I can’t lose him.
Never.
Ever.
Ever.
Never do I want to lose this.
These feelings.
I can’t even begin to describe them, but I’m positive I’ve never felt anything like this before.
Overwhelmed, I reel around and run out of the hospital, dropping to my knees on the concrete pavement just outside the doors. Then I cry my heart out. For myself. For Tristan. For all the pain I’ve ever felt. For my past. And my future because I have one now. With each tear shed, I lose a part of myself. But it’s not a bad loss. Not at all. By the time I’ve finished, I’ve made up my mind.
No more going backwards.
No more running.
No more rules.
Only moving forwards.
With him.
If he’ll have me.
Drying my eyes, I walk back inside the waiting room and sit down in one of the chairs with Mason on my lap and Jax and Nova at my side. Quinton eventually returns with coffees, and we sip the caffeine while we wait.
Finally, hours later, Clara pushes through the swinging doors. She shoots Jax a dirty but flirtatious look before she addresses us. “He’s awake and can have visitors,” she says then she looks at me. “But he asked if he could see Avery first.”
I have no clue how she knows who I am other than maybe Jax told her. I glance over at Mason playing with Legos in the corner of the room and Jax motions for me to go.
“Go see him,” he says. “Everything’s okay out here.”
Nodding, I follow Clara across the room and back through the doors.
“He’s stable,” she says as she leads me down the florescent-lit hallway. “But make sure to keep it short and simple. Stress isn’t good for him right now.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything stressful,” I tell her as we stop in the doorway. “Just thank you…” I trail off as I catch sight of Tristan.
The bed he’s lying in is elevated so he’s sitting up and looking right at the door, right at me. His skin is pallid, he has dark circles under his eyes, and there’s an IV tube connected to the back of his hand along with a heart monitor attached to his finger that keeps beeping. He smiles when he sees me. I have no clue how he looks so happy after just getting out of surgery.
But I can’t help myself.
I smile back.
“Hey,” I say as I tentatively enter the room and Clara leaves us alone.
His smile grows. “Hey, yourself.” His happiness falters when I get closer and he studies my face. “Have you been crying?”
“Of course I have.” I carefully sit down on the edge of the bed. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”
His expression softens as he reaches for me. “Well, I’m okay.” As his hand cups my cheek, I feel a quiver in his fingers.
“I know that now.” I lean into his touch and breathe in the feel of him. “But for a while there… I thought…” I suck in a sharp breath. “But, anyway, I’m glad you’re okay. Although, I’d really like to know what happened. Did he show up at your place and… attack you?”
“No. I mean he showed up to fight, but I could have just walked away. I could have went into the motel room and called the police.” He smoothes the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone. “But I kept thinking about how he was never going to leave you alone unless there was a reason he couldn’t get to you. I knew after he stabbed me he would go to jail as long as he didn’t wake up and bail before the police showed up.” He manages another exhausted smile. “And the drugs in his car were an added bonus.”
“How did you know about the drugs?” I ask, and the heart monitor beeps faster.
He starts telling me a story.
That starts with the drugs he dumped down the toilet.
A fucked up story that ends with my ex-husband screwing him over and stabbing him.
“Tristan, just relax.” I glance worriedly at the racing heart monitor. “There were enough drugs in Conner’s car that he’s going to go to jail for a very long time.”
He appears confused. “But aren’t you mad at me?”
“For what?”
“For getting into the drug mess.”
“That wasn’t your fault.” I trail my fingers over the blanket covering his stomach where he got stabbed. “This is my fault.”
He desperately shakes his head. “No, it’s not. You can’t think like that, okay? What I did was because I wanted to do it. Every step, hit, kick, punch was all made by my own choices.”
“Yes, it is my fault,” I whisper, avoiding eye contact, afraid of what I might see or not see in his eyes. “I was worried about this happening too. That you’d get involved with me, and my messy life would taint yours.”
“My life was already a mess,” he firmly tells me. “It was pointless, like I was just waiting around for something to happen, and I didn’t think anything ever would… But then… Well, I met this girl who drove me fucking crazy in the best possible way.”
I smile as I trace circles on the blanket. “Did you use that cheesy line on this girl?”
“No, but I used a lot of others.” The humor in his voice causes me to look up, and what I see in his eyes warms me to my very soul.
“Well, here’s a cheesy pick up line for you,” I tell him. “I think that, despite my silly rules, you ended up wrecking me anyway, but in the best possible way.”
“That was smooth.” That adorable half-smile appears on his face. “I must be rubbing off on you.”
“I could only be so lucky,” I tease with a laugh. But his awestruck expression silences my laughter.
“You really mean that?” he utters quietly.
“You know what? I think I do.” I summon a breath and then let the rest out. “And I think I might be falling in love with you.”
As a massive smile turns up at his lips, the heart monitor springs to life again. “You know what? I think I might be in love with you too.”
Chapter 41
The beginning of the new beginning.
One month later…
Avery
“Mason, please be careful, or you’re going to hurt yourself,” I say, pointing a finger at him as he runs laps around the yard of the newly built home. Finally, after two months of hard work, I get to stand in front of a fully built home, knowing I helped build the foundation for someone to maybe have a better life.
“But Tristan told me I should run around as fast as I can to get my energy out before the car ride,” Mason replies as his tiny legs continue to move him around and around the length of the front lawn.