing?”

  “You know what I mean, young lady. I saw those two boys when they carried you in here. Had their panties in a wad over you as usual but this time it was something more. Something real.”

  She tried to interject—she couldn’t possibly discuss their unorthodox relationship with Ty’s mom, could she—but Mama Rose bowled right over her objections.

  “Maybe it took losing Rob to make you all understand your time here is finite. What you have now is a good start.”

  Lacey gulped. Maybe Ty’s mom didn’t realize they’d done a lot more than start.

  “Don’t you look ashamed, sweetie. There’s nothing wrong with pure love in any of its forms. Anyone who would judge your happiness isn’t worth the opinion they’d force on you. People will talk but none of it matters. You remember that.”

  Something about the wistful note in Mama’s voice roused her own intuition. “You…”

  “That’s right. Before Ty was born. Jack and I lived with another woman.” She stopped to clear her throat.

  “Lucinda.” Lacey had heard plenty of stories about Ty’s eccentric, honorary aunt.

  “I suppose I do talk about her quite a bit, huh?” Mama’s smile lit the room. “We were college roommates when I started dating Jack. The first time he came to pick me up at our apartment, I saw the chemistry between them. It was electric. We all tried to ignore it for a while but of course that didn’t work. So we decided to move in together and live as a triad.”

  “What happened, Mama?”

  “All I can say is that we weren’t completely honest with each other.” The older woman sighed in regret. “Things fell apart. It got too painful to be close yet incomplete. Lucinda knew it couldn’t work that way. She left. A few years later she got cancer. It had already metastasized by the time they diagnosed her.”

  Lacey laid her head over Mama’s heart as she gave her a hug and swore she could hear it break. Ty’s mom sniffled then patted Lacey’s back. “I’ll tell you this, Lacey-love. I know it’s ridiculous but I always felt like she knew but didn’t want to fight it. At the end, she came to us. Told us she’d never stopped loving us. I swear that’s what did Jack in.”

  “Mama Rose, Mr. Lambert had a stroke.” The nurse in her rebelled. “As much as it might have seemed otherwise, their deaths had nothing to do with you. They wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for an act of nature.”

  Ty’s mom pulled out of the embrace and left the bed. The shift of weight jostled Lacey’s sore head, causing her to wince. By the time her vision cleared, Mama stood in the doorway wringing her floral apron between restless fingers.

  “Open your eyes, sweetheart. Don’t settle for less than everything they have to give or none of you will survive the disappointment. Tyler may be hardheaded but he’s soft-hearted. Don’t hurt my baby. Please.”

  In the wake of such momentous conversation, Lacey couldn’t rest no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she worked her legs
off the bed inch by inch until she sat on the edge. She had to pee but she felt awkward asking Mama to help after their exchange. Taking time to adjust to her position, she scanned Ty’s boyhood room. Along with posters touting baseball legends, lame hair bands and pretty girls, a scattering of old photos and newspaper articles had been tacked to the corkboard along one wall.

  In an attempt to force her eyes to uncross, she tried to decipher a few of the headlines. Several she recognized because she’d clipped them for her own scrapbook. One came from the article the local paper had done on Mason when he broke the state record for fastest lap times in five different swim events during a single high school meet.

  Ty also had a copy of the program from the recital she’d had a solo part in during her stint as a dancer. He would have been a senior that year, she supposed. Pictures of Ty, Mason and Rob lined the walls. Inseparable, they’d passed each of life’s coming-of-age hurdles in synch. The first day of high school, various Halloween costumes, birthday parties, first dates, prom pictures, sports team rosters—even a shot of the young men holding identical acceptance letters for the police academy.

  Each piece of memorabilia drew her in deeper to their shared past. She stood on shaky legs to traverse the few steps to the rickety dresser that held a framed photo she couldn’t quite make out from her post on the bed. She abandoned hope of making it to the bathroom at the far end of the hall, instead returning to the mattress with her prize.

  A laugh escaped when she saw what he’d kept in the place of honor. The motion jarred her throbbing head but she didn’t care. Lacey scooped up the image and took a closer look. As she lay on her side, she traced the familiar lines of their youthful faces.

  Mason and Ty bracketed her on the tailgate of the rust bucket they’d pitched in together to buy with money they’d earned mowing a million lawns their last summer in high school. Crystal clear, the day replayed in her mind.

  Soaking wet, they’d just finished swimming in the lake when they realized only Lacey had remembered to pack a towel. Together, they’d attempted to huddle under one scrap of terrycloth until the thin cotton ripped, sending them all flying into the mud. Of course, they’d escalated the incident to a full out war until all you could see beneath the slime were their sparkling eyes. Rob, who’d made a quick escape from the drama, had captured the moment on film just as they’d collapsed together in a fit of giggles before diving into the sunlit pool to wash off again.

  She couldn’t count the number of times the four of them had jammed onto the bench seat to head off on whatever adventure caught their fancy. Now only the three of them remained. And she’d be damned if she would lose them.

  The men she loved.

  Though she’d never admit it to Tyler or Mason, the pounding in her head got bad enough that she swallowed the medicine Mama Rose had set out before lying down again. As her eyes began to drift closed once more, she studied the photograph clasped in her hands. This time she focused on what Rob had seen instead of her memory of the moment. Both Mason and Ty had an arm around her shoulders. As she grinned into the camera, they exchanged a knowing look over her head. A glance chock-full of friendship, mischief and…something more?

  Had Rob seen what Mama Rose did? Could the men she loved, love each other, too?

  How could they not?

  ***

  Mason stood guard over the bed where Lacey slept. It worried him that she hadn’t woken up when he collected her from Ty’s old bedroom or during the bumpy ride in his truck over Mama Rose’s rural driveway or even when he’d carried her up the stairs to her mammoth four-poster. Several calls to her doctor had assured him the unnatural slumber aligned with her injuries and the prescription she’d been given. She’d had a full examination, then regained consciousness in the hospital before they’d released her into his care but something about the deep sleep felt off to him.

