Faith (My Misery Muse) (17 page)

Jaks looked at us. “He’s going to get his
groove on with Cin.” Then he went back to talking to Drake.

Devi glared at X and X stared at Jaks slack
mouthed. “I swear to you Devi, I never told him anything like
that.”

“Cin did,” Jaks said.

“Oh that girl is about to get her ass chewed,
and not in a good way,” X seethed then left.

“How is there a good way to have your—”

“Jaks say bye to your mom, Uncle Drake and
Aunt Mags,” Seth interrupted before he lost a band mate.

Jaks shrugged then did as he was told, I
kissed Quinn’s head and strapped her back in the car seat and Devi
did the same with Cait.

“Devi can you help me take them all down to
the car?” he asked.

She nodded and grabbed Cait’s car seat and he
grabbed Quinn’s. “Be right back.”

“Drake, our family is not normal.”

I had dozed off at some point, and I sat up
suddenly not sure where I was or what had woken me. I glanced
around and remembered I was in Drake's hospital room. I looked over
and Devi was passed out on the couch, then I glanced over at Drake,
he was still sleeping. I sat there wandering what had woken me when
I felt his fingers clench around mine. My eyes went back to his
face and saw him swallow and his Adam's apple bob.

“Drake, honey, you hear me?”

His fingers clenched around mine again. “Can
you open your eyes, honey?” I watched his eyes flutter a few times
then finally his beautiful blue eyes were staring into mine.

“Hey baby, glad to see your back with us,” I
whispered and ran my fingers through his hair. “We’ve missed
you.”

He swallowed again. “Your throat dry?” He
nodded his head and I tried to remove my hand from his to grab the
little water pitcher and call the nurse but he squeezed my
hand.

“I’m not going anywhere, Drake, just going to
grab the water pitcher, okay?” He let go of my hand, watching my
every move.

After I poured some water, I brought it back
to him and held the straw up to his lips. “Just a small sip okay?”
He nodded his head and complied.

I picked up the tissue box beside me on the
little rolling table and threw it at Devi, she jerked up. “What the
fuck is your problem, Mags?”

“Someone is awake,” I said still watching
Drake, she jerked upright and looked at Drake.

“Hey bro,” she said, “welcome back,”

She looked over at me. “Not long, still need
to call the nurse.”

She nodded and pressed the call button for
someone to come in.

We were waiting for the nurse when Drake
tried to talk for the first time. “How how…”

“How long?” I asked.

He nodded his head. “It’s been ten days since
the accident, do you remember the accident?”

He shook his head no, and I gave Devi a
worried look, she gave me one back. “You were hit by a drunk driver
on your way home from X’s house.”

He nodded his head. “You remember being at
X’s?”

He nodded his head, and I was relieved he
seemed to remember that. The nurse came bustling into the room at
this point and I looked up at her and smiled.

“So he’s finally awake,” she said then
started messing with machines and writing it all down. “A doctor
should be in shortly.” With that, she was gone again.

“Did she remind you of a hummingbird?” asked
Devi.

“Yea kinda,” I replied still staring at the
door she left out of, I shook myself and looked back at Drake. “So
anything else you want to know?”

He nodded his head and opened his mouth but
nothing came out. He had a frustrated look on his face shook his
head and tried again. What the hell?

“You okay, Drake?” Devi asked, concern
written on her face.

He shook his head no and pointed at his
leg.

“Does your leg hurt?” she asked.

He shook his head again, and looked up at me,
frustration clear in his eyes. “You want to know what’s wrong with
you?”

He nodded. “Okay well, you broke your leg in
three places so they had to put a titanium bar, pins and a plate in
your leg. You broke your wrist, also a few ribs are cracked and
broken. There was some swelling on your spine but it’s gone down,
and they don’t see any problems with it. Your lung collapsed, and
you tore a small hole in the tissue surrounding your heart but they
were able to fix that in surgery.”

He nodded his head so I continued, “You are
going to need more time in the hospital, then some physical therapy
afterwards. We’re not quite sure what else at this point.”

