It had been two weeks now of no messages, no Skype dates. His calls weren’t going through, emails weren’t being answered. Ty checked his contact list again, praying for that fucking bubble to turn green, and when it didn’t, he threw his phone onto his desk hard enough for it to skitter off the edge and land on the floor.
He buried his fingers in his hair, bracing his elbows on his desk. Where the fuck was Cam? One scenario after another raced through his mind, each worse than the last. What if he was dead? Izzy would call, wouldn’t she? She would reach out and tell him, surely.
No, Cam couldn’t be dead. Don’t be an idiot. Ty ran his hands over his face and turned back to his computer, where a story was waiting to be edited. The words blurred together on the white screen until everything was a gray blob.
What if Cam wasn’t responding on purpose?
After the god-awful party with the strippers, their connections had been even fewer and farther between. Messages sent over the phone once every few days. One quick Skype chat that got cut short because Ty needed to be on air—Cam had looked like death warmed over.
It wasn’t only that their schedules didn’t match up; at least it didn’t feel that way. Cam had been withdrawn during the last call, sunken into himself, giving one-word answers and not really interested in anything Ty had to say.
Letting him go back into the field had been a mistake, and Ty wished he had done more to convince Cam not to do it. Fuck the UN and their humanitarian crisis. What good would Cam be to anyone in the state he was in?
The radio silence wasn’t only about Cam’s PTSD—Ty didn’t know why he thought this, but he felt it in his bones. Something was wrong.
He leaned over, grabbed his phone off the floor, and tapped the familiar Skype icon. Still no Cam. He scrolled through his phone until he found the other number he wanted.
It rang, and rang, and rang. He was about to hang up when it finally connected.
“Hello?” The greeting came out more as a groan, and Ty only then remembered what time it must have been in New York.
“Izzy? God, sorry. I forgot about the time difference.”
Izzy groaned into the phone again. “Ty?” She took a sharp breath and let it out in a huff as if her brain were struggling to keep up. “What the hell? Aren’t you in the Middle East?”
“Yeah, Abu Dhabi.” Ty rested his face in his hand, his elbow on his desk. “Sorry for waking you up.”
She groaned again.
“Listen, have you heard from Cam?”
“Huh?”
“Cam, your brother. Have you heard from him?” Ty resisted the urge to shout at her.
“Cam?”
“Yes, Cam.” Ty bit back a retort.
“Ugh, I don’t know.” She sounded muffled. “Probably sedated. Do you know what time it is?”
“What? What do you mean, ‘sedated’?” Ty shot out of his chair, sending it flying against the wall behind him.
“What are you talking about?” Izzy whined into the phone.
“Where is Cam?” He drew it out, saying each word with precision.
“Cam? He’s at NewYork-Presbyterian.”
“He’s at a church?” That couldn’t be right.
“Yeah, he’s at a church, at this time of day.” The grogginess cleared from Izzy’s voice. “No, dumbass, he’s at the hospital. Where else would he be?”
“Why the hell is he at the hospital? In New York?” Ty shouted, not caring how awake Izzy was, or if his voice carried through the walls of his office.
A beat passed in silence, and Ty fingers hurt with how hard he was gripping his phone.
“Wait, are you saying that you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” Ty growled.
“Oh my god.” Something brushed against the phone’s mic before Izzy came across stronger and clearer. “Ty, you really don’t know? Cam was emergency evacuated a couple of weeks ago. He was in Geneva for a week before they got him back here. He’s been in the hospital ever since.”
Ty stumbled, missed his chair, and ended up on the floor. His heart stopped beating and the air was devoid of oxygen. All of a sudden, he was eight years old again, in the hospital room with his mother lying frighteningly still on the bed. He could still smell the astringent antibacterial cleaners, hear the beeping of the machines. Pain unfurled in the middle of Ty’s chest, and his vision narrowed to a pinprick of light.
“Ty? Ty? Are you still there?”
Izzy’s voice sounded distant and fuzzy, and it was only after a minute that he realized he had dropped his hand away from his ear. He blinked, training his eyes on the chair that sat a few feet away. He forced his diaphragm out and, after a couple of shaky breaths, finally got oxygen back to his brain. “Is he okay?”
“He’s in pretty bad shape.” Her voice wavered a bit, and it felt like a sledgehammer swinging against his heart. “But he’ll live.”
