How About No

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “What happened to your hand?” I repeated.

  When she went to pull away, I latched onto the long hair that was laying on my shoulder, holding her in place.

  I saw her eyes dilate, and I knew what she was thinking.

  I fucking loved her long hair. It was one of my favorite things about her.

  When she was around—when we were married of course—her hair was always touching me in some way.

  If I was close enough to her, my hand was wrapped around her braid, or my fingers were sifting through her ponytail. God, I loved it. There was something about having her hair in my hand that made me feel comforted, and I couldn’t tell you why.

  And it always would.

  Just like I’d always love her.

  “I don’t know,” she hesitated. “The doctors said not to get you riled up. I have a feeling if I told you, you may get upset.”

  I growled, letting her hear my frustration.

  Ignoring the pain that the act caused, I sat up and pulled her hair, forcing her to come closer while also pulling her over until she was now sitting on the bed next to my leg.

  I would address the searing pain in my thigh later. I’d also try to figure out why my dick felt so goddamn funny, too.

  But for now, I wanted to know what in the goddamn hell had caused Landry harm. God help the motherfucker that had caused it.

  “Tell. Me.”

  Landry narrowed her eyes and lifted her lip in a silent snarl. “Don’t tell me what to do, bossy pants. I wasn’t the one that nearly almost died. You were.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought about that statement, but I was interrupted when Bayou came into the room, clearing his throat.

  “She was shot in the hand,” he said without preamble. “Through and through between her thumb and pointer finger—right through the webbing and missed every single bone. The man that you were investigating—one of the lawyers involved in the pedophile ring, got pissed that the other lawyer sang like a canary and got a plea bargain in exchange for narcing on his fellow criminals. He came and shot up the entire waiting room. Nobody died, but your girl there took a bullet straight through her hand.”

  I looked at Landry’s hand and felt something inside of me sour.

  “Bayou got shot in the side, took a chunk of meat out that required stitches,” Landry muttered darkly. “But you don’t see him admitting that, do you?”

  My eyes flicked to Bayou, then back to Landry. “I wasn’t asking him what was wrong. I was asking you.”

  Because honestly, I could give a fuck what happened to Bayou. Bayou was a grown fucking man. Landry, on the other hand, was my wife—ex-wife. She meant the entire world to me—even if she’d left me.

  I couldn’t say the same for Bayou.

  Although I was concerned that he’d been hurt.

  But still. There was a large difference between Bayou and Landry, and there always would be.

  She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  My lips twitched, and I let her go. Reluctantly.

  She looked just as hesitant to move away from me as I had been at letting her go.

  I almost reached for her again, but Bayou cleared his throat and asked, “There anything you two need?”

  Landry looked down at her hands and shook her head. “I should probably go.”

  And before I could open my mouth to protest, she was out of the room and out of my life all over again. At least, she would try to be.

  I hadn’t talked to her that much since the divorce—though that was her doing and not mine. I at least tried. And then she’d been shielding her feelings so hard that I had been left reeling.

  She’d acted as if she wasn’t affected at all. As if I was just an annoying piece of gum she’d just scraped off her shoe.

  But looking at the tears in her eyes as she hauled ass out of the room, I knew better than most that women didn’t cry if they were unaffected.

  They also didn’t come and wait at the hospital for news of their ex-husband, either.

  “That girl,” Bayou said, causing me to turn my attention to him. “Never seen her so fucking scared.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “And she yelled at the man she lives with. He was trying to take care of her hand, and all she wanted to do was get to you.” He laughed. “Was obvious as hell that she still had feelings for you, and she didn’t care who knew it. Not even the man that she’s living with.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, well. If she felt that way, then why is she living with him and not me?”

  A loud snort had me turning to the door once again.

  Startled, I looked up to find the last person in the world I ever thought I’d see in my hospital room.

  “Have you ever asked yourself why she was living with me?” the man who had stolen my wife away from me asked, standing in the doorway.

  I scowled. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re on my floor, goober,” Kourt replied. “And you didn’t answer my question. Have you ever asked yourself why she was living with me?”

  I didn’t want to answer that question. In fact, I’d rather light myself on fire and put myself out with gasoline.

  I frowned. “You mean other than the obvious?”

  Kourt scoffed. “That’s a big negative, Wade. I’m not with your wife. I’ve never been with Landry. In fact, I’ve never wanted to be with your wife—at least not in that way. We just share a bond, and we keep each other on track. Maybe you should lay there and listen to what I have to say.”

  “Why would you do that?” I asked.

  “Because today, I realized that you’re both stupid,” he answered as he settled into the chair at my bedside. “I realized that after you both were severely injured and it could have been life threatening the way the bullets were flying in that waiting room. Both of you were so concerned about each other. Y’all are likely to be the kind of people who follow each other into death. And if y’all are going to do something like that, then you both should probably be together in the first place.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was talk to this man about my life, but it didn’t look like I had much choice in the matter seeing as Kourt was now sitting down and I was fairly sure that if I attempted to stand up to get away from him, I’d fall flat on my face.

