And with my lips thinned, I didn’t give him a chance to say anything back. Turning on my heel, I opened the door, and Angel looked far worse than I could ever have imagined.
Chapter Three
Tor
The minutes crept slowly past and I sat in the chair with my elbows on my knees and my chin in my fists, glaring at the door and wondering what in the hell I was doing here.
Seeing her hadn’t gone as I’d hoped or expected. Granted, I understood the magnitude of what was happening. Angel was in the hospital. Again. In some ways it felt like I lived this nightmare with Jamie over and over.
I’d been around her for years, though I didn’t think she’d ever really noticed me. I’d seen her crying, exposing her heart to Zoe over and over, and in my head I would always tell myself that I needed to stay away.
But there was something about her, something real that felt vital to me.
I don’t know, maybe I was just blowing smoke up my own ass. Maybe I wanted to believe that. Maybe I needed a reason to believe that I left Norway because there’d been a greater purpose than my need to get away from the demons that’d haunted me. That in some way I could feel needed and valuable again. It wasn’t that I needed a girl. I wasn’t that kind of man. I didn’t even need Jamie. I just wanted her.
There was a difference.
Why would she ask me if I wanted to have sex with her again? I mean, yes, okay, I did. What red-blooded male wouldn’t? She was sexy, smart, and damn…the things she’d done to me, how she’d moved on me.
Grunting, I shifted position as the sudden rush of blood pooled in places it really shouldn’t have in this place.
Jamie wasn’t asking though because she’d wanted me too; she’d been asking almost as if to say she knew it was the only thing I wanted from her. I wanted everything. Her body. Her mind. Her smiles. Her soul.
Was that so wrong?
I sat back in the chair, crossing my leg and giving a brief smile to a little brown-haired girl clutching onto a woman’s hand while hugging a weathered looking teddy bear in the other. They’d just walked out of the room next to Angel’s. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she’d been crying.
In the past half hour I’d seen a lot of people walking around, a lot of splotchy faces, and witnessed a lot of breaking hearts. How could Jamie continue to do this? Time and time again?
I had the rest of the day off. Zoe had agreed to pick up my schedule for the day. There was nowhere I needed to be. But I sure as hell didn’t like being here.
I understood that Angel was sick. I fucking got it. What I didn’t understand was how he did this to her all the time and she would constantly be sucked back in to the nonsense of that man’s life. And it was like everyone but her could see it.
The man was a junkie, he screwed around on her constantly, and she always swore it would be over, and yet…he must have had some sort of magnetic pull, because before I knew it they’d be back on and she’d be trying to save him.
But she couldn’t save him. She wouldn’t save him, because you couldn’t save someone who refused to let you in. And maybe because I was on the outside looking in I could see that so clearly.
If the situation was reversed, though, and she was the one suffering like that, would I be any different?
In a sense, I really didn’t think so. Because here I sat, waiting on a girl who didn’t even notice me.
I knew I was setting myself up for failure here. My best bet was to cut my losses and run, which was exactly what she expected me to do. Hell, she’d given me permission to do it. But after all the years I keep telling myself that, the harder I seemed to fall.
I wanted to know her. I wanted her to know me. I couldn’t help but believe that if she and I took the time to finally stop and talk, that she’d see what was so clear to me.
So I drummed my fingers on my pants and waited.
***
Jamie
The room was pink and instead of one bed there were two. Thankfully the other cot was empty. A picture frame holding a photo of a smiling polar bear rested right above Angel’s head.
I was noticing the mundane because I didn’t want to keep looking at him. Didn’t want to keep seeing the tubes down his throat, the cannula in his nose, the way half his face was so dark and swollen it looked like someone had taken a hammer to him. Both his eyes were taped shut and his hair was matted with blood.
The steady beeping of a heart monitor was the only sound in the room. I glanced up to see his mother perched on the side of his bed, holding on to his hand and crying silent tears.
She looked so old to me today. There were more wrinkles on her brows and around her eyes. Her hair was no longer the silky black I remembered first seeing, but was now streaked with thick lines of silver. The whites of her eyes were now almost entirely red.
She looked like hell.
“Ms. Romero,” I whispered, sitting next to Angel and grabbing his other hand.
It was cold, and he didn’t even twitch when I took it. I wondered why I wasn’t crying. Last time this had happened I’d cried so much. I’d been just like his mom, refusing to leave his side. Now I wanted to be anywhere but here.
“Jamie, you know you should call me Jessica—I feel old when you say Ms. Romero.” She sniffed and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her finger.
I nodded. Respect for my elders had been pounded into me from my parents, but that was a Southern upbringing for you. She always wanted me to call her Jessica, and it never really felt right for me to do it. I guess I was old fashioned that way.
Giving her a tired half smile, I jerked my chin in Angel’s direction. “What have the doctors said?”
