“I have nothing to lose,” Grizz spat. “No skin in this game. Let me fix this for you. All you have to do is walk away.”
Cole was no longer struggling, because he was no longer with us at all. He lay there completely unconscious.
Fuck…
As the rain came down, silence reigned. I felt the weight of four pairs of eyes, shifting my way.
I opened my mouth, ready to speak. But—
“We can’t,” Sawyer croaked, miserably. “I wish we could, but…”
“He’s right,” Bodie sighed. “Grizz, let him go.”
For a split-second, I wondered if the situation were too far gone. If the old man’s mind was still back in the jungles of Vietnam, where none of us could reach him to stop the inevitable.
Then, gratefully, I saw the muscles in Grizz’s arms relax. He let go; and climbed out from beneath Cole’s unconscious bulk.
“That isn’t how we would’ve done it in Khe Sanh,” he said, miraculously not even out of breath. “But hey, this is your circus.” He shrugged. “I’m just the guy who sweeps up the peanut shells.”
~ 56 ~
HAYDEN
“And I’m telling you, a hot dog is a sandwich!”
Sawyer pointed his beer, as if it were somehow helping his argument. Standing behind the bar, Carter scowled.
“Look, it has meat. It has bread. The meat is inside the bread, right?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Really?” he huffed, running his fingers through that beautiful blond hair I loved so much. “You don’t think so?”
“If a hot dog is a sandwich, then a burrito is a sandwich,” Carter shot back.
Sawyer scoffed. “A burrito?”
“It’s got meat surrounded by bread,” Carter reasoned. “Your definition, not mine.”
“That ain’t bread, bro.”
“It’s flour and water. Same thing.”
I laughed, kicking back from my spot on the stool I’d slid into directly from work. When it came to my boys ‘fighting’, I could watch them all night. Well, most of the night, anyway.
“BODIE!”
My third and most studious boyfriend looked up from the table he’d been working at. It was scattered with so muchpaperwork, the others had teased him he was causing a fire hazard.
“Settle this,” Sawyer folded his arms. “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”
Bodie pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and looked at me. I shrugged, helplessly.
“Seriously?” he barked. “This is what you’re spending your energy on?”
“Answer the question,” Carter demanded.
Bodie rolled his eyes, causing me to giggle. For the first time in a while, I noticed my ribs didn’t hurt when I did it.