  “Fine,” I moved until I was up farther in the bed and ignored the pain that shafted straight through my thigh the moment that I did. “Enlighten me. I’m just not promising that I’ll like what you have to say.”

  He laughed harshly, without humor. “Oh, I don’t doubt it for a second. The moment that I ‘enlighten’ you, you’re going to lose your shit.”

  I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say either, but as it turned out, it was not for the reasons that I’d thought it would be.

  I looked over at Bayou to gauge his reaction to the comment and found him leaning against the wall, appearing as if he was uninterested even though I knew damn well and good that he was.

  Bayou had adored Landry, and sadly, he’d had to choose sides when we’d divorced. He had chosen me.

  “We met each other online years ago, on Reddit, actually. Then, she moved here because I was here doing my residency.” He paused. “But at first, it was both of us just talking, expressing our frustrations online that started all of this.”

  I already didn’t like where this was going.

  “We were both on the verge of killing ourselves when we met up.” He frowned. “She was very depressed and talking to me about having a plan. I knew that if she had a plan to kill herself, it was likely that she would accomplish it. That was when I met her face-to-face for the first time.”

  Every single thing that’d been going through my mind—the pain in my thigh, the throbbing in my skull, the pain in my heart at watching the woman that I loved leave me—it was all gone. It was replaced with a sudden horrible sense of dread that ma
de my already uneasy breaths stall in my chest.

  “I’ve wanted to have this discussion with you for a very long time,” Kourt said calmly. “But she made me promise to keep my distance. I was not, under any circumstances, to ever tell you a thing without her express permission.”

  I felt something inside of me clench.

  I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know what he was about to tell me.

  I had a feeling that I was not going to like it.

  “How much do you know about her family?” he asked.

  “You mean other than her sister having leukemia, and them living in Mexico for her first seventeen years of life?” I clarified.

  My voice sounded raspy as hell, and I would kill for a drink of water.

  Kourt got up and handed me one before I could even think to ask.

  I didn’t want to drink it on general principle alone, but then I’d just look petty, and I wasn’t normally a petty person.

  Then again, the man living with my wife, living the life that I wanted to be living, and he was now handing me water while looking at me like I was a small child that needed to be taken care of.

  “I’m sure that you think the Hills are good people,” Kourt started. “But they’re not. They’re awful people.”

  I frowned. “I haven’t had many dealings with them. I know I was upset when they didn’t visit Landry in the hospital when she was donating bone marrow to her sister. Sure, I see them around town. Actually, saw Lina recently. Was it this morning?”

  “Oh, yeah, you saw her this morning. I know all about that visit with Lina,” Kourt rumbled.

  I would’ve snorted had I had the energy.

  At this point, I had just enough to keep my eyes open and that was it.

  “How about I tell you how we met, and we’ll go from there,” he explained, sensing my tiredness. “It all began when we found each other online. We were in an online community for bone marrow donors. Landry and I were the only members of that forum who had endured what we had experienced, and that was probably why we’d latched onto each other so fast.

  “Everybody else was so proud of themselves, telling everyone that they felt so good about donating, while Landry and I…weren’t.” He laughed bitterly, his eyes going far away like he was no longer seeing what was right in front of him. “We bonded over an infection that we both got after one of our donations, and from there we became great friends. She became my sounding board, and I became the only person who understood how much—and why—she hated her family, because I felt exactly the same way.”

  I closed my eyes and felt another stab of guilt go through me.

  I hadn’t intended for that to happen. I hadn’t intended to make her think that Lina should come first.

  I’d only been thinking about how Lina might die if she didn’t get the bone marrow transplant that she needed. Sure, she’d voiced the fact that she didn’t want to do the transplant, but I honestly couldn’t get over the letting her sister die part just because she had a couple of bad experiences donating.

  God, I was such a fucking dumbass sometimes.

  “I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. I’m telling you this because you need to understand exactly where she’s coming from so you’ll know how to fix it,” he explained.

  I nodded once. “Keep going.”

  “While we were becoming friends, we bonded over how shitty our parents were. I’ll save my story for another time, and just go ahead and tell you exactly what she told me,” he explained. “They had Landry for the sole reason of helping to keep her sister, Lina alive.” He paused. “Lina had been fighting leukemia since she was an infant. Landry was two years old when she first donated bone marrow to Lina. This was when they moved to Mexico, because no doctor in the United States would conduct a harvest from a donor as young as Landry. They found a doctor in Mexico who was willing, and from there Landry became their unwilling donor any time that Lina needed it, which was too much for her. I’m not saying that Lina hasn’t suffered, because she has, but it was different for Landry. She suffered tremendously, and she was robbed of her childhood, all without her consent.”

  Bayou shifted, drawing my attention briefly before I returned it to Kourt.