She brushed her fingers across his forehead. “He was very combative when he came in. So violent, in fact, that they had to restrain him. As far as Miguel can figure out”—Miguel was Angel’s father—“they gave him some sort of shot to make him pass out.”
She shrugged, sighed, shoved a piece of hair out of her eyes, and I could read the exhaustion all over her. My heart broke for Ms. Romero; this couldn’t be easy.
“There was some bruising in his brain. And he’s broken four toes.” She rolled her eyes. “Not sure how he managed that one. But other than that, they expect he’s gotten through the worst of it.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “His brain?” I literally felt my stomach roll. The last thing Angel needed was any more brain damage.
Wetting her lips, she nodded. “I told them about his history, and the results of his MRI should come in any time now.”
Releasing his hand, I got up and walked around to the other side of the bed. Tugging her into my arms for a short but strong hug.
“I’m so sorry. I should have been there for him more. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
Ms. Romero sniffled and I knew she was crying again. Her small shoulders were shaking. I wasn’t large by any means, but hugging her made me feel like a giant. Ms. Romero was at least two inches shorter than me.
Pulling back, she grabbed a napkin from her pocket and blew her nose into it. “Jamie, I’m grateful you weren’t there. What you’ve done for mijo, there are not words enough to convey my gratitude.”
Looking down at Angel, wishing like hell I could cry one tear, I said, “Maybe if I had been there I could have at least prevented him from driving.”
“Aye, mija,” she said, tucking the napkin back into her pocket, “we both know how he is.”
She sounded so defeated, more exhausted even than myself. I didn’t know what to say to her about it. What was appropriate in a situation like this? The guilt of what I’d been doing last night, even after I’d found out about Angel, was really beginning to prick at me.
“Where’s Marianna? I saw her in the bathroom just a second ago.”
It finally dawned on me that apart from Ms. Romero’s
purse, there was no indication of anyone else being around.
“I sent her and Miguel home to shower and change. They’d been here all night.”
“Maybe you should go, too. I can stay.” I patted the top of her hand.
“No, mija.” She grabbed on to her son’s hand again and gave it a steady pat. “I could never ask you to do that.” A short sound, like a mix between a chuckle and a sigh, fell from her lips. “We’ve all been here before. You deserve a rest from this madness just as much as the rest of us. Where are your mom and dad?” She glanced at me side-eyed.
“Saving the world again.” I laughed, but it wasn’t really funny. They worked for the Peace Corps and were currently stationed in Nigeria, so neither of them could drop what they were doing to come out and hug me.
Her face curled up. It was an old argument between Ms. Romero and me. As a devout Catholic, it wasn’t that she hated what my parents did—she admired them for it. But she’d confessed to me a time or two that it didn’t sit right with her that they were so concerned with saving others that they rarely had time for their own daughter.
Not that I disagreed with her entirely, but I’d been pretty much on my own for the past six years, and I guess I’d grown used to it.
I shrugged and picked at the blanket covering Angel’s legs. “It’s fine. They come back for a weeklong furlough soon and I’ll catch them all up then.” I smiled.
Sniffing, she shook her head. “You’re a good girl, Jamie Sullivan.”
Grimacing, because at the moment I was feeling anything but, I waved her words off. “Call Victor to come and get you. Take at least thirty minutes to get cleaned up. I promise I’ll call you if anything happens.”
Victor was her brother, but he was only two years older than me so I didn’t feel right calling him Mr. Victor.
“I don’t know.”
Giving her a stern look, I lifted my brows. “I had a good night’s sleep. I’m fine. But you look exhausted. Just go eat something, shower, and then come back. Okay?”
I could tell I was wearing her down. In the past she never would have left Angel’s side. She’d stayed with him once the entire two weeks of his time in the hospital. But I couldn’t stand the thought of her doing that again. Her health had begun to decline in the past year. Marianna told me that her mom was now on anti-anxiety medications and suffering from high blood pressure.
Angel was slowly killing her.
She needed rest and I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Probably realizing I wouldn’t drop it, she nodded.
“Okay, but just a short break.” She held up a finger. “I think I will go home for just a while. Call me if anything changes, okay?”
“Of course.” I smiled when she leaned up to kiss my left cheek.
Her hair smelled of coffee and cinnamon sugar. The Romeros owned a chain of highly successful Mexican bakeries—called panadetias—and she worked at the one down the road from where they lived. She worked the counters so much the smells were a part of her now.
They were wealthy enough that neither one of them actually had to work anymore, but they loved it, and considering there were very few things in their lives that kept them happy, it was no wonder they worked as they did.
Leaning over, I grabbed her purse off the chair and held it out to her.
Taking it from me, she dug out her phone, gave Angel a kiss on his cheek, and then, with a small finger wave, she was out the door.
Now it was just he and I.
Taking a seat, I stared at the man I’d fallen so hopelessly in love with back in high school. Back then Angel had been my world—a soccer athlete with an A average and a scholarship to the University of Texas for athletics. He’d planned to go pre-med. Study to become a doctor. We’d had so many wild dreams. All of them wrapped up in each other.
