Save Me: a Stepbrother Romance (27 page)

“Oh, honey.”

My mom’s voice was the first thing I heard when I regained consciousness.  My eyes fluttered open. 

A ringing reverberated in my ears, and my tongue was dry and begging for a sip of water.  Aching muscles and the pounding in my head weighed me down in the hospital bed I found myself in.  The cold, sterile air of the blue-green room around me bit my tender skin, and the smell of rubbing alcohol stung my nose.

I glanced down at my arm.  Needles and an IV were taped to the veins.  My head went woozy and my stomach turned.

“Is she awake?”

Jess’s voice.  Jess was here.  And Mom?

But something else, too.  I was forgetting something.  Something important, and I couldn’t remember it for the life of me.  I couldn’t think straight with the pounding in my head drowning out all clear thought.

I turned my head, blinking against the blurry light.

“Yes,” Mom’s voice said as her cool fingertips traced lightly over my forehead, brushing strands of loose hair out of my face.  “I think so.  Nat, can you hear us?”

“I can’t move.”

What am I forgetting?

“I know, honey.  They need you to keep still or else the needs and things will … well….” 

She plucked at the IV.

“You’ll be fine though, hon.”

“No.  I mean.”  My dry, rasping voice scratched at me as I tried to force out the words.  I cleared my throat.  “Hurts.” 

“I know, Nat.”  Jess’s voice again.  Her face popped into my line of vision, hovering above me as her brunette hair tickled my nose.  “But the doctors said you’ll be fine.  Well, aside from the leg thing.” 

Ugh.  The leg thing.  I glanced down, allowing a few seconds for my still hazy vision to focus on me.

Oh.

Oh no.

“They put me in a cast?” I moaned.

“Better than having the wound seal crooked.”  Mom’s lips were pursed in a frown, but it was quivering.  She was trying not to smile.  “It will be fine.  You’ll only need it for a month or two.  Your graduation gown will cover it.”

“Oh God, graduation.”  My head fell back onto the pillow.  “I can’t graduate like this.  I can barely move.”

“I told you, Nat,” Jess said, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.  “You’ll be
fiiiine
.  You’ve got a broken leg and a purple face and all you care about is that they made you wear a cast?  You’re such a drama queen, I swear.”

“Purple?” I yelped.

“Oh.”  Jess grimaced.  “Probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“Where?  Somebody give me a mirror.”  I struggled to sit up.  My limp muscles screamed in pain, and the needles wiggled in my vein in a horrible unnatural way.  A Velcro restraint latched my wrist to the bed.  I groaned.

“Definitely shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why am I in a straightjacket?”

“Natalie, honestly,” Mom said, glancing up in a heaven-help-me way.  “It’s just to keep your arm still.  You move a lot.”

“I’m
purple
?”

“You’re fine, Nat.”

I expected that to have been Jess’s voice, but even through the disorientation induced by whatever they were pumping into my veins, I could tell it wasn’t. 

Too deep.  Too gravely.  Too manly for a brunette cheerleader with a purple bedazzled cell phone. 

“Cal.”

I struggled against the Velcro restrains, needles, and aching muscles to see him where he leaned against the wall in the corner of the room.  Jess’s hand grabbed my head and forced it back onto the pillow.  I glared at her.

“Evening, sweetheart.”

His voice.  His gorgeous, wonderful, deep, delicious voice.  His amazing, not-in-jail, not-on-death-row-for-beating Nate voice.  His I’m-here-and-I’m-not-leaving voice.

Wait, evening? 

I glanced out the window and groaned. 

“How long have I been out for?”

“Twelve or so hours.”

“
Twelve
?”

“Could have been days with that head trauma,” Jess said, poking my temple.  A sharp burst of pain soared out from the bruise there, and my face screwed up.  Jess bit her lip.  “Sorry.”

“You have terrible bedside manner.”

“I know.”  She flipped her hair.  “That’s why I’m going to be a wedding planner and not a nurse, duh.”

Wait, I’m forgetting again, aren’t I?

Cal!

My head struggled to move, but a strong warm hand cupped the back of my head and soothed it.  That musky, masculine Cal scent washed over me, drowning out the sterile taste of the hospital’s air.  Fingers combed through my hair.

Cal was back.  He was here.

“You’re not … you’re not in trouble?”

“No.”  His voice was gorgeously warm, washing over me like a hot bath after a night stuck in a snowstorm.

“Video, Nat.”  Jess gave me a god-you’re-so-stupid look.  I was getting a lot of looks lately.  “I told you.  They caught the whole thing on the school’s security camera.  Do you ever listen?”

“Jessica.” 

Mom put a hand on Jess’s shoulder and pulled her back into her white plastic chair, her stern mama bear voice back on.  Cal’s fingers continued to stroke through my hair, gently massaging me back into calmness.  One finger lingered near my ear to brush over the diamond stud.  Still there.

“And Nate?” I asked, closing my eyes.

“Expelled.”

“What?” 

My eyes popped open.  There was no way. 

