I'm Only Here for the Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  We weren’t anything. We’d had sex once, and I’d convinced myself that he really wouldn’t care.

  Yes, I was that insecure.

  Yet, deep down inside, I knew that wasn’t true. He would’ve cared, but I’d taken the decision to have him at my side away from him, and I expected him to be a little upset by that.

  “All right, Ms. Naomi. Your turn!” the nurse announced.

  I clapped my hands excitedly, causing her to laugh.

  I’d spent a week with these ladies on the floor, and every single one of them had clapped with me when they’d gotten the news that I was finally able to do number two…out of the right hole.

  Now I knew that I would have a friend for life.

  She’d even offered to let me borrow her cell phone charger when I’d realized I’d forgotten mine.

  Though, that was rejected by me.

  It was easier not knowing if Sean tried to call, instead of knowing that he hadn’t.

  “Ohhh,” Abigail stopped me right outside the doorway of my room, and turned back. “I forgot these came for you while you were getting dressed.”

  She walked to the nurses’ station and came back with a vase of flowers.

  A really big vase with so many flowers in it that it was obvious that it’d cost a fortune.

  “Thank you,” I murmured. “Did they say who it was from?”

  The meddling woman, the same one that’d been trying to get me to call Sean all week, grinned.

  “The delivery guy said ‘from your biker’ to me. The card reads the same.” She pointed at the card.

  My belly warmed, and I closed my eyes, finally realizing just how stupid I’d been.

  Maybe I should have called him. But then I realized that he had to know where I was to be able to send these. At least hours ago.

  Why hadn’t he come up here?

  Sure, I was likely overreacting. In fact, I knew I was overreacting. Yet I didn’t care. I wanted someone who freakin’ cared. Who would show up, pissed as hell, that I had been missing a week without an explanation.

  “Thanks,” I said to her.

  Abigail’s face fell, and she pursed her lips. “I don’t agree.”

  I knew she didn’t.

  I didn’t know Abagail all that well, but in the short time I had her as my nurse, I knew she spoke her mind. Countless times she’d told me rather bluntly that this was real life. Shit happened, literally. So I needed to stop being embarrassed and live my life.

  Something in which I’d promised her I’d do from now on. Something I felt that I could accomplish without that stupid colostomy bag weighing me down and preventing me from wearing the clothes that I wanted to wear.

  “Damn, I forgot your prescriptions. Be right back.”

  She stopped me beside the elevator, next to an older man that I’d seen walking the floor right along with me over the last day that I’d been able to cajole my body up.

  The man looked lost.

  “Hello,” I said, touching the old man on the shoulder. “Can I help you with something?”

  He looked over at me in my own wheelchair, and shook his head.

  He looked sad.

  Really sad.

  And I wanted to give the old man a hug.

  I didn’t usually do that. Not with strangers.

  In my line of work, I saw a lot of men and women, especially older folks, who looked sad.

  It seemed, the older you became, the lonelier you got. And this man, with his bushy white eyebrows, and his jowly face, looked lonelier than any I’d seen in a long time.

  I didn’t know what possessed me to talk to him, but I did.

  “They’re springing me. Are they springing you?”

  His eyes returned to mine.

  “I wasn’t here because I was admitted. Just visiting the ladies who took care of my wife.”

  I blinked.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassed. “That’s good, then. How’s your wife doing?”

  If I’d read his body language, I would’ve known that this was a sore subject, but I was trying to distract myself from the bouquet of flowers in my lap, instead focusing on this man who looked so sad.

  “My wife died a little over six months ago,” he rasped, his voice full of shakes. “She died, and these ladies on the floor did CPR on her for over an hour before the doctor called time of death. They make me feel closer to her, so I come up here and visit.”

  My stomach dropped.

  If I’d been standing up, I would’ve swayed on my feet at the sound of the devastation in that man’s voice.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I whispered, unsure what to say.

  I was never good at finding the right thing to say. Which was why it was so hard for me to comfort patients’ families. I was a paramedic, not a counselor, and at times I found it hard to say the right things when the right words were all you wanted to hear.

  He shrugged, like it didn’t bother him.

  As long as you didn’t look at his eyes, you might not know.

  “Sorry, honey. Here they are.” She handed them to me.

  I looked at the filled prescriptions. “These are filled,” I said dumbly.

  Abigail snickered. “Technically, since you’re an employee of the hospital through the ambulance service, you can fill your scripts at the hospital pharmacy at no extra cost to yourself.”

  That was awesome, though I didn’t plan on being in a hospital anymore to use this convenience.

  “Thank you,” I smiled.

  “Hello, Mr. Thorton. Are you on your way home?” Abigail asked, sounding surprised to see the man beside us.

  “Hi, Abby Girl,” he said thickly. “And I am.”

  “Did you ever find your dog?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “She never came back home. I posted those fliers all over the neighborhood, but haven’t heard a thing back on her.”

  Oh, God. The man had lost his dog, too? Only months after losing his wife?