Life was perfect. And at eighteen it’d been impossible to think it wouldn’t always be. That things could ever go wrong. Youth breeds optimism. Or at least it had for us. We were young, beautiful, and in love.
Leaning my chin on my fist, I stared at Angel, barely even recognizing him anymore. His skin looked more yellow than I remembered. The drugs and alcohol were really doing a number on him. He also had scabs and sores around his mouth. It’d been a long time since I’d let him kiss me. I didn’t trust him to tell me the truth about any STDs he might have. I knew he was a coke user, he called it recreational, but he was deluding himself. I’d once begged his mother to get him treatment and she’d almost done it, until Angel had pissed and railed that he was okay and I was just overreacting, and nothing had ever come of it.
We didn’t hang out as often anymore, but still kept up almost daily phone conversations. I think for Angel having that open line of communication was all he needed—just to know that I was there when he wanted me there was enough for him. For me, it’d become a taxing and straining way to hang on to a friendship, let alone a pseudo-relationship.
But I knew with him constantly being high, it was smarter to keep a physical distance. Deep down I believed Angel was still the sweetheart he’d been back in high school, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to believe that drugs didn’t change a person.
Marianna had told me he’d begun thieving from the panaderia till sometimes. His habits were getting worse, and since I wasn’t technically family I had zero legal say as to how they should handle him.
In fact, if he’d shown up to the club last night, that would have been the first time in a month since I’d seen him. He’d told me he’d been clean for over a week and wanted my help in getting him directed to a good drug rehab facility. I’d been stupidly hopeful.
But gazing at him now, the way his skin was changing, I wouldn’t doubt if the one-week sobriety had been a lie. Not only was he not off drugs, but it looked like he’d been doing much worse than just crack. There were sores and scabs I wasn’t entirely sure came from the accident, and if that were the case, I’d hazard a guess that he’d moved from crack-cocaine to meth.
My heart broke every time I saw him. I used to burn to try and save him. Now there was a cold numbness spreading.
The door opened.
I expected it to be a doctor or a nurse. Maybe Ms. Romero, but it was none of the above. A tall, blond-headed Viking poked his head in.
“Jamie,” he said in that soft, throaty accent of his and my stomach dropped to my knees. “I figured you were in here alone, wondered if you’d like some company?”
I couldn’t figure Tor out. It was why I didn’t say no. He was a total mystery to me. I flicked my wrist, too exhausted to even fight this.
More than anything I wanted to know why he was here, why he’d even bothered trying with me. Maybe if he saw Angel he’d go away; maybe then he’d realize trying to get to know me was a bad idea.
“Hey,” I said when he took a seat in the chair beside me.
Steepling his fingers, he stared at Angel for a while before then turning his attention back to me. His eyes were so serious, and in the dim lighting they seemed a darker blue.
“I figured you’d have left by now,” I whispered. Not that Angel was going to be waking up anytime soon; whatever the doctors had given him, it must have been pretty powerful. I could only imagine the level of rage he must have exhibited for them to decide to knock him out, especially considering his drug history.
His full lips thinned. I couldn’t help the flutter of my pulse thinking about where his lips had been last night. “I considered it.”
“So why didn’t you?”
His gaze was heavy and penetrating. “Because it’s not what a friend does.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
“If you’ll let us be.”
I sighed. The machines beeped, Angel’s chest rose and fell. It was all so bizarre, I felt completely outside of myself. “Look where we’re at, Tor.” I pointed at the bed. “Doesn’t this seem
wrong or weird to you? Why do you want to be here?”
He grabbed my hand then, and god, I should have made him let me go. I should at least have asked him to drop it. But I was so, so tired. And his fingers were strong, and they were stroking my palm and it felt so warm, so alive. I shuddered and hung on tight.
“Because I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
I laughed. But none of this was funny. I was sick to my stomach, so confused, and, honestly, a little scared.
“I’m not sure what you want from me,” I finally said, sneaking a glance at Angel, because I really shouldn’t have been having this conversation here in front of him. I knew he was out, but I’d always been a big believer that subconsciously we were always aware. Tor really should go.
And had I even an ounce of propriety left in me, I’d tell him to leave. But he was looking at me like he really understood, like he wasn’t demanding anything, like he really wanted to be here and I couldn’t say the words.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said and crossed his legs. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
His thumb stroked the soft skin between my thumb and finger. With how he said it, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been here before.
Silence stretched between us. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t peaceful, either. I was so aware of the rhythms of life. That the man I’d sworn I’d save looked like a broken shell in that bed, that I was currently holding the hand of a man I barely knew but somehow felt understood me, that my stomach rioted, not because of guilt this time, or even lust, but something else I wasn’t quite sure of. I squeezed his fingers.
Tor turned to me. “Tell me about him.”
Rockers After Dark: 6 Book Bundle of Sexy Musicians Page 59