He’ll live. It took a moment for the words to register, and then his brain to imbue meaning in them. Cam’s going to live; he’s not going to die. “Tell me. What happened?”
“Ty.” She paused for a couple of beats. “You seriously didn’t know about this?”
“No.” Ty shifted on the floor so he could lean against his desk. He planted his feet flat and propped up one arm across his knees. Every breath was difficult, but he forced himself to suck in air and then spit it back out. “Haven’t spoken with him in weeks now.”
Izzy sighed. “God. I’m sorry. I should have called you the minute I found out. Cam’s been in varying levels of drugged up since the incident; I should have realized you wouldn’t be able to get a hold of him.”
He hung his head, heart still beating erratically, tremors shaking his limbs. “Can you please tell me what happened?”
She exhaled into the phone. “I don’t have a lot of details. Cam’s not talking about it. You know how he is. All I know is what the UN told my parents.”
“Which is?” Ty grit his teeth together, trying not to imagine the worst and, at the same time, not sure what the worst would be.
“He was in a car, with security, and they were driving back to the refugee camp from . . . I don’t know where. And then they ran over a bomb.”
“What?”
“A bomb. You know, on the road.”
“An IED,” Ty clarified, more for himself than for Izzy.
“Yeah, one of those bomb things on the road.”
His heart seized, and he rubbed his free hand hard up and down the middle of his chest. It could have been worse, Ty told himself. Cam could be dead. IEDs killed people. “How badly is he injured?”
“A concussion, broken leg, a really bad gash across his back. That’s the worst, I think.”
That didn’t sound too bad. He would live. That was the most important thing. “He’s okay,” Ty said, more as a reminder to himself than as a question for Izzy.
“He will be,” Izzy said softly.
“I’m coming home.” The words were out before Ty had even formulated the thought.
“What?”
“I’m coming home.” As quickly as he had shut down at the news that Cam was in the hospital, declaring that he was going home jumpstarted Ty’s internal processes. He was an adult and had resources and options; he could choose to go home to be with the man he loved. He might not have had any choices as an eight-year-old watching his mother die. But goddamn it, he wasn’t eight years old anymore, and he wasn’t about to watch Cam die.
Izzy was speaking, but he missed it as he pushed himself off the floor, grabbed the office chair, and pulled it back toward the desk. “Huh?”
“I said, don’t you have to finish out your contract?”
“I’m not on contract.”
“Oh, so . . .”
“I’m quitting.” His mind was setting plans several steps ahead already, and his heart raced as if it were trying to make up for the earlier lack of beating. “They don’t need me here. They can find a million other people to do this job. I’m needed at home.”
“Really?”
Ty paused with his hand on the mouse, ready to look up flight schedules. Really? Throw his career away? Yes. Really. Absolutely. It was scary as fuck, but it was the right thing to do. He’d regret it if he didn’t go back. He’d be left wondering for the rest of his life: what if? What could they have been?
Ty didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits or any of that shit. But at the moment, he could have sworn he felt his mom in the office with him. And she said one word: go.
“I’ll be on the next flight out.”
“Ty . . .”
“It might take a couple of days to sort everything out and get back. But I’m on my way. I’ll touch base with you when I’m State-side again.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He thought he heard sniffles over the line, but that wasn’t important right now. He needed to get himself booked on the next available flight back to New York.
“Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“Be safe, okay?”
“Yeah.” He took a moment to squeeze his eyes shut and take a deep breath. Images of a hospital bed flashed in his mind, but it was empty. His mom was dead and gone and whatever remained of her was inside Ty’s heart, now sharing space with the man he loved. And that hospital bed didn’t belong to Cam, either. Because Cam would recover, and they would salvage whatever it was they had, even if Ty had to fight until his last breath for it. He heard that one word again: go.
“I will.”
Ty knocked on the door to Cam’s apartment, his clothes damp with multiple rounds of sweat from his travels, his hand tight around the strap of his duffel bag. He’d spent the last couple of days packing up what little of a life he’d had in Abu Dhabi, stuffing it into two suitcases with room to spare, and running to the airport.
He had quit the day of his call with Izzy—it had not gone over well. But the only thing on his mind had been getting on that plane and back to New York.
The first thing he’d done when his plane landed was ring up Izzy, who had told him that Cam had been discharged that afternoon and they’d brought him back to his apartment. So here he was, heart beating so fast, he thought it would escape up his throat.
