“Sam Bell got hurt bad. We tried to get to him.” Coke was tired of not saving ’em. Tired of his boys laying in the dirt and not being able to wake up.
“Oh, Coke. I know. You tried so hard. Sometimes the bull is just faster.” All the Dillons looked one way, then the other. Then the middle one moved up close and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry he got hurt, babe, but the other riders need you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there. I will. I just. I gotta make the hurt go away some.” Coke was fucking drowning in it.
“I can help with that.” The elevator dinged. “I’m way better than alcohol.”
“I left my other bottle back there.” He stepped into the elevator, his knees screaming at him. God, he was tired.
“I know. I made sure no one got it.” Clown-boy could be such a killjoy.
“I hit Mack, I think. Pretty hard.”
“Yeah? Well, he’s used to getting whomped.”
The elevator made him want to puke. “Yeah.” Coke closed his eyes, but all he could see was Bell’s skull bone.
“Coke? Come on, babe. Just down the hall now.”
He wasn’t sure he could bear it, how nice Dillon was being.
“We called Andy and Jase yet?” He bounced down the hall.
“No. No, not yet. I was busy while you were getting bombed.”
He stopped, turned, and stared at Dillon. “Excuse me? I was at the fucking hospital. Y’all sent us away. I was more than willing to man up and help.”
Dillon’s teeth ground audibly. “I know that, babe. Troy thought it best if you left, and I agreed. However, you could have been doing something useful instead of getting sloshed!”
Wow. Dillon could be a harpy.
He stared at Dillon, hands creaking into fists, tension ratcheting up inside his spine like there were little guys with pulleys tugging him tighter and tighter. “Useful. Right. I’m gonna take a walk.”
Coke headed back toward the elevator, his shoulders up under his ears.
“No, you’re not. You’re going to come back to the room and clean up before Shaun or Jonesy see you and ship you off to the emergency room.” Dillon caught his arm.
“I wasinthe fucking emergency room and they made me leave!” He was going to shake the beautiful son of a bitch. “It hurts. It fucking hurts, and we needed a little edge off.”
“Okay. Now it’s off, right? Off enough that Nate’s wife is calling me and telling me to come get you.” Dillon dragged him to their room, stuffing him inside just as a couple of doors opened in the hall, folks peeking out.
He was so fucking pissed off he was shaking, every single inch of him tense and tight and raw like he’d been burnt.
Dillon turned to face him, chest bumping his. “You think I don’t know? Sam is one of the few people who actually gives two shits about me. He’s my friend. I fucking know.”
Coke counted to five, which was as far as he could go, then he carefully picked Dillon up and moved him away. “I’m sorry, cowboy.”
Then he turned and buried his fist into the wall, about to the elbow.
It wasCEO Sandy who paid the cops off quietly, proving that sometimes corporate was good.
Cowboy boss Ace Porter settled with the hotel, and Dillon agreed in a private confab that he would pay Ace back for the damages. Coke probably had enough savings, but the big guy was busy sleeping it off in another room, and Dillon refused to add another dose of guilt to what was weighing Coke down.
Coke was exhausted, Dillon was on the edge of a breakdown, and they all had to go back to work in four hours.
He finished moving the last of their toiletries from the room that Coke had pretty much destroyed, then set the alarm on his iPod. He pulled off his old football jersey and crawled into bed next to Coke.
One arm draped over him and drew him in close. “Got you, cowboy. You’re okay.”