He nodded his head and closed his eyes. I ran
my hands through his hair and he started humming in the back of his
throat, so I continued doing it giving Devi a look, she nodded.

“I am going to go find that doctor,” she said
then left the room, we were both a little freaked out about the not
talking thing.

Devi

I walked into the hall and took a deep
breath, maybe it was just confusion or something, but I knew, I
knew that something wasn’t right with my brother.

I walked up to the nurses’ station. “When
will the doctor be by to see Drake Porter?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “Well
probably sometime in the morning.”

“There is something wrong,” I said. “He’s not
able to really talk, it’s like he’s trying but nothing comes
out.”

She finally started to take me seriously. “I
will call the on call doctor immediately.”

“Thank you,” I said then turned around and
pulled out my cell.

“Hey baby,” mumbled a sleepy Seth.

“He’s awake,” I said, “but something isn’t
right, Seth.”

“Ok baby, calm down, what’s going on?”

“He’s awake, and he understands, but he’s not
talking. It’s like he can’t talk, he tries and he tries and he’s so
frustrated because it’s just not coming out,” I told my husband
wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Okay, Devi what did the doctors say,”

“We haven’t seen one, I just talked to the
nurse and she’s going to have the on call doctor come and see
him.”

“Okay well, let’s find out what he has to
say, okay? Deep breath baby, we will deal with it, and it might be
nothing.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay Seth, and I love
you; I will call you when I know more.”

“Okay honey, need me to come up?”

“No, not yet, stay and be there for the kids
in the morning.”

“K baby, love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up and went back to my brother's room
taking one more deep breath before I opened the door and pasted on
a smile—I could do this.

Chapter 31

Mags

The doctor wasn’t able to tell us much about
what was going on, only citing he would need more tests. Great—just
what we wanted to wait more.

“You okay, Drake?”

He nodded his head.

“Any pain?”

He shook his head.

“Am I annoying you?”

He shook his head.

Well, this is fun. “You tired?”

He shook his head.

“Okay then.”

Devi laughed. “May want to take advantage
here, Mags, for once he can’t interrupt you.”

He flipped her off then looked at me
intrigued.

“You going to leave?”

“Oh no, not on your life.”

I sighed. I should have known. I took a deep
breath. “So you were asleep a long time, and we didn’t know if you
were going to be okay, and it caused me to do a lot of thinking,” I
rushed out, “and I realized something…”

He looked at me and waited. He glanced over
at Devi and she shrugged and pointed back at me he rolled his hand
in a come on movement.

“All right, I realized I love you, now I am
not ready to go pick out china patterns or anything, but I am
willing to try out a relationship.”

His smile was dazzling and he pulled on my
hand. I looked at him and he pulled again. What the hell?

“I think he wants to kiss you, Mags,” Devi
informed me, rolling her eyes.

I looked back at Drake and he rolled his eyes
at me too. “Well sorry,” I muttered then leaned down carefully so I
wouldn’t hurt him and he kissed me, just a soft brush of lips
against lips, then he grabbed the back of my head, pulled me into
him further and really kissed me. I had missed him so much, and
feeling his lips on mine was like heaven.

Someone cleared their throat behind us and we
looked over at Devi with her nose wrinkled, “Well that was
unpleasant to watch.”

Drake and I both flipped her off which caused
her to giggle and then I kissed him again.

The doctor came out of his room and entered
some things onto his chart then finally made his way over to us. “I
think Drake is suffering from a mild form of Expressive Aphasia. He
can talk, he needs to talk, the more he talks the better this will
get. Basically it means that he will forget words, he will be
talking and know the word he wants to say but be unable to say it,”
the doctor explained. “It could also happen when writing, or with
numbers, there’s really no way to know at this point.”

“Okay, what else can we do to help?” asked
Devi.

“I will set him up for some therapies to help
with it,” the doctor answered, “but the best thing is to talk, and
not push when he has trouble.”

