I gape at him, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing, but I shouldn’t be surprised. This is King and Cruz we’re talking about. I should have expected that they weren’t just going to sit here and watch me sleep for eight hours.
I let out a sigh and look back at the boys who sit on either side of me. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“It is,” Carver snaps from the back of the room. “You’re fucking kidding yourself if you think your body will heal after just two weeks of bed rest. You need four as an absolute minimum, six to be perfectly safe. Not to mention, just because the time ticks by, doesn’t mean that the pain is just magically going to disappear. For months, every time you bend over, or if you twist funny, you’ll feel it and it will ache.”
My lips press together as I meet Carver’s pissed-off stare. He looks right at me and the desperation pulsing through his eyes is nearly enough to shatter every piece of my soul. So instead of commenting on his need to keep me locked in my bedroom for the rest of my life, I look back at the boys. “Would you guys give us a minute? I think it’s time that Carver and I have a little talk.”
King’s brow arches as he looks back at Carver while Cruz’s hand flinches in mine. “You sure?” he asks. “You don’t have to do this now. You only just got out of surgery. Give it a few hours. Days. You can talk when you’ve both had a chance to come to terms with what’s going on.”
“I’m fine,” I tell Cruz. “Seriously. I just need to talk to Carver for a minute. You guys can just sit outside. You don’t even need to shut the door.”
Cruz’s lips pull into a tight line, but he nods and pulls himself up from the chair, letting our hands fall apart in the middle. He watches me a second longer before finally walking away, but he doesn’t leave the room without grabbing Carver by the front of his shirt and slamming him up against the wall. “If anything happens to her while we’re gone, I’ll fucking end you.”
Carver grabs Cruz, and in a flash, their positions are reversed and my precious Cruz is pressed up against the wall that Carver was only just occupying. “If anything happens to her ever again, I’ll happily let you.”
Well, fuck. That escalated quickly.
I watch in silence as the boys continue to stare one another down, both of them heated and ready to blow—and not in a good way. Grayson steps in beside Cruz and grips his arm, tugging him out of Carver’s hold. “Come on, bro. He’s not going to hurt her.”
“How do you know that?” Cruz scoffs, delivering one hell of a low blow as he glares at Carver. “You fucking missed. Eighteen years I’ve known you and not once have you ever missed.”
Carver’s gaze swivels back to mine with that same devastating guilt, and I know just by looking at him that he’s innocent. He may be an incredible shot, but he’s also human, and there’s not a single piece of me that believes otherwise, but I get where Cruz is coming from. He needs to yell, he needs to scream and punch something, the same way that I do when the world becomes too much, and unfortunately for Carver, Cruz is taking it out on him.
Grayson pulls Cruz out the door but not before glancing back at me. I catch his stare and a million messages pass between us before he completely disappears out of sight. King follows them out, and soon enough, it’s just me and Carver with one hell of an elephant taking up the majority of space in the room.
I hold Carver’s stare, hating the silence as my hand slowly slides across the bed. I grab the little remote and press the button at the bottom, and just like that, the bed slowly begins to rise, though not just the back part—the whole fucking thing.
“Shit,” I grumble under my breath, pressing the next button only to have the gears jump into reverse and start lowering me back down. “Fucking hell. How do I make this thing sit up?”
Carver’s brow raises as he continues to watch me making an ass of myself, but I ignore him, intent on getting comfortable. I finally find the right button and press it for only a second, sitting up just enough so that I don’t have to strain my neck to see him properly. To be completely honest, I’d like to sit up a shitload more, but I’m terrified of making matters worse, and knowing my luck, it’d probably hurt like a bitch.
Once I get myself sorted out, my gaze falls back on his suspicious stare, probably assuming that I got him all alone in here to rip him to shreds, and judging by the way he’s been looking at me since I woke up, he’d probably welcome it.
“So,” I start, a stupid grin pulling up the corner of my lips. “Do you come here often?”
Carver just stares, but the longer I watch him with my grin becoming ridiculously wide, he can’t help but break. A laugh bubbles out of his chest, and for just a second, I see the guy that I’m quickly realizing I don’t want to live without. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he laughs as the tension completely disappears out of the room. “Are you serious right now? Out of everything that needs to be said, you want to hit me with shitty pick-up lines?”
I shrug my shoulders, really starting to feel the pain fading away as my mind starts to get foggy once again. “It made you smile,” I admit. “And if I’m perfectly honest, I think that’s my favorite thing about you.”
His eyes narrow as his strong arms cross over his chest, his brow arched. “Really?” he questions in disbelief, not flattered by my comment in the least. He sees right through me in the way that only Carver can.
I shake my head. “Nope. I lied,” I say with a soft, breathy laugh. “My all-time favorite thing is when you throw me up against a wall and fuck me until I scream.”
“The fuck are you talking about? I’ve never fucked you.”
“I know,” I grin, bringing my hand up and pointing toward my temple. “But I dreamed about it one night, and now I have a vision of it living rent-free in here, and fuck, it’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Carver rolls his eyes, and while I see him desperately trying to pretend that everything is alright, I see the pain hiding within his gaze.
Letting out a sigh, I throw the blanket back and pat the space beside me. “Come here,” I tell him, knowing there’s a chance that he’s going to push me away, but considering the events that led up to this particular moment, I have a good chance of getting what I want out of him.
Carver narrows his gaze, studying the empty space beside me with caution. “No.”
“Yes.”
He pushes off the back wall and strides toward the end of my bed, propping both hands against the hard plastic and leaning into it. “Why?”
I fix him with a heavy stare, making sure he hears me loud and clear. “Because since the second I woke up, you’ve been looking at me as though you can’t believe I’m actually here. Now come and sit your stubborn ass next to me and wrap your arms around me, just like you used to when the nightmares would haunt me.”
He shakes his head. “No, don’t be doing me any favors,” he says. “Cruz was right. I missed. I fucked up and you’re in that fucking bed because of me. I don’t deserve to sit there and hold you like nothing happened, and you shouldn’t want me to.”