Infatuated (29 page)

My skin iced over. “What?” I started to push up but Kale’s hands kept me down.

“Calm down,” he said. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s in handcuffs on a different floor.”

Earl was here. In the hospital. The fact he was in handcuffs should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. He was close. He could—

“Ally!”

I couldn’t get a breath in. Everything was closing around me.

Oh, god. Earl was here.

I shouldn’t have worked. I should have left weeks ago or even days ago. I shouldn’t have finished my shift.

My hands started to tingle as Kale turned my head to face him. “Look at me!”

I didn’t see him. I saw my own eyes staring back. And I could see myself back in the bar, Earl there, knife in hand. I could feel his hands on me. I could feel the blade slice into my skin, the blood as it dripped down. I could feel my arm tearing as I fell, trying to get help. Earl’s hand slapping my face. His foot kicking me. His jacket on me. His scent on me.

My chest tightened and I clutched it.

Earl was here and he was going to kill me if he got another chance.

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Damn it, look at me and breathe!” He grabbed my hand, clenching it tightly between his fingers. “Breathe. You’re a fighter. That’s why you’re my Ally Cat. You’re going to fight this and you’re going to breathe.” He leaned his forehead against mine and stared into my eyes. He took my hand and held it against his chest, right over his heart. “Something else to feel.”

His heart thundered under my hand, almost as hard and fast as mine. For reasons I couldn’t say, it calmed me more than anything else.

Minutes or hours could have passed—I didn’t know—but he kept my hand there until I felt his heart rate slow. Until mine did, too. I let out a shuddering breath, suddenly feeling foolish and tired. And achy. Lord, was I hurting.

“That’s the third time this week that you’ve scared me half to death.”

I frowned. What was he talking about? “I haven’t seen you in three weeks before tonight.”

His head shook. “You’ve been out cold for two days. Between the blood loss and the concussion…” He let out a shaky breath.

Two days? It didn’t seem that long, and yet it seemed longer. Or maybe that night just seemed like it’d lasted longer. How long had I actually been with Earl? An hour? Two?

I didn’t want to know. Not yet. I had questions I’d ask, a lot of questions I wanted answers to, but I wasn’t ready for them and I knew it.

“Who do I talk to about getting out of here?”
Far, far away from here.

“I don’t think they’re letting you out anytime soon. You almost—” He swallowed. “You’ll be here for a while yet.”

“I need to call my parents, Laura… I need to go.”

“Your parents are here. They’re at a hotel. I’ll go down and call them and find the doctor for you.” Kale rose from the bed carefully. “I’ll call the others too and let them know you’re awake.”

“Thanks.”

As he walked away, I let out my own shaky breath and looked toward the window. Everything had changed and yet…nothing had. Kale told me he loved me, the words I’d been wanting to hear for weeks, but what had it really changed?

When I’d told him it was too late, I’d said it to get him to leave, to keep him safe. But I’d meant them, too. It
was
too late, because I couldn’t stay here. Not now.

Even for him, I couldn’t.

K
ale brought a doctor back with him a few minutes after he’d left. After an hour of arguing and threatening, I was told I wouldn’t be released for at least another week. The doctor pushed for longer, but I threatened to walk out immediately, so we settled on four days. The only thing that had me agreeing to even that long was the pain—the fact that I was in a lot of it and wanted something to kill it.

The cops, who’d been called immediately after I’d woken up, came by after the doctor left—within minutes. They—including Officer Simms—had a list of questions a mile long. About that night, about Earl. They were even more interested when I told them what Earl had told me, specifically about Tonya, the waitress who’d disappeared from Hanson’s. They kept their expressions calm and mostly unreadable, but I had a feeling someone in the department had suspected foul play, though they hadn’t been able to prove anything.

They asked question after question for almost two hours until Kale made them leave.

And then my parents showed up. The reunion with them was awkward because neither of them looked at each other. They hadn’t seen each other since the divorce as far as I knew and there was a cordial silence between them that irritated the hell out of me. And then they started bickering back and forth about who was to blame. One of the nurses ended up asking them to leave when she realized their arguing was upsetting me.

Tonight, I’d asked them to leave when they refused to speak at all and only sat and stared at anything but each other. I claimed to have wanted sleep, but I didn’t. I wanted to move, to go, to…do something! To not be in a stupid hospital bed.

And Kale. He’d been hovering since the first time I’d woken up two days ago.

A week ago, it would have been fine. But now it was as annoying as my parents.

“Go home, Kale,” I finally snapped.

He looked at me. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re pacing and making me dizzy.”
Because I want to avoid the conversation I know we have to have sooner or later.

Instead of leaving, he took the seat next to my bed and held my hand again. I tried ignoring it, so naturally it was the only thing I could think about. The way his fingers curled around mine perfectly. The warmth that spread from his hand to mine. The feel of his calloused fingers over my knuckles.

The way just feeling his touch settled my heart.

But it broke it at the same time.

I forced my hand out of his and held it in my lap.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It didn’t change anything, did it? Telling you I loved you.”

