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Harlan had been a gift in my life long before we’d ever kissed or had sex, long before I’d ever even been able to wonder who I really was, or value my own preferences in life. And he’d continue to be a gift now. No matter if we were friends, or casual hookup buddies, or anything else.
Maybe I could handle being casual, for him.
I wanted to give him anything he needed.
I turned the truck back on and felt it rumble to life. I’d lost a part of me the last time I’d left this farm, but I knew damn well now that I’d gained things, too.
I took off down the dirt road, taking the corner a little too fast.
I didn’t see the sharp divot in the road that must have been entrenched during the blizzard snow melting off.
My truck veered, catching the divot wrong, and slammed sideways into a ditch, and everything went black.
15
HARLAN
I got the text right as another huge crowd came into the brewery. It had been slammed all day, and now that the sun had set, it was only getting busier.
Typically, when it was this busy here, I would have ignored my phone vibrating in my pocket altogether. It was only by a stroke of luck that I happened to pull it out while I was in the back storeroom pulling out more cases of vodka. I needed to jot down a note in the shared inventory document to order more vodka, and when I saw a text from Sawyer, I let myself check it.
>>Sawyer: I really love you. I’m in the hospital. Crashed my truck, sort of. I’m okay, but I broke some bones. God, I love you. They’re assessing me now. Kinda loopy from the painkillers they gave me. I love you Moose, you know that?
Instantly, panic flooded my veins, and I almost got tunnel vision as I re-read through his text.
For a second I thought it might have been a joke or prank, but I knew Sawyer wouldn’t joke about this. When I read that he was on painkillers, the broken wording of the text made more sense.
I beelined out to the bar area, plunging back into the loud music, crowds, and chaos.
“Not the time to be on the phone,” Rush said, whizzing past me with a rack of freshly cleaned beer glasses in his hands.
“I’m—I—I need to leave. Now.”
“Very funny. Table three needs a refresh,” Rush said.
“He’s in the hospital,” I said, staring at my phone. “Sawyer’s in the fucking hospital. Broken bones. He crashed his truck—how could he crash his truck?”
When I looked back up at Rush, his eyes were wide. He nodded once, needing no further explanation.
“Go. We’ll figure it out. Go.”
“Are you—”
“I told you we’ll figure it out. Hell, I’ll get Shawn and Nathan and Charlie to help behind the bar, if I have to. Go.”
I was in my truck and on my way to the hospital within another twenty seconds.
It was like a scene out of my worst nightmares. I had tunnel vision for the whole drive to the hospital, and when I got there, I was practically vibrating with fear. I’d never done well in hospitals to begin with, but after losing Thomas so long ago, I’d barely been able to handle them even for minor visits.
I raced to the front desk, found out where Sawyer’s room was, and ran through the halls.
When I saw him in the bed, one side of his body badly bruised and swollen, I went into a full panicked shock.
“Tell me everything. What is happening? Do you need surgery? I need to know, Sawyer, now—”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when his beautiful, scraped-up face started fucking laughing.
“You are my favorite, Moose,” he said. He was very loopy from the meds, clearly. “God, you look this good even in hospital lights? Fuck me, man. I mean, seriously. Fuck me. Fuck me again, when we get home tonight?”
I breathed slowly, trying to reconcile my panic with what he was saying. “I think you might need to stay here tonight, Goose,” I said, my voice shaking a little. “Get you fixed up.”
“Hi, there,” a woman in a white coat said, coming into the room. “I’m Dr. Sandoval. You must be Harlan.”
“I am.”
“Sawyer here wouldn’t stop talking about you,” she said with a kind smile. “And there’s still some hope that he will indeed be able to go home tonight, actually. We just got x-rays back and the only fractures are mild.”
“Oh, thank fucking fuck,” I said, leaning one hand against the wall. “Shit. Pardon my language, doctor. And… uh… pardon it again.”
“I hear worse every day,” she reassured me. “There’s plenty that we need to take care of with Sawyer here for the next couple of hours, and he will need a soft cast, but luckily no need for a hard cast on the left arm.”
