The nurse looked at a paper list in front of her and flipped the pages around before looking up.
“Room four-one-nineteen,” she said, scribbling the numbers onto two visitor stickers. She slid them across the counter and he and Verity dutifully applied them on their way to the elevator.
“He’s fine,” Jack assured Verity as the doors opened and let them out on the fourth floor, not sure who he was attempting to console more, himself or Verity.
They walked down the hall and found the door to Callum’s room open, the curtain pulled back. Callum was sitting in the bed, a sling around his shoulder and arm fastened to his body. His face was battered, left eye swollen nearly shut and a gash in his lip that was still fresh with blood. His right cheek was bruised just under his eye socket.
Verity pulled their hand free and stepped backward, the rustling of their clothes drawing Callum’s attention to the doorway.
“Daddy,” he gasped, reaching out to Jack with his unrestrained hand.
Jack looked over his shoulder and watched Verity retreat down the hall with a hand over their mouth. He stepped into Callum’s room and closed the door, scared to approach. Callum looked so fragile, so impermanent.
“Daddy,” Callum moaned again, a soft and pained whimper that had Jack’s feet moving across the room. He rounded the bed to take Callum’s free hand in his, pressing his knuckles to his mouth and peppering them with kisses.
“Don’t cry,” Callum said, covering his own whimper with a choked-sounding inhalation.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked, reaching for Callum’s face but stopping just shy of touching his bruised skin. “What happened?”
Callum moved Jack’s hand to his face, wincing as his fingertips brushed the bruising on his cheekbone, but he didn’t shy away, instead holding Jack’s hand in contact with him.
“I saw Keith and went after him. He said it wasn’t safe and he’d come to warn Justin and Micah, and then two guys showed up. One of them went for Keith and I tried to stop him, but the other one grabbed me.” Callum squeezed his eyes closed, trying to not remember the memory. “I’m afraid Keith got raped.”
The spark flickered out of Callum’s less swollen eye and Jack’s blood boiled.
“Did you?” he choked on his words.
Callum shook his head then inhaled sharply, shifting the other side of his body with a grimace.
“No,” he confirmed, easing Jack’s nerves. “I blacked out so they checked. But no. Oh God, Daddy, please don’t cry.”
Jack ground the heels of his hands against his eyes and clenched his jaw.
“I’m just a little banged up,” Callum told him, reaching for his hand. “My collarbone is busted, but I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack blurted.
“What for?” Callum scoffed in disbelief.
Jack launched up from the bed and walked to the window, lacing his fingers together behind his neck and staring out the window. It was dawn now, the sun cresting over the horizon but still sharing the sky with the moon. Jack squinted, looking for stars but unable to find any. He turned, eyes landing on the brightest star he’d ever seen, beaten and in a hospital bed.
“I should have married you the day I got here. I should have told you I loved you long before I did. I should have spent my entire life being the man you deserve.”
Callum rolled his good eye and reached for Jack. “I agree with two of those things. But if you’d been here the whole time, I might not have even liked you.”
Jack returned to the bed and sat beside Callum, lacing their fingers together.
“I wouldn’t have appreciated you the way I do if I’d had you all along,” Callum rasped. “But you’re gonna need to wait a lot longer to marry me now.”
“You’re kidding,” Jack paled. “I was planning to marry you in this damn hospital bed, kitten.”
“Definitely not. I don’t want to look like death in my wedding pictures. Sorry, Daddy. What I do want is to go to sleep.” Callum exhaled and closed his eyes.
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Obviously,” Callum retorted, tightening his fingers around Jack’s hand before quickly falling into sleep.
When he’d been out for half an hour, Jack untangled their hands and stood up, stretching and cracking his neck. He stepped out of the room and rummaged in his pocket for his phone and called Verity.
