“You told him plenty of things can be used as a garrote...and offered to give him a demonstration when he brought the restraints in.”
“That’s not a threat, it’s an offer.”
The sheer absurdity of Isaac of all people threatening someone on my behalf after I’d already scared the shit out of him was so absurd I couldn’t help but laugh. It felt like my throat was one big glass-filled wound, but it was worth it to see everyone look at me like I’d lost my mind. Which made me laugh even harder because hey, I had lost my mind already, so why wouldn’t they look at me like that?
I could see a few of them getting nervous, and I looked at the men in scrubs. “Get the restraints, please.”
“What?” Isaac asked, looking at me with huge eyes. “No, you’re fine!”
“I’m not,” I said. “And I’m coherent, didn’t you hear them? That means I can make choices, and I want the restraints. I don’t...I would feel better with them on.”
Cade slid his hand over Isaac’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay. Let him have this.”
Isaac’s head hung, and he sighed. “It’s not like I can stop anyone.”
Of course, that was when the room got a little crazier. The doctor came in, checking me over before one of the men from before came in with the restraints to bind me to the hospital bed. The room was cleaned up, and Isaac sat in the corner, glaring at anyone who gave him a look that he could interpret as a sign they were considering chasing him out.
Correction, himorCade, because my best friend was next to him the whole time, holding his hand.
For a moment, I was struck by how wonderful they were, one standing and looking calm as if everything hadn’t gone to hell, the other sitting so scrunched up and angry he could have been mistaken for human razor wire. They were both here for me, but they were together as well. I wished that Cade had been the one who had caught Isaac’s attention. Sure, Cade was straight, but maybe he wasn’t as straight as he thought, and if anyone could have figured that out and helped Cade make peace with it, Isaac was the one.
Cade met my eyes, his brow crinkling. “Quit.”
“What?” I asked as someone mopped up the orange juice.
“You’re having weird thoughts,” he said with a shake of his head. “I dunno what they are, but you’re havin’ ’em, so quit.”
“You guys would make a cute couple,” I said, still a little lost and hazy, probably from whatever they had shot me up with after Isaac had choked me.
God, poor Isaac. He would have been so much better off if he’d never met me, if he hadn’t found it in that big heart of histo give me a chance to be something more than some horny dog practically humping his leg. Now he was sitting there, a mark on his face, his eyes red from crying, looking furious and terrified at the same time, and just so...lost.
I knew the feeling.
“He’s not my type,” Isaac said with a roll of his eyes.
“Big ’n dumb?” Cade asked with a grin.
Isaac didn’t even look at him before smacking him hard in the stomach, making Cade grunt in pain. “Enough self-deprecation and self-destruction are going on around here as it is, don’t add to it, Cade. Speak about yourself like that again, and I’ll rip it off.”
“Rip what off?” Cade asked and then blinked, one hand covering his groin. He stared at me with big eyes, and I had to remember that I was technically wounded, so I wouldn’t laugh again. “Fuckin’ scary.”
“You’re like...two and a half of him,” I pointed out with a smile.
“I ain’t that scary,” he said, and I actually believed he was scared of Isaac. That was fair. As upset as Isaac had been about what he’d done, he hadn’t wasted time putting himself in a position where he could choke me while waiting for help. From the way everyone had been wary of him when I’d woken up, almost as wary as they were of me, I’d guess he might have been a terror while I’d been out cold.
“Weren’t you special forces?” Isaac asked dryly.
“Yeah, and I dunno if I would want someone like ya with me or not,” Cade chuckled, and I noticed his hand was still hovering over his crotch. “Better to have ya with me than against me though.”
Isaac sighed. “I’m about as terrifying as a wet kitten.”
Cade shot me a look that said he didn’t agree with that assessment but was keeping his opinion to himself. Now I waseven more curious about what had happened while I had been out cold.
“Isaac,” I said, now the last person was gone. “C’mere.”
He unwound himself and got to his feet, coming to my bedside and taking my hand. His eyes lingered on the restraints, a shadow passing over his brow, but he managed a smile for me. “Hey, handsome.”
“Hi,” I said, and it hurt to hear Gina’s favorite compliment from his lips. He wasn’t her, and she wasn’t him, but the two were so wrapped up in my head that I couldn’t think of one without the other. That wasn’t something he deserved to deal with, and Gina’s memory deserved to be treated better than for me to treat a living person as a replacement for her. I didn’t know how to do it, and I couldn’t do it right now. “Listen, you did good.”
