I sighed. “Yes, sir.”
My eyes grew round while his face grew smug and smiley.
“Fuck.”
Hayden cracked up as he pulled into a parking spot at the hospital. “I’m not saying a thing.”
“Why not? The look on your face and the laughter certainly wasn’t you keeping quiet.”
“Alright. I fucking loved hearing you call me sir. When Marcie does it, I love it, and expect it. When you do it, I feel like I’ve done everything in my life right, and we both know that’s not the fucking case.”
“We both made mistakes, Hayden. We can’t keep rehashing all the shit we did wrong. That’s no way to live.”
“You’re right.”
“Jesus Christ. Are you feeling okay?”
“Fuck no. I’m all itchy and twitchy and a little lightheaded.”
I burst out laughing. “God, I love you.”
“Same, vato. More than you can imagine.”
My phone dinged just as we leaned toward each other. Sighing, I sat back in my seat.
“We need to get inside. We shoulda been in there already.”
Hayden opened his door as he said, “It’s not like we wasted time, Declan. We got in the SUV and came straight here.”
I sat there for a moment as the guilt about what happened washed over me. My door opened, and I looked into Hayden’s concerned face.
“I know we came quickly, but the conversation with Marcie…”
“We are allowed to have lives. Even in the Corps, we were allowed to have lives.”
The way my face screwed up had to be comical, but the man was insane. He literally got called away at a moment’s notice and was gone for two months without access to a freaking phone.
“Not a word.” He pointed at me, then said, “We were allowed a life, we just didn’t always get to enjoy it.”
“Better, but still.”
Flashing our Holt Securities badges a couple of times got us into the ER. I thanked our lucky stars that Hayden, Lucia, and Scott’s ID cards came in before we headed off to New York. We rounded the desk, heading toward Heidi and Lucia. Foster, Scott, and Celeste were nowhere in sight.
“Katie!”
Hayden and I picked up the pace as a gurney surrounded by doctors and nurses came out of the room next to where Heidi stood. Foster followed behind it.
Hayden gave me a shove. “Go! I’ll stay with Katie and send you Scott when I find him.”
I nodded, giving him a quick kiss before taking off after Foster and Jackson. Scott stood outside the elevator, his eyes widened when he saw us coming. He pounded the call button. The doors slid open as we made it to the elevator bank. There was no way we’d all fit on the elevator with the gurney, but luckily, the other door opened. Scott held it as I demanded to know the floor, then I jumped in with him.
I leaned against the back wall, letting my head fall back. Exhaustion had set in, but it could fuck right off. No one had time for that right now.
“Hayden’s right. This isn’t your fault. It’s not any of our faults. We did the best we could.”
My gaze hardened as I looked at him. He was a fucking kid. What the hell did he know about shit?
“Yeah, I might believe that if I hadn’t been in this line of work for the last decade. I’ve had protectees get hurt before, but nothing like this. Plus, Jackson is family.”