I felt my eyes heat and I looked away. I closed them tightly against the tears that tried to fall.
I’m not going to cry.
My eyes were still hot with the need to cry, but no tears spilled over. “It changed everything,” I whispered. “But I still need to leave. I can’t stay here. Even…I can’t.”

With his head turned away, he nodded. “Okay.”

I would have laughed if I could have. It was a repeat of the night we’d broken up. He was okay, I was okay. Everything was a-okay. Only it wasn’t and I didn’t know if it would ever be. “You should go home. You still look like hell.” I couldn’t even fake a smile.

Without a word, he nodded and left, and I was alone again.

CHAPTER 24

I
didn’t see Kale the next day or hear from him at all, so when he showed up the day I was released, I was surprised. And annoyed. Again.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him as a nurse wheeled me down in a wheelchair. They refused to let me walk, even though I was perfectly capable of handling it. Handling it without wincing was something else entirely.

His face was impassive. “Taking you home.”

I didn’t know if it was the words or the look on his face, but it made my back go rigid and my eyes narrow. “I don’t have a home,” I said through gritted teeth. My old apartment was Laura’s now.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. And thank you, but I’m going to Max’s. She’ll be here soon.” Actually, she should have been here already. She promised to meet me in my room. But then again, I swore Max would be late to her own funeral.

“I told her I was picking you up.”

When the nurse stopped at the front doors and locked the wheels, I stepped out. Kale tried helping but I slapped his hands away. “Stop doing stuff like that. You have no right to.” And now I’d have to take a cab.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, it’s already done, so deal with it and let’s go.”

I didn’t move. “I’m going to Max’s.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Because I’m good at it. Because I’m only staying a few days in the hopes the cops actually find my car. And if they don’t, then I’m flying out.” I still hadn’t decided where ‘out’ was, but probably to one of my parent’s houses.

The nurse glanced at us, raised her eyebrows, and then took the wheelchair away quickly. I headed out the doors.

“Where are you going?” Kale shouted after me.

“Outside. I’m not having a yelling match inside the hospital.”
And I need more space.
He was too close. Too…everything.

“Ally.”

I stopped and took a deep breath before turning to face him.

“Just come stay with me. Please.”

“Why? What’s the point? We both know where this leads.” To more heartache.

He reached out, as though he was going to touch me, but he dropped his hand to the side. There were still circles under his eyes. “Because I miss you.”

It wasn’t the words that did it, or at least not alone. It was the tone, soft but miserable. It was the fact that I missed him too and had been missing him for weeks.

“For tonight.” I wasn’t sure I could handle being around him any more than that.

We didn’t talk on the drive to his house at all. He helped me in the SUV, got in, and drove. Even when we got to his house and he helped me out, he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t decide if I was grateful or annoyed. Maybe both.

He stood on my left side and led me to the back, toward his place. By the time I made it to his couch, I was shaky, winded, and exhausted. He’d tried for his room, for his bed, but I vetoed that idea immediately. Hurt registered in his eyes. It was hard enough being around him. I couldn’t lay there where all I would think about was him and us. About what was or could have been.

Wordlessly, Kale brought a pillow and blanket from his room and did what he could to make me comfortable.

Even while I appreciated it—and I did—it drove me insane.

“Do you want something to eat? To drink? TV, music—”

“Stop. Just stop,” I snapped, and shoved the blanket off my lap.

“Ally—”

I jumped to my feet, wincing and hissing at the sudden, jarring movement. “I don’t need babied, Kale.”

“You almost fucking died!” The words exploded from him. Anger flashed in his eyes, making them go dark, dark blue, like a storm at midnight. He stormed forward, stopping within an inch of me. His chest heaved and his breath hit my face. He stared at me, jaws and hands clenching and unclenching. “You almost died,” he said again. He spoke the words this time, but there was still force behind them.

“I was there, I remember.”

“Do you? Do you remember me attacking Earl? Do you remember the cops having to pull me off of him before I broke his goddamned neck?”

I didn’t. He was the last thing I remembered seeing that night, and I still wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it.

“When I saw you hit the floor, that was it. I thought you were dead. There was blood under you, on your head.” He bit the words out. “You saw me, at least I think you did. You even smiled at me. I’d never seen something so beautiful and horrific at the same time. Because you said my name like it was the last thing you’d ever say, like you knew it would be and were okay with it, and then your eyes closed.” He closed his own eyes and shuddered. “Your eyes closed and my heart stopped. I thought I watched you die, literally, before my eyes.”

I didn’t know what to do say or do. I didn’t know how to fix this for him, for myself, for us. He was hurting, I was hurting, and there wasn’t a quick fix for any of it.

His hands went to my shirt and he held it, just held it between his fingers. “I had three of the scariest moments of my life that night.”

“Three?”

“The first when you texted that you were leaving. I’d planned on coming to see you before you left. I hadn’t worked out what I’d say or do exactly, but I was going to be there and I’d say and do something. And the second time, when I got there and I told you I loved you, and you shut me down. I saw the doubt in your eyes, the anger, and I knew I blew it. Even before you told me, I knew. You opened the door and I knew it was already too late.”