“I’m fine,” Lane said. “I just need to be alone.”
“Sir, we need—”
“Leave me alone!”
A tense silence came over the room.
“Lane,” I said gently as I sat by him. “Let them do what they need to, to make sure you’re not going to die without care in the next hour. And then we can chat. Go ahead.”
Lane rolled his eyes, but I arched my eyebrow at him. He couldn’t help but smile and give a short laugh, even though it looked like it hurt.
I couldn’t lie, that man looked beat up to high hell. His lips were swollen, his nose looked out of place, bruises spotted his face, and I didn’t even know if he had more damage elsewhere on his body. His breathing was a little bit shallow, as if he’d broken his ribs.
But with that smile... somehow, that smile just broke through everything and showed me a certain beauty that rugged features or a nice body could never approach.
And I think that beauty, as strange as an adjective as it was for a man, was exactly why I was falling for him. Objectively, he was hot. Some women might say he wasn’t their type, but it was hard to find someone who would argue that he was not attractive.
What was certainly not arguable to me, though, was that his smile, his character, and the complexity and growth he had undergone made him a unique, special individual. Considering where we had started from, it was something of a miracle that being here in his hospital room wasn’t about prosecuting him or informing him of charges, but to be here and comfort him.
I had no idea where we were going to go. There was a good chance that, after I told him about Cole, that he was going to ask me to leave, and I’d only see him in professional settings. But I had a strong appreciation for him, for what he did for the town, and for what he had done for Shannon.
Hopefully, we can honor her memory and her love, not by wondering if it’s wrong, but by trying to focus on what’s right. And there’s an awful lot that’s right here.
Lane grunted and groaned every so often as the nurses prodded him and did a variety of tests on him. He tried to bite his tongue, but more than a few times, he swore about the pain. I just held his hands in such moments, which even for me stretched a little bit longer than I had hoped.
It was an enormous relief when the nurses finally did leave, saying that they needed swelling to go down and would keep an eye on him, but he was at no immediate risk of hemorrhaging or anything of the sort. The worst of it out of the way, I waited until the nurses shut the door and leaned over.
“I’m sure you’ve got quite the story,” I said with a laugh.
“Why even lie,” Lane said with a laugh. “I mean, you’ve got probable cause to arrest me for about a half-dozen crimes.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But if I do, you’re going to serve time at my place.”
Lane arched his eyebrows, gave a short laugh, and squeezed my hand.
“But for real, I should tell you everything that happened. If you’re going to be with me... you deserve to know.”
If you’re going to be with me... he wants to be with me.
He wants to make this work. Oh my God... Lane...
Unaware of the sunshine of joy coursing through my brain at that moment, Lane proceeded to recap everything that had happened with Lucius. He told me how he thought his two allies had died, how he thought he was going to die, and then how seemingly, out of nowhere, what he thought were the Black Reapers had come to rescue him.
Except, I fully knew, they weren’t the Black Reapers.
“And then the damndest thing happened,” Lane said. “I saw my brother, Cole. I keep thinking it was an illusion. There’s no way. I mean, there’s no goddamn way. He’s been missing for a year, and—”
“It’s real.”
Lane stopped mid-sentence and looked at me with wide eyes. I nodded and bowed my head, half-anticipating that he was about to tell me to get out. It was no secret how much he disliked his brother, blaming him for the death of Shannon.
“It was a coincidence at first, honestly,” I said. “I got an email from Beth saying that Cole had popped up recently in a town called Ashton about twenty minutes south of here. Apparently, he’d lived off the grid for some time but had recently appeared. Craziest thing, I know. Maybe he got tired of living away from the world. In any case, I knew you needed help.”
“I hate how much you were right,” Lane said.
I smiled as I kissed his forehead.
“We all could always use a little help,” I said. “Part of being human is to know that sometimes, you need to ask for it.”
