The guys from the club smile at me, nod at me, watch me as if they’re grieving, angry and relieved. A strange combination. A wall of men. Most of them are men my father called family.
“Razor and Oz aren’t here.” Eli carries me down the hallway. “They’re texting everyone in the club every ten minutes, though. And now they have Emily texting me every five minutes. They’re driving me nuts. Razor and Oz are with your brother. Keeping his mind off you being gone.”
Good. That’s good.
“Put her back in her room!” Nurse Becky shoots in front of Eli, but he doesn’t stop. Instead, he steps around her. She keeps yelling and it sounds as if someone is yelling back.
We reach the end of the hallway and Pigpen winks at me as he opens a door. My heart stops beating when Eli enters a room almost identical to mine, but instead of my mom, there’s Chevy’s mom and in the bed is the one person who could possibly understand the thrumming.
Dark hair, dark eyes, battered, definitely bruised, but he’s still a strong, safe port in a raging storm. Chevy sits up in the bed, the pure relief on his face an echo of the unraveling of tension happening within me.
“Brought you a visitor,” Eli announces, and when Chevy scrambles to move out of the bed, Eli shakes his head. “Stay put.”
Eli gently lays me next to Chevy, and when our gazes meet, my eyes burn. He’s okay. Chevy’s okay.
“Eli McKinley!” Rebecca, Oz’s mom, flies into the room. Pieces of her black hair falling from a bun. She’s in her blue nursing scrubs, and she looks like she’s ready to roast Eli over an open fire. “I am doing my best to keep the hospital from throwing you and this club out the door and then you go and pull Violet from her room? You can’t do that!”
Rebecca checks my IV machine, pushing buttons, tracing my line and then checking where the needle goes into my skin. Her eyes flicker from me to Chevy, then back to me. She purses her lips, then she tucks my hair behind my ear. “You okay?”
I nod, and she tucks the hair behind my ear again. I like Rebecca. She understands that sometimes words are overrated. She understands a lot of things. I often used to wish she was my mother instead of Oz’s.
“When are they going to be discharged?” Eli asks.
“After the doctor goes over their test results. I’ve told you this.” Rebecca returns her attention to my IV machine. “She’s on a morphine drip. You can’t go messing around with the machines.”
“I want them out of here,” Eli demands. “I want them out of this hospital and under my roof. I don’t know what the hell I’m dealing with and I don’t want them here so exposed.”
Rebecca glares at Eli. “Orderlies are scared to come onto this floor because of the amount of men you have planted outside this door. I think Chevy and Violet are safe.”
They keep arguing. Mom jumps into the conversation. So does Chevy’s mom. All loud voices with varying opinions that Eli won’t listen to because he believes he knows everything.
There’s a movement of the covers and my heart flips when Chevy’s hand finds mine. Somehow, even though I was already lying down, I settle further into the bed, into the pillow, and the thrumming in my head becomes less severe.
It’s like a buzzing now, less annoying, but still there. As if I was encased by a beehive.
Chevy laces his fingers with mine and I breathe out. It’s a cleansing breath, it’s a cathartic breath, it’s like slipping into a hot bath.
Chevy’s hand is rough, calloused from football, from the years of working on motorcycles and cars, from the fistfights he’s had over the years to protect his family, to protect my brother and recently to protect me.
It’s a strong but gentle hand. One that guides our linked fingers closer to his chest, closer to his heart, and I swear to God I can feel it beating through his shirt. Maybe that’s my heart beating. Maybe this is the first time my heart has worked properly since the gun was fired.
We’re shoulder to shoulder in the cramped bed. His body heat drifts over me like an additional blanket, and for the first time since we arrived, my eyes grow heavy and the need for sleep is overwhelming.
I turn my head, slowly, enjoying the way the cool pillow caresses my skin. Chevy’s already watching me, and if I had the energy, I’d touch his beautiful face.
“Please make them leave,” I whisper.
Chevy squeezes my hand, casts his eyes in the direction of all the grown-ups who have loud voices and even louder opinions. “Everyone needs to go.”
It’s odd how there were so many things being said at once and how that all ended in an instant.
“We’re tired,” Chevy says. Simple. To the point. I like it.
“We’ll be right outside.” I can’t tell if that was my mom or Chevy’s mom and I’m honestly too tired to figure it out. Instead, I study Chevy’s jaw. There’s a bruise and I don’t like it. I wish I could wave my hand and he’d be healed.
Shuffling of footsteps on the wooden floor, then Chevy calls out, “Eli.”
“What do you need?”
“I need sleep.”
So do I.
I angle my head so I can witness Eli’s response, to see if he understands what Chevy’s really asking, what I need to know before I can let myself drift.
“We’ve got every entrance and exit covered. No one’s coming in here if you don’t want them. You’re safe to rest. Get some sleep, we’ll get you both home soon and we’ll take care of you there, as well.”