Lyon

 

 

I’m ready to rip my hair out and start breaking things when Hawk and Lynx run into the waiting room, their eyes just as frantic as mine when they spot me and come over.

Hawk doesn’t stop, just comes right in and pulls me into his chest, holding me, not in a pansy-ass man hug way but really holding on as I feel myself crack the slightest bit.

One minute, I was sitting beside Leila, reliving the first time we made love, and the next, her machines were screaming, the sound breaking through my thoughts and turning my blood to ice.

I knew something was wrong and almost dragged the nurse in here to check. Until the day I die, I will never forget the look on her face before she ran to the door and yelled for a doctor and a crash cart.

That was four hours ago, and in all that time, I haven’t heard a word, was just asked to wait in the waiting room and someone would be out to talk to me.

“We need to tell Mika. We have to. She thinks Leila is okay but just recovering and mending fences with you. It’s the only reason she hasn’t started going mental to see her,” Lynx says, getting a dirty glare from Hawk.

“Bro, if you mention Mika again when Lyon looks ready to keel over, I will kill your ass. You get me? Now, shut up and go get some coffee and doughnuts while I go track down someone capable in this hellhole.”

I’m alone for no longer than five minutes before they both walk back in, Hawk’s face so pale I stop breathing.

“No.”

“Don’t go nuts. She’s not gone, man. I just spoke to that nice little blonde nurse, and she’s going to get an update for us, but, Lyon, bro, she said Leila had some sort of bleed and things did not look good. Her blood pressure was too low, man, way too low.”

I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear this shit right now because I might not survive this.

When I found Leila, when Lori took me to her and I saw her face, her still, perfect face, I thought I’d been in hell, until she started twitching. I thought she would be okay, because wasn’t this all a miracle?

But this? This isn’t okay. Just when I think she’s fine, that all I need to do is wait, something happens and I have to face the possibility that she might die before I can tell her that I love her, that I always have loved her and won’t ever stop.

“She’s going to be fine, so shut the hell up and eat,” Lynx grunts, handing me coffee and a chocolate doughnut.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat! Or I call Ma and tell her what’s going on. You want that crazy old woman down here threatening to scalp the pilgrims, boy?” Lynx asks, chuckling when my mouth twitches, and I shake my head in denial.

Mom is a rock, and I adore that woman, but I just can’t deal with anyone right now, and I’m glad that Hawk and Lynx are keeping them at bay.

“She was okay. The doctor just looked her over an hour before, and he said all she needs is time,” I mumble, chewing and swallowing because I have to though the stuff tastes like sawdust and swallowing isn’t easy.

The coffee is warm though, and I relish the heat when it pools in my stomach and warms me.

“I called Jake’s uncle over in Vegas. He’s coming in as we speak. Should be here in a few hours. Don’t argue, Lyon. We want peace of mind, and when she comes out of surgery, we’ll have it. He’ll check her over, and if he says she’s okay, then I’ll believe him. These quacks don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

See why I love Hawk? The guy knows he’ll be offending people by getting a second opinion, but he doesn’t care.

“Okay.”

“Good, now drink your coffee, and let’s talk about what you’re going to do when Leila wakes up.”

Hell. Nosey douchebags.

“I’m taking her home.”

I don’t miss the look they share but put it down to the stress before Lynx clears his throat and starts stammering.

“Ooooh, that may be a problem, man. Mika told me she’s not exactly a fan of yours, and uh, well…hell, Hawk, you don’t have a sensitive bone in your hulking mass. You tell him,” Lynx mutters uncomfortably, setting off my alarms.

“Coward. Lyon, bro, uh, Leila has a, uh, boyfriend.”

My eyes narrow. It’s the only reaction I allow them to see, but inside, I feel like I just got my lungs ripped out. I can’t draw a decent breath, and my gut is burning like acid fire.

“Lyon.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Ly—”

“Leave it, Lynx. I know she doesn’t love me anymore. I mean, hell, it’s been eight years since we saw each other. I get it, okay, and yeah, it hurts, but it doesn’t change how I feel. I’m not leaving this place until she’s ready to walk out of it. Leave it.”

By hour five, I’m ready to start a massacre, but the doctor walks in, and removing his hat tiredly, he manages a smile that lets me breathe again.