We nodded and he left. Well, that sucked.

We walked back into the hospital room and
Drake looked up at us. “So you talked to the doctor.”

We nodded.

“What did he tell you?”

“That you have something called Expressive
Aphasia, they think, they want to do a few more tests.”

I nodded.

Devi walked over and hugged him carefully.
“We’ll deal, bro.”

“Yea, we’ve lived through worse.”

“We have and we survived, just this time we
know who to rely on.”

He agreed, “Yea this time we have a real
family.”

“Speaking of family, they want to see
you.”

He nodded and opened his mouth and struggled
for a minute. “Okay.”

“Okay, Jaks wants to see you, to make sure
you are okay. And well I figured you would want to see the
girls.”

“Yea.”

“Okay, I will go make the call,” Devi glanced
at me and smiled then left.

“So did he tell you anything else?” I
asked.

“Nope, just that I had to talk, and he would
set up some sort of therapy for me.”

“That what he told us.”

Drake

“So did he tell you why you had such a hard
time last night?” Mags asked me.

“He said it was probably because of all the
drugs that were working their way out of my system.”

“That makes sense.”

“So what’s going on between us?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what is going on between us? You’ve
been taking one step forward and two steps back for so long now, I
want a clear cut answer, what are we doing?”

She took a deep breath. “We are, if you still
want to, going to try a real grown up relationship.”

“You mean where you are my girl?”

She nodded and bit her lip. “If you still
want me.”

“Mags,” I murmured, “have you not figured out
that I love you yet?”

She shrugged. “Not sure what that means.”

“It means you are my girl, that Quinn is
mine, and that one day hopefully soon you will marry me, but not
until you are ready.”

“I don’t know if I will ever be ready for
that,” she whispered.

“One day, Mags, you will marry me, until then
we will deal,” I said. “Now I want to know what I missed.”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Not much.”

“You are lying, what did I miss?”

“Let’s just worry about getting you better so
you can leave here.”

I shook my head. “Not going to work baby, now
what happened?”

She took a deep breath. “The lawyer had
asshat served with papers for a DNA test as well as child support.
He didn’t take it well and called my house a lot so I went and
stayed with Devi and Seth. And someone broke into my house and
trashed it. The police are looking into it, but nothing as of yet,
so I am still staying with them.”

I took a deep breath, it wouldn’t help to
yell at her, and she was safe. She did the right thing going to
Seth’s, only I haven’t been able to help her, and that hurt. “Come
here, baby,” I said she gave me a worried look and walked towards
me. “No, I mean come here, I need to hold you, touch you,
something.” She finally got it and walked over to me and sat down
beside me, I ran my hand up her arm. “You sure you and princess are
okay?”

She nodded her head. “We are fine, Seth and X
have been there with us at all times I haven’t been here.”

“Okay, just make sure you stay safe,” I said.
“I can’t have something happen to you or Quinn while I am stuck
here not able to get to you.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

I nodded and kissed her on the temple. “I do
love you, Mags.”

Chapter 32

Mags

I sat in the chair next to Drake's bed
holding Quinn while Jaks sat on his bed telling him about
everything that had happened at his house and school for the past
few days, and I do mean everything, down to X locking Cin in the
closet. We sat around listening to him talk and Drake kept giving
covert looks to Seth and X, I knew he wanted to question him about
what was going on with me and the asshat situation; he would want
another man’s point of view and reassurances.

I got it; he was upset that he wasn’t able to
protect Quinn, and me but I could protect myself if need be. Devi
and I had both made sure we were able to protect ourselves at a
young age when we met at art school. He glanced over at me and
smiled; it was gorgeous. I had missed his smiles, his winks, his
touches. I hadn’t even realized he did that often till they were
gone, and I wasn’t willing to let them go again.

“Let me hold my princess,” he said.

“You sure?”

He glared at me. “Give me my princess.”

“Fine,” I huffed and put Quinn into the curve
of his good arm. He was a natural with her, and she adored him.