  That was freakin’ horrible.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Thorton. How about you ride down with us, keep us company. This one gets to go home today after a week with us,” she chattered along as if I wasn’t even there. “I’m trying to convince her to call her man, but she’s being stubborn. She called a taxi instead.”

  I bit my lip.

  This woman, who’d been at my side and taking care of me for an entire week now, just didn’t know how to shut up. She’d told everyone about my ‘stupidity’ as she called it.

  “That who sent you those flowers?” Mr. Thorton glanced at the bouquet in my lap.

  I looked down at the flowers, which wasn’t far since the flowers were so big, and shook my head. “Yeah,” I sighed. “They’re from him.”

  “A man doesn’t care, he wouldn’t go to the trouble,” he pointed out. “Looks to me that he cares.”

  The elevator doors opened, and I gripped my vase tightly as I saw the man I’d been doing my best to forget this last week standing there, waiting for the elevator doors to open.

  He took one look at me, and he shuddered.

  “About time,” he rumbled. “Didn’t think you’d ever get down here.”

  With that parting comment, he turned on his heels and started walking, not saying another word.

  “He’s hot,” Abigail said. “You should really think about apologizing.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, and she smiled.

  “Just a thought.”

  I didn’t want to hear her thoughts. In fact, all I wanted to do was admire the backside of Sean as he walked in front of us.

  The moment he got to the truck, he opened the passenger side and waited for me to arrive.

  Which didn’t take long because Nurse Abby, the big busy-body butter-inner, had started pushing me faster and faster until she was practically power walking in the direction of Sean and his big ol’ truck.

  A truck that
I was fairly certain I couldn’t climb into at this point.

  He must’ve realized this as I was rolled toward him, because the moment I was close enough, he started toward me.

  “Do you walk?” I suddenly asked the man next to me, rolling only inches from my chair.

  Abigail stopped in front of Sean, him only inches away from my knees, and put the brakes on the wheelchair.

  I waved Sean off when he went to scoop me up.

  “I want to.”

  He stepped back, letting his eyes trail over my face to gauge my determination.

  Something must’ve registered on my face, however, because he stepped back once more, and turned his eyes to the man at my side.

  I stood up, belly smarting as I did, and drew in a couple of deep breaths.

  “Hello,” Sean said, offering the old man his hand. “Thank you for keeping my girl company. She conveniently forgot to tell me that she was being let out today.”

  The old man smiled, and it transformed his face.

  “Nice to meet you. Brady Thorton,” Mr. Thorton answered, turning his attention to me. “I can walk…Why?”

  I looked at the wheelchair.

  He stood up, shakily might I add, and shuffled away from it a few steps.

  My heart pounded in my throat.

  Any time I saw someone, I automatically assessed them.

  Mr. Thorton was old, but first and foremost, he was a fall risk. He had on shoes that looked like they were too big for his feet, and he had a bandage on his head.

  “I mean, do you walk on any trails, like at a park or something,” I amended, clearly seeing that he was proving a point to me. “I was told that I needed to walk to keep my, um, bowels moving. I just had a colostomy reversal, and they want me to exercise, not strenuously though, to help my, errrm, you know, move along.”

  The old man grinned. “I walk at the trail at Center and First every day.” He stopped, then added. “It was what I was doing today when I fell and hit my head. Some guy’s dog was off the leash and tripped me. I was on the floor before I even knew what happened.”

  I frowned. “There’s a leash law in this city, right?”

  That question was directed at Sean, and he nodded.

  “There is,” he confirmed. “Did you get the name of the dog owner?”

  The old man shook his head. “I did not. I was too busy trying to staunch the blood flow.”

  My lips quirked.

  “I’ll meet you there tomorrow,” I informed him.

  He looked at me like I was crazy, like he didn’t believe a word that was coming out of my mouth.

  “We’ll see.”

  With that, the old man walked away, and I was left with a man that had his arm around me, all the while Abigail watched with rapt fascination.

  “Have a good day, lovely,” Abigail said cheerfully. “Call me if you have any questions, or just want to talk.”

  On that note, she left me alone with Sean.

  A man who I could tell was majorly pissed off that I hadn’t called and told him I was being discharged. Or that I had been going into the hospital in the first place.

  “How did you know that I was out?” I asked as I watched the old man shuffle to a waiting cab.

  Sean sighed.

  “Your friend called me. Told me that you got out at twelve, and that she suspected you’d try to take a cab,” Sean said and reached for the door of his truck.

  Abigail.

  I knew that look on her face had been too innocent.

  I’d listed Sean as my emergency contact. She obviously put the two ‘Seans’ together, otherwise she wouldn’t have called my emergency contact.

  Meddling woman.

  To keep my eyes off the anger in Sean’s eyes, I looked at the lifted truck, and wondered if I could hack it.

  I didn’t think that I could. My stomach wasn’t hurting, per se, but it also didn’t feel all that great, either.

  Before I could tell Sean this, though, he bent down, scooped me up—one arm under my legs, and one behind my back—and placed me carefully in the passenger seat.

  I blinked, surprised at how gentle he’d been, and realized he was really upset with me.