“She had a tiny tear in the membrane surrounding her liver, but we managed to stop it, and she’s responding well to the transfusion we gave her.”

“Oh, yeah? So, tell me, in four days and with all the hocus pocus going on in this dump, why didn’t you catch the fact that she was bleeding inside?” Hawk snarls.

The doctor gapes, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, before he clears his throat and stands taller.

‘These things happen, Mr. Wylder. Miss Evans was stable, and the tests did not indicate any internal bleeding. Anyone could have missed it.”

Lynx snorts and bares his teeth, making me proud to call him brother.

“Anything else happens to that woman and I will kill you in a way that will have you glad to be dead. You got me?”

He doesn’t answer, just turns and almost runs from the room. The blonde nurse arrives not long after, and it’s due solely to Hawk’s oily grin that we all get to go into her room and sit beside her, our watch starting again.

I remember one time, just once, when Leila was sick and I spent a sleepless night in a chair beside my bed, watching over her like a crazed mama bear.

She laughed afterwards, but the helplessness I felt…

“You’re sick! You need to go to the doctor.”

“I’m fine, Lyon. It’s just a little cold,” Leila huffs, her little nose so red and raw I wince when she blows it loudly and starts scraping the tissue over the flaking skin.

“It’s not fine. It’s been five days, Lay. You’re worse, and your poor nose is going to start bleeding if you keep that shit up.”

Her guilty look seals the deal, and I’m slamming some clothes onto her back before pulling her up and into my arms, her weak protests falling on deaf ears.

The other girls in the dorm give me amused smiles when she curses me but falls limply against my shoulder, snuggling into me with a sigh. She’s not so nice when I stop in the hospital parking lot, and I feel a part of my face peel off when Hawk and Lynx amble over from their cars, their eyes going hard when they see the state she’s in.

“Don’t even start, man. I’ve been trying to get her to the doctor for days. Woman is a mule.”

“It’s just a stupid cold! Sheesh, I’m drinking vitamin C, and I took the freaking vapor stuff last night. It’s getting better.”

Which she belies when she sneezes all over Hawk and a mucous trail drips from his shirt.

“Sorry.”

“See! You are sick if that doesn’t have you trying to crawl into the ground with shame,” I yell, shoving a frozen Hawk out of the way to lift her into my arms and stalk for the emergency entrance.

They try to make me wait. They obviously don’t understand me when I tell them I want a doctor, but Hawk takes care of that with his perpetual scowl and the dead eye he gives the guy at the desk.

Cold my ass, I think later, fuming at Leila because she’s got a chest infection and such bad sinusitis she should not be breathing right now.

“I said sorry,” she whines when I lower her into my bed and pull the covers over her.

“But you aren’t. You still tried to stop me from getting the medicine at the drug store.”

“Because it was two hundred and twenty three dollars!” she wheezes.

“Leila. Don’t, baby. I do not want to yell at you right now, because you’re sick, but I am not happy. You don’t take care of yourself.”

“I do. I just thought…” she says, her eyes tearing up when she coughs, and it sounds like she’s grating her lungs. “Ow.”

“Lay back and keep quiet. I’m getting you some soup, and you’re taking the pills even if I have to send Hawk in here.”

“You big meanie.”

“I heard that, and he’s right. You take those pills, Leila, or I’ll call Ma. You wanna meet Ma for the first time when it looks like you’re preparing to lead Santa’s sleigh?”

“Hawk! Fuck off,” I mutter, trying not to laugh when she rears up, even her weakness not capable of killing her feminine sense of offense.

“I”—hacking cough followed by a tissue and some weird wet spitting—“will kick”—another cough, this one a whoop that has even Hawk cringing—“your ass,” she croaks, falling back with a moan. “My head hurts, Lyon.”

“I know, baby. I know. I’ll make it all better.”

Easier said than done. She puked the first round of pills when one got stuck and kicked up her gag reflex, letting me know that certain things just won’t fly during sex.

We finally got them to stay down when Lynx ground it all up on a spoon and mixed it into melted chocolate. How women can eat chocolate even when they’re sick is a mystery to me, but Leila kept it all down and is now snoring while I take a break and go to grab a soda.

“You okay?”

“Do I look okay? The woman is stubborn as hell,” I mumble, leaning back against the counter with a harsh sigh.

