Room 103 02 - Thrilling Heaven (21 page)

“Jen?” Bulk’s voice entered my senses and I turned
instinctively towards his voice.

“Mmmm” I mumbled against the pounding in my head.

Wow, it was a real thump, thump, thump and I groaned as I
tried to open my eyes but they were heavy and sore.

“Christ, what happened?” I asked as I literally pulled my
eyelids with my fingers to open them.

Bulk smiled at the sight of me as I squinted through the
slits that were now my eyes.

He moved in front of me and tried to peer through the
small slots. “They had to give you a sedative. How are you feeling?”

I did an internal check on everything and nodded with a
sigh, “Okay, I think.” I pulled myself up on the bed and ran my hands over my
face.

“We need to talk” he said with a heaviness that had my
instincts on high alert. He smiled softly and grabbed my hand, “It’s okay,
don’t panic. They managed to find Boss’s bleed.”

I nodded at him with confusion roaring through me but I
knew he had more to tell me so I waited and listened.

He blew out a slow breath and paused to form his words.
“They’re not sure if… if he even comes through this that… that he’ll be okay,
Jen.”

A funny choked sound flittered through my chest and up my
throat but I nodded in understanding. “He took quite a beating to his head and
until the swelling goes down…” he shrugged as if the gesture finished his
sentence.

“Okay” I whispered. It was all I could manage but it was
something in acceptance.

He palmed the nape of my neck and pulled me against his
chest as he placed a soft kiss on the top of my head. “He will though” I said
quietly.

He pulled back and frowned at me. “He’ll be fine. I know
he will” I stated firmly as I also offered a shrug for a final gesture, not
being able to explain my insight but I felt it through to my core.

He regarded me for a while before he nodded and smiled. “Yeah,
he will” he agreed with a wider smile, “he will.”

We smiled at each other, an alliance building between us.
Both of us accepting things, each other and whatever would be. We would deal;
we were friends and friends dealt.

However Ethan came out of this, I would love him just as
passionately as I had before, I would desire him just as much as before and I
would stand by him, just as before but what differed from before was now,
finally, I forgave him for what he had done. Because I now understood the pure,
raw, visceral impulse of wanting to kill someone who hurt the person you loved
through to my very core.

It was nature’s way of protecting your soul mate. Protecting
the partnership that god had created for each person that resided on his
creation and protecting your own future. It was pure natural instinct instilled
into each of us.

A no-holds-barred instinct to kill to protect.

Simple.

***

“You’ll laugh at this; I know how much of a sadistic sod you
are with other people’s misfortunes, especially mine.” I laughed as I poked a
still unconscious Ethan in his now healed ribs whilst I dragged the razor
across his foamy chin.

It had been a gruelling six weeks. Six weeks of lost
hopes, lost prayers, lost dreams, lost moments and lost days that should have
been spent relishing time with Ethan. Six weeks of operation after operation,
of tears, of screams in the dark loneliness of my bedroom, even six weeks of
prayers to god in church, somewhere I had never visited unless for weddings and
funerals.

Six weeks of a hell so cruel I now didn’t fear perdition.

“I went to update your fans at the gate, but I went to
the loo first.” I paused and grinned at him as I wiped the remnants of the scum
off his chin and twirled his nose with mine as I whispered ‘by the way…’ before
I started rubbing his calves like a maniac, the way I had been shown.

“I was talking to a lovely woman who was asking how you
were, I told her you were still being a lazy bastard, and a little girl tugged
on my dress. You know that black dress that you said made me look like a biro,
well that one. Anyway, I crouched down to her and she beckoned me closer to
her.”

I started on his other leg, my fingers digging and
torturing his redundant muscles as I chuckled to myself. “She whispered in my
ear ‘lady, you have your dress tucked in your knickers’, epic, Ethan, bloody epic.
Had those little flowery knickers on what you like as well. I guess my flowery
arse is gonna be plastered all over the morning newspapers” I was laughing
loudly, shaking my head at my own blunder.

“Only you…”

The rasp bounced around my head before it settled in the
part of my brain that registered what it was.

My bottom lip trembled, my lungs emptied in a single
glide of air before my eyes lifted.

He smiled faintly at me with the usual twinkle in his
eye.

