Oliver
I hang up the phone and Julie glides into the room. Her eyes are bloodshot from serious lack of sleep. She arrived a few minutes earlier with Casey in tow—and he looks like he feels awkward to be in the same room as the two of us. They didn’t come back until this morning, but I wasn’t aware until I finally woke up and they were already in the room.
“Did you talk to your lawyer?” she asks, looking directly at me. “Do you need more privacy?” I hate lying to her, but I’m not telling her about Brandon’s call. I erased the voicemail and handed her the phone. I just want to get out of here, but that isn’t happening until I can walk around the entire hospital wing floor by myself a few times to prove my strength. I don’t know how it happened, but after my lungs were repaired, the rest of my body just…gave up. I did manage to sweet talk Nurse Mary into letting me change into my own clothes, but she insisted that someone help me, and Julie isn’t strong enough to hold me if I fall.
“No, I didn’t. My mother isn’t going anywhere, trust me.” Her face is dark and worried. “Come here, I won’t let anything happen to you. You trust me, right?”
I feel her smile on my chest. “Always.”
Damn.
That feels good.
Choking back some stray tears, I look at Casey. He came back to the hospital with her, and the thought of them riding in a car together isn’t a good one. His face is disturbed as he watches Julie and I interact. I know he’s hiding something.
“Casey, can you help me change into my street clothes? My abs are still really sore.” He frowns because he hates when the fact that I’m built better than he is comes up. “I promise you won’t see anything you shouldn’t see.”
“I’m not worried about that.” He looks at the ground. “What happens if you rip your stitches?”
Oh. I hardly thought he was worried about me.
I snort. “I won’t. We can go slow. Maybe Julie can find Nurse Mary for me and tell her I’m ready to walk the floor.”
“Oliver, you’ve been in recovery for one day,” Julie scolds me. “What’s the rush?”
I squeeze her hand and hold it over my heart. “I want to be able to touch you without tubes and wires in the way. I want to be able to sleep with you in the same bed.” I rub the sleeve of one of my sweatshirts she’s put on and smile. I like when she wears my clothes. It warms my insides knowing she wants a part of me with her always. A stretch maybe, but I don’t care. Right now, it’s not about what looks right; it’s about what feels right.
“I have some rules for you.” Julie’s eyes narrow at me. “You like rules, don’t you?”
I lick my lips and think about what I’m going to do to her once I’m fully mobile again. She’s playing with my dark side; she knows that breaking the rules are what started everything in the first place. “What are your rules, Mrs. Jackson?”
Casey coughs. “I think I better help you get dressed, man. I gotta check on something.” He looks over at Julie and raises his eyebrows. They have something going on…and I’m going to find out what it is. “If you want to find the nurse, I’ll help him.”
Julie nods but doesn’t look at him. “Okay.” Her smile pops back on her face when she looks at me. “I’m going to find Mary.” She lowers her voice and hisses at me, “Play nice.”
I know what she’s talking about, but I’m not saying one word about it. I’m not going to play nice with Casey…I know his game.
He chased Heather.
He’s chasing Julie.
When she closes the door, I scowl at him. “You better get over whatever the fuck you think you feel for her.” My voice is shaky because I’m so pissed. “I don’t know what it is with you assholes thinking you can take her from me—”
“You need to calm down,” Casey says, taking my clothes from the bag on the chair. “You’re extra emotional right now, so you’re reading into nothing. I’m helping her with something.”
I let him throw the clothes next to me and he helps take my gown off. Nurse Mary had already had another male nurse help put boxers on, so Casey takes note that he really won’t see anything he doesn’t want to see. “What are you helping her with?” I demand. “I want to know right now.”
He puts the t-shirt over my head and sighs. “Then you’ll ruin the surprise she has for you.”
“I don’t fucking care. I want to know.”
I put my arms slowly through the sleeves with his help and he shakes his head. “Dude, why can’t you just let her surprise you? I know you don’t trust me…but you trust her. Just let her do this for you…don’t fuck it up.”
He’s right.
I don’t like it, but he’s right.
