Battered Not Broken (32 page)

She got lost on her way to his room. A nurse set her straight, directing her to where he was staying.

She slipped inside the half-open door and found Ryan alone, lying propped against a stack of pillows. He appeared to be asleep, but turned to face her when she reached his bedside.

“Hey.” She reached automatically for his left hand and slipped her fingers into his. His right arm was in a cast from a couple inches below the elbow to his hand, leaving his fingers and thumb free.

“Hey.” The phone hadn’t exaggerated the rasp in his voice. His eyes were bloodshot too, the lids slightly swollen. A pang of guilt sliced through her as she realized that he probably would’ve been asleep if it hadn’t been for her.

“How are you?” A dumb question, but the notion of skipping it seemed insensitive.

“Fucked would about sum it up,” he said. “Can’t fight and can’t work with a broken wrist. I mean, maybe I could’ve wrapped it up and still fought, but not if I wanted a chance at worker’s comp.”

Ally chalked his ludicrous implication that fighting with a broken wrist would’ve been acceptable up to the drugs he’d been given. At least, she didn’t want to believe he would’ve thought that way if he’d been clear-headed. “I mean how do you feel?” She ignored the urge to commiserate with him. His physical health was the most important thing – she could worry with him over the other issues later.

“Pretty shitty. The meds they gave me dull the pain but make me feel like I’m underwater.”

At least they helped with the pain. Once he fell asleep, he wouldn’t notice the other side effects. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a hospital gown?” He wore nothing but a pair of work jeans and his cast. Half-dressed in his own clothing, he looked oddly out of place in the hospital bed.

“I feel pathetic enough without being stuck in one of those. I told them they could have my jeans, but they’d have to fight me for them.” He tried for a smile, but it looked more like a grimace and didn’t reach his red-rimmed eyes.

“I’m going to have a seat.” There was some sort of vinyl chair in one corner that looked like it might recline a little. “I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Told you, you don’t need to stay the night,” he said, but his gaze was hazy.

“I don’t have enough cash for the cab fare home,” she said, “so you’re stuck with me.” She leaned over his bed and brushed a kiss against his jaw. She’d meant it to be light, but the heat of his skin and scrape of his stubble flooded her with emotions that urgency had masked during her rush to the hospital.

She lingered with her lips on his skin, so glad to see him that her eyes started to water. She tried not to think about the nightmare scenarios that could have been so much worse than his fall had been.

“Ally…” He breathed her name, his voice rough but a little less strained than it had previously been.

She rocked back on her heels, standing straight once again and reluctantly letting go of his hand. “Get some sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me to buzz for a nurse or anything.”

She headed to the corner of the room and settled down in the seat, dropping her purse to the floor beside it. It turned out the chair had a footrest – a welcome discovery. She propped her feet up and leaned back as far as it would allow her.

Ryan fell asleep quickly as she watched from her seat, her own eyelids heavy after a day spent worrying. As she willed her body to rest so that she’d be ready to help Ryan the next day, she couldn’t help but wonder how much worse off he might have been that night if he’d fought in Cameron’s event instead of suffering a work injury. As guilt crept over her, she tried not to think of what a relief it was to know that at least he wouldn’t be able to make it back into the ring or cage anytime in the immediate future.

* * * * *

“Hey, your birthday is in two days.” Ally stood at Ryan’s bedside, willing the stiffness to go out of her muscles. A night spent in the vinyl chair in the corner of Ryan’s hospital room had not been kind to her body.

Ryan glanced down at the hospital wristband she was looking at. His name and date of birth were printed next to a barcode, above the name of his doctor. “Yeah.”

She mentally ran through a quick calculation. “You’re going to be twenty-six.” About how old she’d estimated him to be.

“Yeah.” His voice was completely devoid of enthusiasm as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

She said nothing while mentally noting to make some sort of plan to celebrate the occasion. It was obvious he wouldn’t comply if she tried to get him to discuss it further. He’d woken up about fifteen minutes before, at about six-thirty, and had been scowling since.

“How’s your headache?” she ventured, raising her gaze from the wristband to his face. His jaw was darkened by stubble and his mouth was set in a frown, but his eyes were less red than they’d been the night before.

“Not too bad,” he said. “The worst of the pain is gone.”

“Do you want me to buzz a nurse for some more painkillers?”

“Hell no. I can deal with this. I just want to get out of here.” He slid from the edge of the bed, standing with his sock-clad feet on the tile. “Have you seen my boots?”

“Here.” She retrieved them from the far corner, where they rested against the wall.

He took the well-worn work boots and slid them on while leaning back against the bed, shedding construction-site dust on the tile.

He paused after donning both boots, frowning down at the untied laces as if he’d never seen anything so offensive.

“Let me help.” Ally stepped forward.

He let her tie the laces, but a tendon stood out at the side of his neck as she finished the second double-knot.

“There.” She straightened, her eyes roving automatically over the expanse of his bare torso. “All you need now is a shirt.”