The door opened, and Ty almost pushed his way inside. The only thing stopping him was Cary, standing in the way with a look of surprise. Ty’s glare was fueled by twenty-four hours of lack of sleep.
“Is Cam here?”
“What are you doing here?”
They spoke at the same time.
“Let me in,” Ty growled.
Cary shot him an exacerbated look and stepped back. “He’s resting.”
“Hey, is that Ty?” Izzy’s voice floated from beyond the doorway, accompanied by the sound of footsteps. “Hey, Ty.” Izzy appeared from around the corner and peered past him. “Oh my god. Did you come straight from the airport?”
Ty shot a glance at the suitcases sitting behind him in the hall. “Yeah,” he bit out. “I was hoping to catch Cam before it got too late tonight.”
“Come on in.” Izzy grabbed one of his suitcases and dragged it inside. “Have you eaten yet? We’re about to order dinner. Cam’s in bed and he’s heavily sedated, so he’s a little out of it right now.”
Ty followed Izzy inside and stashed his duffel bag on top of his suitcases. “How is he?”
Izzy sighed, and Cary leaned silently against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.
“He’s . . . I don’t fucking know.” Izzy ran a hand over her face. “Physically, he’ll be okay, at least that’s what the doctors say. But otherwise?” She shrugged with eyes wide, and threw her hands in the air.
“Has anyone spoken to Dr. Brown about this?”
Izzy shook her head. “She came by the hospital once, but Cam was asleep. She wouldn’t say anything definitive until they’ve had a full session.”
Ty crossed his arms, feet in a wide stance. “They were supposed to be doing regular Skype sessions while he was out there. She couldn’t say anything based off those?”
One of Izzy’s shoulders lifted, then dropped. “She wouldn’t say anything.”
“Can I go in and see him?”
“Why not? Those sedatives are so strong, I doubt a raging bull could wake him.” Izzy led the way to Cam’s room and Cary followed behind.
She eased the door open and stepped out of the way for Ty to slip through. Busker was lying on the bed next to Cam, and he lifted his head as Ty approached.
“Hey, Busker,” Ty whispered, giving the mutt a pat before the dog settled himself beside Cam again. He walked around to where Cam lay, so silent and still. The only evidence of his being alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest.
Cam’s left leg was wrapped in a cast, and the blankets had been arranged carefully around it. He wore a bandage on his head, and his face was a mosaic of gashes and bruises. The incident was supposedly two weeks ago, but he looked like he’d only been through the meat grinder yesterday.
Ty sat down softly on the empty space at the edge of the bed. Not even a stir from Cam. It was so much like another bed from so long ago, when he’d climbed up and watched his mother sleep a deep, drug-induced sleep. And like that time so long ago, tears prickled his eyes while he tried to blink them away.
Ty closed his fingers around the hand sitting on top of the covers. It lay limp, like his mother’s had, but at least it was warm. He squeezed it gently.
“Hey,” he whispered, the word coming out strangled and thick with fatigue and emotion. He wiped at the tear that escaped down his cheek. “It’s me. Ty. I came back as soon as I found out what happened.”
His throat closed up, and he took a second to force the muscles to relax. How many times had he sat next to his mom and held one-sided conversations with her while she slept? He had talked until his little eight-year-old voice was hoarse, and then he’d snuggled down and fallen asleep next to her. On the good days, he’d woken up to her running her fingers through his hair. Sometimes she’d even remembered bits and pieces of what he’d told her. Why was it so much more difficult with Cam?
“I—I quit my job. They’re pretty pissed, but . . .” Ty shrugged and wiped at more of the tears running down his face. “Anyway, I’m back. I’m here. And you’re going to get better. The doctors said so. We’re going to do whatever it takes, okay? Whatever it takes to get you better. We’re going to get you back on your feet. You’re going to be okay, and we’re going to be okay.”
He had to believe it, because that truth was the single most important thing in his life. Ty suddenly felt so tired, his eyes drifting shut and his head hanging down to his chest. Every cell in his body wanted to stretch out next to Cam and hold him until he woke up.
But he stank and needed a shower. And his stomach grumbled because he hadn’t had the appetite to eat anything on his way back to New York.
A grunt and a snore came from Busker, but still no response from Cam. Fuck it. He could shower and eat later. Right now, this was more important.
He nudged Busker until the mutt shifted to the foot of the bed, and Ty lay down on top of the blankets facing Cam. Cam’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. As he watched, his eyes drifted shut again. Cam was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.