Jess’s maniacal smile glowed across her face as she bobbed her head, her hair bouncing along with her.

“Yep,” she chirped.  “They kicked his ass out.”

“
Jessica
.”

“Mrs. Harlow, he beat your kid.”  Mom winced, but stayed silent.  “I think I can cuss when it comes to him.”

“Not in a hospital.”

Jess groaned.  Mom just patted her knee.  But Mom’s eyes stayed fixed on my cast, and I remembered the bit about the purple face.  My body was sore and bruised enough to be a corpse, but I hadn’t realized just how bad it was until that moment.  A cast on my leg.  A field of  swollen cuts along my cheek.  An entire body of throbbing, burning muscles.

I glanced around at the bare, fluorescent-lit room.

He put me in a hospital. 

Jesus
.

“He’s been arrested.  He can’t hurt you anymore.” 

Cal’s voice again.  I turned to him and drank in the sight of his face.  God, I had missed it.

“And he’s probably going to be charged with kidnapping and attempted murder, how crazy is that?” Jess said, bouncing in her seat like she was announcing the latest juicy gossip about Vanessa Miller.  “You should have seen his face, oh my God.” 

A smile broke through my cracked lips.  Only Jess could make me laugh at her ridiculousness on my deathbed. 

“
Jessica
,” my mother hissed.

“Mom, it’s fine.”  I stretched out the arm that wasn’t held down by Velcro, testing the twisted arm.  It still worked, thank God.  “
I’m
fine.  At least I think so.”

I paused.

“What about Cal?  He’s still not in trouble for … for ‘kidnapping’ me, is he?  Or for the fight?”

“We’re taking care of Cal.”  Mom’s face had steeled, and she was back to the wonder woman she had been when Dad was dying.  The take no shit and kick asses while wearing lipstick and heels kind of woman I had always looked up to.  “You don’t need to worry about it, honey.  Worry about getting better.”

“What about James?”

I knew I was revealing too much.  I wasn’t supposed to know about how terrible he was, and I especially wasn’t suppose let Mom know that I know.  But I wasn’t going to let this go.  Cal had saved me.  Now it was time to save him.

“I’m eighteen, Nat.”  Cal’s palm cupped my cheek.  The warm, soothing skin felt glorious against my wounds.  “I’m an adult, or at least a legal one.  I don’t have to stay with him anymore.  And now that I’m about to graduate, and he doesn’t have to pretend to care about me, well….”  He shrugged.  “He doesn’t want me.  And I don’t want him.  It’s a clean break.”

“But where are you going?”

“He’s staying with us.”  Mom’s voice.  And it was back to the take no shit, laying down the law tone.  She crossed her arms and tipped her chin up.  “He saved you, Nat.  I’m not going to throw the boy who saved my daughter out on the street.”

“Can I join the family too?” Jess said.  “I could totally be your favorite daughter.  I’m way friendlier than Nat.  And I can do nails.”

“
Jessica
,” my mother groaned.

“You’re going to live with us again?” I said, straining my neck to look up at Cal.  His fingertips gently pressed me back onto the pillow, and he smoothed my hair.  I knew I shouldn’t strain myself, but I couldn’t help it.  Inside, I was gasping for him.  I needed him as much as I needed air to breathe.

“Only if you want me.”

I wanted to scream that I would always want him, but that wasn’t the smartest thing to do at the moment.  At least not in front of Mom.  I wasn’t sure if she had figured out yet about the ‘incest husband’ thing, but I wasn’t pushing it.  If she knew that Cal carried around condoms in his jacket and that we had had a lot of fun with said condoms, she’d have us both in chastity belts locked tighter than Fort Knox. 

Cal could do a lot of interesting things with his tongue, but I doubted even he could maneuver through that.

  “Yes,” I said instead, clasping his hand.  His arm rested next to mine, warm and comforting, as vital to me as the IV.

I was desperate to keep him there.

But the soreness in my limbs had started stinging like a bitch.  And apparently that had been expected, as a nurse walked in and warned Mom that it was time for another round of sedatives.  I groaned in protest, clutching Cal’s hand to me.  Mom sighed and squeezed my knee above the cast.

“I’ll stay the night, honey.  Just listen to the doctors and do what you’re told.  I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me.”

She grabbed Jess by the sleeve and dragged her out with her, smart enough to not trust my hypercurious friend alone in a room full of strange medicines and chemicals.

“Cal,” I moaned as the nurse began adjusting my IV. 

He shook his head as he smoothed my hair down.  “I need to go too, Nat.  Rules are rules.  And you know how much of a stickler for rules I’ve always been.”  He flashed me that cheeky smile, the one I loved.  My fingers traveled along the stiff stubble of his chin to the diamond in his ear.

I felt a sudden wave of drowsiness wash over me and glanced at the nurse, who had finished with the IV. 

“I don’t want to be apart again.”

“We’re still together, Nat,” he said, touching my diamond.  “I’ll just be in a different room.  You need some alone time.”