  “What else?”

  Kourt shrugged. “The usual. She was treated like a commodity, brought to this Earth solely for the purpose of providing stem cells for her sister. In between donations, Landry was allowed to get an education. However, she was not allowed to play sports—because sports could be dangerous and could possibly hurt Landry—and Lina by association.” I looked down at my hands as Kourt continued. “She wasn’t allowed to eat anything other than what was provided for her. It was strictly monitored so she was the healthiest she could be. All of this was planned so she would be ready if Lina needed a transfusion. But, everyone deserves a treat or a special meal now and then, and Landry never got that. If by chance, Landry put anything her parents deemed ‘unhealthy’ in her mouth, her mother punished her for it, severely.”

  I remembered the cake at our wedding. How Landry had sat for hours and tasted each and every flavor.

  How annoyed I’d been at the end because she couldn’t choose.

  And now I felt like an even bigger pile of shit.

  God, I’d really fucked up.

  Who didn’t allow their child to eat junk once in a while?

  “Forget about going to normal places that kids went, like the movies or roller skating, or doing normal things with friends, like sleepovers or birthday parties, because she didn’t have any. She was homeschooled and the only person that she ever talked to was her tutor. Her parents didn’t spare her a second of their time, and neither did her sister when she was healthy. There was no warmth, no affection, no love in her life from them at all, ever. Honestly, I think Lina hated Landry because Landry was healthy, and she wasn’t. Which is kind of ironic, really, because Landry hated Lina for the same reason.” He paused. “This is where it starts getting tough, you ready?”

  I laughed humorlessly. “That other stuff wasn’t tough enough?”

  He looked at me like I was naïve.

  “A couple of years before I came into the picture, Landry started to show signs of depression. She stopped eating altogether, and she became very unhealthy. She was anorexic because that was literally the only thing she could control—what she put into her body. There were times over the years that her mother and father had her force-fed with an NG tube—a little tube that goes down your nose, down your throat, and straight into your stomach. Then she couldn’t even control that anymore.” He frowned. “It was at that point that she considered suicide. Considered it until she turned seventeen when she actually thought seriously about attempting it.”

  I felt my eyes sting.

  Who could blame her?

  “That’s where I came in. I’d been in medical school for a little over three years at that point. Took me two hours to get there. Broke into her place through a side window. Fortunately, she was holding the bottle of pills in her hands and hadn’t taken any yet. I don’t think either of us truly realized that she was so much younger than me until I arrived and saved her. Her parents didn’t even try to help her with counseling so, I continued to monitor her and talked to her every day. They were pissed as hell, though. The last year that she lived with them was torture for her. When she turned eighteen, she followed me here where I was doing my residency, and we’ve been with each other ever since…until you. When you came in the picture, I was completely and utterly forgotten. It was the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever witnessed.”

  And I’d hurt her.

  “You were her saving grace. Her miracle. The man who was always supposed to put her first…and then you chose Lina over her, and she just…broke.”

  When he put it like that, after everything he’d just told me, I couldn’t blame her one bit for leaving.

  Didn’t blame her at all.

  At least not anym
ore.

  “I can see you’re hurting.” Kourt stood and went for the pain pump that was at my side. “Press the button in your left hand.”

  I hadn’t even realized that I had a button in my left hand, but after glancing down and seeing that I did, indeed, have the button in my hand, I pressed it.

  “I’m sure that you’re going to have questions,” he said softly. “Don’t hesitate to ask. We work opposite shifts, and I’m normally here when she’s at home. I’m at home when she’s at work. I’ll leave my cell phone number here in your phone.” He informed me as he picked my phone up and typed his information in without asking.

  With that, he left and didn’t once look back.

  If he had, he’d have seen the devastation that his words left me with written plain as day on my face.

  I felt utterly broken.

  “I think we both failed her, man,” Bayou said softly.

  Yeah, I think we—I—did, too.

  Chapter 5

  Fool me once, fuck you forever.

  -Text from Landry to Wade

  Landry

  My hand hurt.

  My hand hurt really bad.

  In fact, on a pain scale of one to ten, I’d rank it at about a seventy.

  “You okay?”

  I gasped and looked up, finding the last person I ever thought that I’d see standing in front of me.

  “Yeah,” I nodded at Bayou. “I’m okay. My hand hurts, is all.”

  It’d been two weeks since I’d been shot—since Wade had also been shot—and it felt even worse today than it had when it’d first happened.

  Hell, even Bayou had been shot. It’d been a flesh wound, but still.

  We were just three peas in a pod.

  “Gonna hurt for a while, I expect,” Bayou grunted and took a seat on the bench next to me.

  I was on lunch break from the daycare, and I’d rather be anywhere but where I was at.

  I used to love the place, and what it represented, but now? Well, now I wasn’t so excited about coming here every day. It was a pain in the ass, and I was beginning to resent it.

  Not to mention all the hassle that came with it.