I would have noticed it sooner, but things have been weird at home in the last week, and Pop and Mom aren’t around much. Even Sparrow isn’t acting right, and that’s saying a lot because Sparrow can be plain strange sometimes.

I feel guilty as heck because if I’d have been around, I would have seen that Leila was sick and at death’s door.

“She’ll be okay. She just needs to rest and take it easy.”

“Have you met her? She’ll be trying to climb out the window to visit Mika tomorrow morning bright and early.”

Hawk gets all serious suddenly, and I feel like I’m standing in front of a firing squad.

“She’s as bad as we all are. Pop’s working himself to a standstill as well, and Lynx is at his wits’ end. Things aren’t great.”

“With everything? The company?” I ask.

Pop has built his company up from nothing, and besides the money that supplies us all with a great lifestyle, I would hate to see my pop’s life work reduced to nothing. He’s a proud man, my father, and it would kill him if he loses his livelihood.

“Nah, man, it’s fine as far as I know.”

“That contract Monroe stole by undercutting?”

“Was replaced with the Brewery upgrades. That’s what Lynx is busy doing, why he’s deferred for the year and why he’s never home. He’s working full out right now while Pop spearheads the other project.”

Not good, because Lynx is the only one of us who really wanted to go into academia to further himself for the future.

“I don’t know what to say, Hawk. Things have been so busy lately I just don’t know what’s going on from one moment to the next. I worry about Mom, who isn’t around, and Sparrow isn’t calling me, and then shit like this,” I say tiredly, scrubbing a hand over my face.

“You just concentrate on Leila, and the rest of us will get our shit together. Don’t worry. Just be around if I need you, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I reply, giving him a fist bump before walking back to my room.

I try to go to sleep, even get close enough to Lay to cuddle her, but I can’t sleep, and it’s not just this weirdness that’s taken over my family. I worry about Lay all the time. She goes to classes after eleven when she leaves site offices and then spends mid-afternoon with her sister, sometimes coming back to campus for a later class.

She’s always busy with school or work or taking care of everyone. Her parents aren’t even talking to her lately because they’re so wrapped up in themselves and their issues they just don’t see her.

It’s my job to look after Lay, my responsibility to make sure she doesn’t burn herself out. Exams are coming up hard and fast, and if a little cold can turn into something this bad, I’ll have to do my job a whole lot better.

The only option I see is moving her in here with me. But how?

I spend the rest of the night, when she starts fussing and develops a fever, watching her from the chair beside the bed. Cooling her down and feeding her small sips of water.

Damn, this love stuff is serious business.

The next morning isn’t much better, but this time it’s about Lay’s grumpiness and the absolutely crappy patient she makes. I already caught Lynx and Hawk out in the hall laughing their asses off because I tried to make her drink cough syrup that she insists tastes like the back end of a dying cow.

I argued until she drank the stuff, but two seconds after it hit her stomach, she projectile vomited straight into my crotch area, because I was still standing beside the bed.

I’d have lost it then. I mean, I don’t have the strongest stomach, but I tasted that crap, and damn, baby, it really does taste like the back end of some dying animal.

“Jesus.” Lynx shudders when I hobble out into the hall with my soiled clothes and the towels I used to mop up the gunk.

I shudder, my entire body going hard when the smell drifts up at me. Gag reflex, bad.

“Shut up, punk. My poor baby isn’t feeling well,” I mumble, hoping to hell she starts turning for the better soon because this caregiver stuff is a lot easier when my girlfriend isn’t puking and her nose isn’t running like a faucet but too raw to wipe.

“Dude, that smells like the plague, man. Maybe we should tell her to go to the hospital.”

I snort. Oh, yeah, like that’s happening. The doctor told her that exact same thing, and the things that came out of my sweet girl’s mouth…

“She’ll be fine. I’m skipping classes today to look after her, and Hawk’s gonna be here this afternoon when I have to go get Sparrow and take her to her girl doctor appointment.”

Lynx grins at that because I tried to get Hawk to take Sparrow while I stay here with Lay, but he threatened to kill me in my sleep. We’re all horrified that our little sister is now—shudder—a woman.

“Okay, man. Good luck, and listen, don’t worry about stuff right now, okay? Whatever is going on, we’ll get through it.”