I passed out.

***

“Jen…”

“Jen…”

“Fuck” I bolted upright and searched the area.

He was smiling at me again and his damaged but still beautiful
face lit up as my eyes found his.

“Ethan? Ethan?” I whispered, frightened if I raised my
voice any higher it would wake me from my perfect dream.

Bulk helped me upright where someone had planted me in a
chair, but I still continued to stare at him.

“Hi” he whispered.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “H…Hi” I breathed
back.

His hand twitched from where it was rested beside his
body on the bed and I stumbled from the chair over to him, my legs marginally
slower than my body.

I was sure I was drooling because I couldn’t shut my
mouth. I slid my hand in his and as his fingers curled around mine, the sob
that had been stuck in my throat surged forward and I damn near choked on it.

“Ssshhh” he whispered as his thumb stroked clumsily over
my knuckles.

I leaned into him as I gently rested my head on his
chest, inhaling his delicious scent whilst I relished the lift and drop of his
lung technique.

“Ssshhh, baby.”

That was it. The tears flowed heavily, like a dam
erupting after months of pressure and turbulence. His hand then settled on my
head, his fingers twirling lightly with a strand while he learnt to control his
reflexes again.

“Ethan…” It was all I could say; his damn name. “Ethan…”

“I’m here, Jen. Ssshhh.”

I shook my head rapidly as I peered up at him; my eyes
taking in the glorious delicate hazel of his, the soft twinkle of his soul
displayed through his pupils and the small tilt of his lips as he smiled gently
at me.

“We need to fetch a doctor to look at you.” I told him as
I sat up and palmed his cheek, feeling his smile under my fingers and returning
it with my own. He tried to lift his hand to mine but couldn’t quite manage to,
so I took hold of it and placed it on my cheek for him, my eyes closing in
contentment as my whole essence smiled in symmetry with my lips.

“They’ve been, while you were taking a little nap” he
smirked. His voice was still hoarse from weeks of no use but it still held his
unique sense of fun and I glared at him.

“We can’t all sleep for six weeks solid you know” I
chastised playfully.

He grinned at me and glanced at my lap. “You still got
those flowery knickers on, baby?”

His eyes sparkled with naughtiness and I pointed at him
with narrow eyes. “No hanky panky for you for a while.”

He gave me a horrified look. “But little Boss will
shrivel up!”

I grinned mischievously at him and nodded slowly. “He
will, then he’ll drop off and I’ll be able to pickle him in a jar and put him
over the fireplace.”

Bulk let out a bark of laughter, “Fuck the jar, an egg
cup will do.”

“We can’t all be blessed with elephant cocks” Ethan
snarled.

I sighed happily at their bickering.

My man was back!

“Hey, it’ll grow back, baby.”

The look on his face broke my heart all over again as he
looked in the mirror for the first time in eight weeks.

He was quiet and the silence was screaming loudly at me.
“Ethan, look at me.”

He screwed his face up and turned away from me, “Just go,
Jen” he whispered with his now familiar croak.

After many exploratory operations on his throat, the
doctors had decided that his voice box was too damaged to repair back to its
original condition and he would always have a throaty rasp. I didn’t mind, in
fact it turned me on something bad but I didn’t tell Ethan that, he was still
too emotionally raw at the changes to his body.

He had been eager for a look in the mirror since he had
woken two weeks ago but he had been advised against it until today.

The half of his face that had taken the most beating was
scarred to a limit that if he now stood to the side, his new profile was
unrecognisable as Ethan Hart. His cheekbone had been crushed, his nose
splintered in six places, his jaw had been broken twice and he had a funny
little dint where his temple was.

But as he had taken the mirror and been brave enough to
look all he had said was, ‘My hair’.

Of course his head had been shaven to accommodate for all
the drilling he’d had on his skull to alleviate the pressure and drain the
blood.

But now as pain and self-hatred filled his face it
ruptured every single cell in my body, my love for him wanting to ease his upset
and disgust with himself.

“Ethan, baby, it doesn’t…”

“GET OUT!!!” he screamed as he hurled the mirror across
the room and pushed me away.

“Ethan…”

“Get – the – fuck – out – Jen!”

I swallowed heavily and nodded faintly, “Okay.”