“I’m going to ask her to marry me,” I tell him, looking in his eyes. They only darken for a few seconds as he thinks about this. “I want her to be my wife.”
“You left The Tavern with another woman. I hardly think that’s true.”
I push his hands away and take the sweatpants from him. “What the fuck do you know about it?”
He steps back so I can’t swing at him. “Harley told me about it. How could you do that to her? I thought you supposedly love her?”
I don’t like the way he’s talking to me, but he’s right. “I want to marry Julie. Whatever you think happened at The Tavern, forget about it. Nothing happened. Not that I have to explain myself to someone like you.”
“Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I manage to pull the sweatpants on by myself; I have to shimmy my body around on the bed to pull them over my hips. I’ve lost some weight, but only I’d notice it, so it doesn’t bother me too much. “I mean that you always want what you can’t have…and you can’t have her.”
“Like I said…you’re emotional right now because you almost lost her.”
He glares at me as Julie walks back into the room with Nurse Mary. She notices our showdown. “What are you two up to?” She eyeballs me but doesn’t even bother looking at Casey. I know she wants to comfort me by showing me that I’m the only one she has eyes for, but something doesn’t feel right. There’s something else going on here.
I shrug and give her my best adorable face. “Just catching up. Casey is leaving. He has somewhere to be.” I look over at him and his eyes are glued to Julie. “Right?”
“Actually, Casey—” Julie interrupts and forces herself to look at him. “—can you stay for a bit and help Oliver walk the floor?”
His eyes brighten and it pisses me off. “I can do that.”
Anything for you, Julie.
That’s my fucking job.
I’m going to kick his ass.
Julie kisses my forehead and they each take one of my hands and gently pull me to a standing position. The pain of my stitches doesn’t compare to the pain Casey is going to feel when I throat punch him for looking at Julie as anything other than a friend.
She’s mine.
My Julie.
We make it out of the room with no problems. My hand is clutching Julie’s so tightly that it turns a little red. I don’t dare let go of either of them; I want to get the hell out of here. I wonder if I can steer them toward the elevator and just escape, but Nurse Mary isn’t far behind us. The tension is too much for Julie to handle, so I hang my arm over Casey’s shoulders and squeeze.
“Are you okay?” Julie whispers so Nurse Mary can’t hear her. “Do you need to rest?”
I shake my head. “No, let’s keep going. I can do this.”
She smiles and it gives me an extra jolt of adrenaline. “I know you can. You can do anything; I believe in you.” The moment that she says this, I feel strong; I feel like I’m invincible, so I let go of Casey’s shoulders and push off him, walking slowly down the hall on my own. My abs hurt a little from the sudden usage, but I manage to walk a few steps and turn around to smile at the group.
“Well, look at this.” I raise my eyebrows in amusement. “Let’s sign those release papers.”
Nurse Mary laughs. “Not so fast, Mr. Jackson. You need to walk around the entire floor a few times without help before anyone feels comfortable releasing you. Twenty-four hours ago you were closer to death than life, remember that.”
I scoff and walk the circle of the floor by myself as the three of them follow closely behind. I just want to fake it enough to be able to get out of here, so I don’t look back at anyone in fear that I’ll lose my footing. He better not be touching her, I do know that. I try my best not to lose my focus, but once we are back at the open door to my room, I have to stop and make sure.
“He needs to rest,” Nurse Mary says and nods her head toward the room. “Let’s get him back into his bed.”
“No.” I wave her off. “I’m going again.”
“Mr. Jackson—”
I snap my head toward Casey and he can tell what I’m thinking. “I think he just wants to get out of here…can we just sign him out?”
Julie looks at him and then back to me. “Absolutely not! You’re not going anywhere unless the doctor says you can. You almost died, Oliver!” Her voice rises and I smile at how cute she is when she’s angry, which makes her even angrier. “Stop it, Oliver! This is serious! If you don’t follow the doctor’s rules…you’re not going to recover fully.”
I scoff. “I don’t follow anyone’s rules but my own.”
I don’t even follow my own rules.
