“A little, yeah.” The man didn’t back off, though, just tugged at his arm a little. “Come on, Jase. We’ll get something munchy and sit and jaw.”
He bit back the urge to snap and tell Bax to back the fuck off. Bax was being decent to him and fuck knew, the man’d have to leave in a couple of days for North Carolina. And didn’t that ache some?
Shit.
Even when he’d been hurt, he’d gone with.
“Okay. Come on. I’ll go back to the bed, let you get some sleep.” He’d talk to the doc today—find out how long he was gonna have to wait this out.
“‘Kay.” Bax waited until he got the truck turned off, got himself on his own two feet. Only then did Bax offer his arm.
Jason took it, telling himself it wasn’t for long. It couldn’t be. He’d just bumped his fucking head.
Bax led him back the way he’d come out, less the detour to the fence, all the way back to the bedroom, where Bax pushed him right down on the bed and started tugging at his boots, silent as a ghost.
“I can do it.” He was going to scream again, he could feel it bubbling up in him.
His left boot thumped to the floor, sounding like a fucking bomb hitting ground zero.
“Fine. Fine, Mini. You just go ahead. Sorry I fucking bothered you.”
“Don’t snarl at me, Bax. Not right now.” That was the only warning he was fucking going to give.
“I’m just trying to help,” Bax said quietly. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Me either.” He couldn’t fucking do this too long. He’d just put a gun to his head and get it over with.
Sighing, Bax pulled at his other boot, then pushed him down to wrangle his jeans off. The air felt almost cold against his skin, goosebumps rising up. Bax paused, hands on Jason’s knees.
“Right now you need to sleep, Mini. I could stay…if it would make it better.’
“I…” God, he was a girl. “I just keep hearing all these noises, man, and it just… It ain’t right.”
“Well, that’s probably regular enough, when you can’t see what they are.” The rustle of the sheets was the only sound for a minute, then Bax slid into bed next to him, solid and heavy on the other side of the mattress. “This okay?”
“Yeah.” He reached out, needing to know for sure, Bax’s arm warm and right and there.
“I got you.” Bax’s fingers slid up, twined with his. “I got your back.”
“Thank God.” He couldn’t figure it otherwise.
Couldn’t even start to.
Chapter Eleven
“Will you quit it!” Bax snarled at Momma, feeling like an idiot for making her look like that, for making Jack stare him down. The fact was, he didn’t want to go. He just didn’t. It hadn’t even been two weeks since Jason had got hurt, and he wasn’t in any place to go ride.
Momma stopped fluttering around with his duffel bag and went to the kitchen, shoulders stiff, and Bax sighed, rolling his neck.
“Shit.”
“You got your stuff together, buddy?” Jason was leaning on the door frame, eyes looking like he could see. The doctor’d said it could be days, years, never. Hell, he’d said there might be days that Jason’d see stuff and days Mini couldn’t.
“Mostly. I’ll be back Monday, early as I can.” He was flying instead of driving, not willing to leave Jason that long.
“Tell the guys I’m recovering, yeah? Nothing else.” Shit, as if Coke and AJ were gonna handle that. Fucking Coke’d been on the phone two times a day for two weeks, Jason refusing to talk to anybody.
“I’ll tell them. They’ll pester me.” Shit, they’d hold him down and beat him. “You do what the doc says, okay?”