  All in all, she’d gotten lucky. They couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary other than her concussion. The source of that wasn’t in question. As long as he lived, he’d never erase the horrific scene from his mind. But what had caused her to pass out in the first place?

  Tyler’s account of their ill-fated car ride made it clear more than drowsiness had influenced Lacey’s behavior. However, the lab hadn’t turned up any abnormal substances in her blood or the last few drops of her coffee. They were going over her car, her clothes and anything else they could think of now.

  Ty limped across the floor from the bathroom, disrupting Mason’s circuitous pattern of thoughts. His raven hair spiked in damp clumps as he finished drying his torso with ginger swipes of the maroon towel before tossing it into the open hamper without looking. The grotesque line of bruises marching up his ribs stole Mason’s breath. He’d bet there were more beneath the baggy sweatpants riding low on Ty’s slim hips as a result of his impact with the dash. His solid body had sheltered Lacey from the worst of the collision.

  The tree branch that would have impaled him had he been wearing his seatbelt had prevented him from being thrown out the window but it had smashed into his exposed ribs. Mason would have sworn at least one or two were cracked but the X-rays the stubborn ass had finally agreed to, after insisting he be allowed to stay with Lacey, showed they were merely bruised. Still, Mason bet they hurt something fierce. They’d come so close to disaster, he still couldn’t entirely convince himself of their safety.

  “I think I’m going to take a quick nap. My hip is throbbing like a bitch.”

  “Wuss.” The jab came out half-hearted. Ty’d refused the pain medication the doctor had prescribed in order to stay alert. Mason could respect that but knew his partner would be paying for it now.

  “Come lie with us, Mason. Today’s been hardest on you.”

  “Oh yeah, because getting pulled from a mangled car had to have been the most relaxing thing you’ve done this year.”

  “You’re so tense I’m afraid you’re going to crack a tooth.” Ty reached out to hug him when he neared but Mason drew away as if burned.

  Tyler’s shunned hands fisted as they dropped to his side. His usually brilliant eyes seemed to dull further from pain or, maybe, betrayal. With stilted strides so different from his standard loose-limbed grace, he lumbered to the bed. When he eased onto the mattress he looked drained, like a hundred-year-old man. Defeat slumped his shoulders, making Mason feel like a royal bastard.

  The man had been in a serious wreck then practically walked it off. Sure, he’d zoned out for a minute or two but, as soon as he’d realized Lacey needed help to get extricated from her crunched sedan, he’d perked up. After guiding her limbs around the distorted steel, he’d hauled himself out before anyone could help.

  In the next heartbeat, they’d crowded into the ambulance with a still unconscious Lacey. He’d deferred all medical attention in order to ensure she got premium care. He’d only permitted his own exam in the hospital once the doctor had assured them Lacey’s injuries were minor and Mason had threatened to have him admitted if he didn’t permit the check-up.

  He’d grudgingly agreed, though Mason had watched him struggle to refrain from snapping at the staff to hurry. They still had no idea who’d fucked with Lacey. They’d stowed her at Mama Rose’s where Mason intended to ditch Ty as well but he’d resisted being left behind. Together, they’d headed to the station with zero downtime for the badass to recover.

  “You must feel like shit.” Mason knew he’d compounded the physical discomfort with emotional trauma. Tyler didn’t respond.

  “Son of a bitch, Ty. Hang on a minute.” He rushed to the other man’s side when he struggled to settle into a more comfortable position. “Want me to get some pillows from one of the other rooms?”

  Instead of answering, the wounded man closed his heavy lids, refusing to acknowledge Mason’s presence.

  “Don’t you get it? I can’t touch you, Ty. Not now. Not when everything is churning in my gut.” Silence. Tyler never shut him out like this. “You’re hurt! I won’t be able to st
op once I unleash this…”

  “Why would I want you to stop, dumbass?” Ty splayed on his back. He flung a forearm over his face as though he could block out the world. He must not have expected an answer.

  Mason dropped to his knees beside the bed. The erratic rise and fall of Ty’s chest hurt him all over again. He had to explain. “Because Lacey is less than a foot away?”

  “So?” He still didn’t remove the defined arm to meet Mason’s gaze.

  When Mason didn’t answer right away, Ty heaved a huge sigh. “Look, Clark. I just want to decompress for a few in case we get a hit on the second round of tox screenings.”

  The clear dismissal rankled. Despite his best intentions, Mason began to get angry. “We’d be cheating on her. I stand by what I said to you the other day. If we’re committed to her, we shouldn’t be with anyone else. Including each other. It’s not right. It puts her at risk!”

  Ty went rigid. Mason tried to ignore the residual droplets of water that slid into the contours between Ty’s flexed abs but his cock noticed. It sprang to life in response.

  “Do you hear what you’re saying, Mason? I don’t fuck around. You know that. And we’ve always used protection with other women. She signed up for both of us. At the same time. Multiple partners and all that. What we want is only our dirty little secret because you refused to let her in on it.”

  “She didn’t…”

  “You never gave her the chance!” Ty struggled to sit up but collapsed with a groan.

  Mason balled his fingers in his pockets to keep from soothing Tyler. He glanced at Lacey’s face to ground himself—to remind him of his beliefs. Relaxed but dotted with bruises, she looked like a fallen angel, not the kind of woman to take on two rough lovers. Never mind the kind of person who would enjoy the explosion of base physical lust he and Tyler seemed to revel in when they got together.

  “She would be disgusted.” He swallowed hard. “And I can’t handle that, Ty. I don’t understand it myself. How could I explain how I feel to her?”