Julie’s phone dings in her pocket as she scowls at me. “Mary, if the doctor says he can leave, then I’ll take him home. But—” She looks at the phone and then glares at me. “—if he says you can’t go home, then you stay here.”
“Yes, baby.” I lower my eyes to the ground and pretend to pout. She laughs as I start walking around the circular floor again, this time with a little more speed than before. Her eyes are glued to her phone so I motion for Casey to come closer to me so we can talk.
I don’t bother looking over at him. “Brandon called—that’s who I was talking to on the phone…not my lawyer. He wants to see Julie and she’s got stuff at his house he wants her to pick up. We need to make him go away.”
“I have my hands full already with Julie’s surprise.” He shakes his head, paying no attention to the rules of brotherhood. “I don’t have time to worry about someone trying to take her from you, brother.”
“You better start fucking worrying about it, brother,” I snarl and look quickly behind us to see who’s listening in. “If he gets her alone—which we know he can do, remember?—there’s no telling what the hell he will do to her. For some fucked-up reason, she still trusts him.”
Casey nods. “And you don’t?”
I give him a stupid look because that was a stupid question. “You’re kidding me, right? The guy destroys her life and lays his hands on her, tries to take her in front of you, and you can stand there and ask me that?”
“Okay, you’re right.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and now he’s looking at the women behind us nervously. “What do you want me to do?”
I lick my lips and try to bite my tongue before I actually say what I’m thinking.
“I don’t ever want her to be alone. There’s going to come a time when I’ll have to fly to New York City and take care of some business.” I bite the flesh of my cheek and feel the pain I deserve. “And you’re going to have to look after her.”
“Why don’t you just take her with you?”
Because I don’t want her involved in anything that will make her leave me.
I have secrets just like any normal person.
That’s why I have rule number three: Keep your secrets safe.
There are just some things about me that Julie can’t fucking know: things that I don’t even want to know myself.
Julie catches up with us and I have to end the conversation as she places herself in between our bodies. Her soft arms wrap around my waist and she smiles friendly at Casey, glitter in her eyes. “The doctor says you can leave tomorrow morning if you’re feeling up to it.”
I stop and turn to her, pulling her into a tight embrace. I push Casey back a little at the same time…he’s a little closer to her than I’d like right now. Regardless if we agree on the Brandon problem, we still don’t agree on the fact that he doesn’t recognize he can’t have her.
“That’s fantastic,” I say into her mess of hair; I don’t care that it surrounds me. I missed it more than anything else when I was nowhere.
Nowhere.
That’s where I’ve decided I was.
“There’s something else.” Her voice grows somber and she shows me her phone.
Brandon: I have some of your things still. Come get what you want soon please.
Julie: What things?
Brandon: Some sentimental stuff you might want. Whatever you don’t take, I’ll get rid of.
Julie: I’m with Oliver at the hospital right now. He had an accident.
Brandon: I know. I talked to him earlier.
Julie: I didn’t know that. I will be there in the next few days, is that okay?
Brandon: Just hurry. Heather wants it gone.
Her eyes narrow at me. “Care to tell me what this is?”
My eyes get dry from how wide they are. She caught me. “He called you when I borrowed your phone. I told him to fuck off.”
She rolls her eyes and Casey tries to hide a laugh. Once she glares in his direction, she directs it back to me. “Oliver, you might have made a mistake! I have some really sentimental things there still, and your little male ego tug might have caused him to destroy them!”
I feel bad.
No, I feel really bad.
“I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t realize. Look, just call him and tell him that Casey will take you over there now.”
Casey clears his throat. “Again, I’m still pretty busy.”
I grind my teeth. “Fine, then whenever we get out of here…we’ll go.”
“Fine.” She enters my room when we get to the open door. Casey excuses himself and Nurse Mary goes to fetch some paperwork. I look at Julie through the open door and let my body relax against the doorframe.
She sits in the chair next to the bed, waiting for me. Her skin is so milky that it’s almost impossible not to want to touch her. Her bright blue eyes meet mine and they twinkle at me, revealing the swirl of her emotions from anger to amusement.
I belong to her.