  I sighed.

  “I should’ve told you,” I told him as he got into the truck. “It was a surprise. I went to my doctor’s appointment, he told me he could fit me into the schedule two days later. I had a lot of prep work to do and I was busy getting ready to be gone for a few days.”

  He looked over at me, then turned back to the front and started the truck up.

  “I realize that you’re an independent woman who’s used to taking care of herself, but it would’ve been nice to know that you were having surgery.” He cleared his throat. “Even if we hadn’t promised we’d be completely open with each other, I’d still tell you to pull your head out of your ass.”

  I started to snicker.

  Forty minutes later, I was ensconced in Big Papa’s house, in an old room that used to be Sean’s, staring at the closed door in horror.

  I’d really screwed this up.

  I knew that within five minutes of being in the truck with Sean.

  He was mad.

  So mad that he didn’t say a word to me the entire ride to his place, even though I’d complained multiple times that I’d wanted to go home.

  He’d ignored me, of course, and I’d been left sitting there fuming, wondering if a cab would even run as far out as they lived.

  Probably not. I didn’t have good luck.

  Shit.

  Chapter 11

  Parents these days can’t control their kids in public. All my dad had to do was look at me, and I got my shit together.

  -Sean’s words of wisdom

  Sean

  Two hours later, I found myself walking back to my pop’s house, wondering if I was stupid or just crazy.

  I was, obviously, looking forward to having my heart broken, that much was for certain.

  I still couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing.

  My intention to leave her here and never speak to her again hadn’t worked as well as I’d planned.

  In fact, the moment I heard laughter coming from my father’s open windows from the bed in my RV, I realized that maybe I hadn’t reached my peak limit of suffering today.

  Which was why I found myself walking into my dad’s place and coming to a sudden halt.

  There were a lot of people there.

  My dad, Aaron and his wife. Tommy Tom and Tally. Verity and Truth.

  I could also vaguely hear Fender off somewhere in the back of the house talking on the phone to, who I assumed, was his baby mama.

  The icing on the cake, however, was finding Jessie James with his arm running along the back of the couch, only inches from touching Naomi.

  What, it wasn’t enough that he had to steal one woman, now he had to take the other as well?

  Fucking perfect.

  “Hey, boy. You want a burger?”

  I looked over at my pop after tearing my eyes away from Naomi, who was laughing at something Jessie had said.

  “Nah,” I said, clearing my throat when it didn’t sound as strong as it seemed. “I just came to tell you I’m going to be gone for a few hours.” I let my eyes trail back to the woman who was now staring at me, smile wiped from her face. “I have a few errands I need to run.”

  I was lying.

  I didn’t have any errands.

  But I wasn’t going to be responsible for what I did to Jessie if I stayed, which meant I had to go.

  “Yo,” Ghost said as he came up beside me. “You that busy?”

  Ghost actually talking to me was new, at least lately.

  He was different over these last couple of months.

  Since the men in our tight knit group had started getting married and finding life partners, Ghost had become even more and more distant.

  It’d started off gra
dually, and now, thinking back, I didn’t remember when he’d disappeared almost completely.

  But seeing him here at my father’s place was the first time in, at least, three weeks.

  He hadn’t even ridden with us to the smokehouse.

  I couldn’t remember the last time Ghost had missed a group ride.

  Sure, he’d shown up eventually, but it’d only been after we’d arrived.

  “No. Just a few errands that can wait. Why?” I asked.

  His jaw worked. “I need a spot.”

  I worried my lip with my teeth.

  “You working?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t actually sure what Ghost did.

  At first, I’d thought he was a law enforcement officer. But he was a little too free at handing out punishments, and any time a LEO walked in the door, Ghost walked out the back.

  He helped them, yes, but he didn’t actually work with them.

  He did his own private work, and it was rarely ever that I saw him doing his job…at least I didn’t think I did, anyway.

  Though, I had never been to his house. He worked from home the majority of the time, and since he never allowed anyone to come to his place, none of us could ever confirm what it was he did.

  So, him actually saying he was working instead of beating around the subject was enough to set off some red flags.

  “Well, let’s go,” I said. “See you later, Dad.”

  My father frowned at me, at Ghost, and then in the direction I assumed Naomi was still sitting.

  “We riding?” I asked as I walked out the back door. “Or do you want to take my truck.”

  If Ghost smiled, he would’ve done it right then.

  “Ride.”

  “What’s up?” I asked as I walked toward my bike. “Something wrong?”

  “Thought you needed an excuse to get out of there. And I need an excuse not to fuck something up that’s been in the works for four years now. I need to go, I just need to make sure that I don’t let the crazy out when I get there.”

  I looked at my friend, then nodded once.

  “I’m there if you need me.”

  He took a deep breath then released it. “I need you.”

  For Ghost to say something like that, I knew he really did need me.

  I looked back one last time at Naomi standing in the doorway of my father’s house, and knew that there was always one constant in my life…and that was my club. These men had always been there for me, even the jackwad, Jessie James, a time or two.