Pulling my weary body off the bed, Bulk appeared at the
door, a solemn and anguished expression marring his face. He nodded lightly as
he held out his hand for me. “Come on, Jen. Let him be for a while” he
whispered softly as he led me from the cold clinical room.

I didn’t know what to do. My nails scraped over my palms,
my bottom lip trembled and my heart ached.

“Drag it in, little lady” he said as he lowered me onto a
hard plastic chair outside Ethan’s room.

“I… I dunno what…”

“Uh-uh, don’t even go there. Boss has to deal with this,
he needs to be the one to process and accept how things are now.”

I nodded slowly as E walked up the corridor with Lily in
her arms, Jax and Romeo were laughing hard about something behind E and their
boyish antics brought a much needed smile to my face.

E smiled softly as Jax frowned at me, “Jen?”

I looked up at him and sighed “He took a look in the
mirror.”

E closed her eyes and matched my long sigh with one of
her own before she placed Lily in Jax’s arms and walked straight in to Ethan.

We all cringed when something thudded against the door
and Ethan’s shout reverberated around the corridor but E’s was louder and
stronger, her singing voice giving her the advantage over Ethan’s now soft
grate.

“You wanna go grab a coffee?” Bulk asked me and I smiled
gratefully as I cricked my neck and stood up.

He held his hand out and smiled, “I’ll even buy ya’ a bun
if you’re a good girl.”

I placed my hand over my heart and fluttered my eyelashes
at him, “A man who knows the way to my heart.”

“Fetch me one” Jax barked in his own unique way and Bulk
narrowed his eyes and held his palm out.

“Cash.”

Jax stared at him with a lifted eyebrow, then sighed and
placed some money in Bulk’s open hand, “Tight bastard.”

Bulk grinned and nodded, “That I am. Come on little lady,
let’s get out of here for a while.”

Bulk had religiously been at the hospital many hours per
day, but I knew he was there to support me instead of Ethan. He had spent many
hours outside the room to give us space, but to emotionally support me whenever
I retreated outside for a breather and I couldn’t love him anymore for it. His
friendship, comfort and strength had found their own space in my heart and I
knew they would be there for many years, just as I knew mine would be in his.

***

 “No, honestly she did” Bulk laughed and I slapped his
arm playfully as we wandered back up the corridor to Ethan.

“She did not” I posed, “No way would a woman do that with…
that
!”

He laughed loudly which turned into a slight whine when
we spotted Romeo and Ethan’s grandparent’s frantic faces outside Ethan’s room.

My footing stuttered and Bill, or Grandpa as he kept
asking me to call him, gave me a pained looked. “What’s going on?”

“He’s gone, kid.”

I frowned and tipped my head at him in confusion, “What?”

He huffed and shrugged, “Gone – discharged himself and
gone home.”

“What the hell! Why?” I breathed as I rushed into his
room and picked up my stuff that had been strangely tipped out of my bag and over
the rumbled sheets of the hospital bed.

“Noooo…” I choked out when I found the shredded photo of
me and Ethan that he had taken when we had visited Great Yarmouth for the day.

It had been a happy photo of us both grinning at his
phone camera like lunatics and he’d had it printed out and I had kept it in my
bag for moments when I just needed his smile.

Edith, Ethan’s grandma, sat beside me on the bed and
placed a gentle hand on my arm. “He doesn’t want… he doesn’t want you to go see
him, love.”

I chewed on my bottom lip to stop the tremble as I gulped.
“Why?” I whispered more than asked.

“He’s just… going through a rough time. Don’t take it to
heart; he needs to deal with this himself. He’ll be back.”

I looked at her as my body erupted in goose bumps “He
blames me doesn’t he?”

She glanced at Bill but shook her head, “No.”

“Yes, he does. Don’t lie to me. It is my fault. It’s all
my damn fault! If I hadn’t… if I hadn’t gone back to him, if I had stood up to
Kyle all those years ago, he would be happy right now. He would have some tart
in his bed and…”

“That is enough!” Bulk barked at me and we all jolted on
the bed at his voice but I stood up and held a hand up at him.

“Just…” I shook my head in despair before I picked up my
stuff, left the room and went in search of something I knew would fill the
void… beer and coke.