He reached for the bed, slipping his unhurt arm under his pillow, and pulled a long-sleeved t-shirt from beneath it.

Ally raised an eyebrow. “Put it there for safe keeping?”

He shrugged and grimaced as the motion obviously affected the arm he had in a cast. “Wasn’t going to risk being left with nothing to wear but one of those gowns.”

He refused to let her help with the shirt. As she watched, he pulled it over his head, working his cast through the right sleeve. The cuff was a little too narrow to fit the cast through without tearing. With a ripping sound that was probably a seam giving way, he succeeded and awkwardly forced the rest of his body into the garment. “It’s just an old work shirt,” he said, meeting her gaze.

Before she could reply, a nurse walked through the door, a clipboard tucked against her side. “Mr. Moore? I see your fiancée has helped you into your clothes already.” She frowned slightly, leveling a look of disapproval in Ally’s direction. “You still need to be seen by the doctor before you can leave.”

With his back to the nurse, Ryan gave Ally the tiniest of eyebrow raises. “Well, get him in here then, because I’m leaving.”

The nurse gave Ally a look that seemed to indicate that she held her responsible for Ryan’s rudeness. “The doctor will be in as soon as he can.”

The nurse took Ryan’s vital signs before leaving. He seemed to endure rather than comply, leaning against the edge of the bed with his injured arm balanced in his lap.

“Let’s just go,” Ryan said as the nurse exited the room.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get the doctor’s approval before you leave? I mean, you already spent the night. Why not stay for a few more minutes?” It was Saturday – it wasn’t like he had someplace he had to be.

He shook his head. “I spoke to a doctor last night. He was going on about how I need to go back on meds to control my migraines. I told him it’s not happening.”

“But you do take medicine when you get headaches.” She’d seen him swallow the pills herself.

“That’s just migraine medicine I picked up at a drugstore. For a while my doctor at the VA had me on antidepressants to prevent the headaches. They helped, but fucked with me in so many other ways. I’m done with them. Stopped taking them about a month and a half ago after they made me pass out in the shower and hit my head. Woke up in a pool of blood and water and said to hell with those pills.”

“Oh.” There it was again – the feeling that she was totally useless. What did she know about those medications and how they’d affected him? And if he’d made up his mind, he’d made up his mind.

He stood, ceasing to lean against the bed. “Have you seen my jacket? Wore it in here yesterday…”

The door swung open before she could reply, admitting a lean man wearing glasses and a white coat. The doctor, presumably.

“Mr. Moore? I’m Doctor Lawson.”

Ryan had been right. The doctor did try to talk him into resuming the use of preventative medication, pointing out that Ryan was endangering himself by refusing to do so, especially given his job.

Ryan flatly refused.

There was nothing the doctor could do.

Ally left with Ryan, her ears still ringing with the doctor’s words.
You fell off a ladder and fractured your wrist. Next time, it could be the roof, and it could be your neck that’s broken. Would you prefer that over dealing with the side-effects of preventative medication?

* * * * *

Ryan paid for a cab to take them both to his place – he’d offered to send Ally home to her own house, but she’d firmly declined. They passed the ride in silence that remained unbroken until they entered his apartment and he locked the door behind them.

“How about breakfast?” she asked. “I could cook some of those eggs you stocked up on.” He hadn’t eaten anything yet that day, and neither had she. Ryan had been eager to leave the hospital and they hadn’t had time for a meal.

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll eat later.” He sank onto the couch in the living room, his shoulders slumped in a pose of exhaustion. He’d slept at the hospital, but the cab ride seemed to have drained what energy the night of rest had granted him.

Ally joined him on the couch, remembering the way he’d brooded when she’d helped him with his boots at the hospital. “I want to help you, Ryan. And it’s not like I have anywhere else I need to be today. At least let me make you some breakfast.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to help me, Ally.”

“It’s not a big—”

He fixed her with a hard look. “I’m tired of you helping me all the fucking time. Just don’t.”

Maybe it had been a trick of the early-morning light coming through his hospital window that had made her think his eyes had been a little less red when he’d woke than they’d been the night before. They looked redder now than ever, narrowed to angry slits.

His gaze seemed to slice right through her chest, sinking deep into tender tissue. “Sorry,” she said as something withered up inside her, gripping her by the throat and squeezing so that her airway felt too tight, her eyes pressured.

His good hand twitched against his knee. For one fleeting moment, it seemed like he might reach out to touch her, maybe take her hand in his.

Instead, he curled his hand into a fist. “Go home, Ally. There’s no reason for you to be here.” He looked away, but the cutting feeling his hard gaze had inflicted remained.

The pressure behind her eyes increased, threatening to send moisture creeping from their corners. It was stupid to even think of shedding a tear when he was the one in so much pain, but the reaction was automatic, instantaneous. She fought it off as she stood, feeling like a robot compelled to obey by some signal she didn’t quite understand or have any control over. “Fine. I won’t bother you if you really don’t want me here.”