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“Lowe family?” A woman in scrubs came to the edge of the waiting room carpet, looking around.
“Here.” His mother stood, Wes and his dad following suit. “How...how is she?”
“Holding steady. She’s a fighter. Still heavily sedated and intubated, but we’re going to let y’all see her, one at time, five minutes max.”
“Oh thank God.” Fresh tears flowed down both his parents’ faces, and Wes’s own eyes stung.
His dad went first, then his mom. “Do you want a turn, honey?” she asked as she came out of the glassed-in recovery room, wiping her eyes.
“Yeah.” Wes nodded, not really sure at all, but each hour was a gift at this point, and he couldn’t turn down the chance. The nurse led him into the room where Sam was hooked up to what looked like a dozen machines, all beeping at different intervals. Eyes closed, she seemed so small in the huge bed, draped in white blankets and something akin to plastic wrap. The ventilator helping her breathe whirred, a constant reminder of how tenuous Sam’s hold on life was.
“Hey there, gorgeous.” Wes struggled to speak around the lump in his throat, needing to crack the silence beyond the machines and the roar in his head. “You’ve had a rough day, huh?”
No answer of course, and Wes settled into the lone chair in the room, knowing his time was short. What to say? He opened his mouth, prepared to tell her about how strong she was, how much his parents needed her to stick around, but instead what popped out was, “I did something stupid, Sam. Total idiot.” He paused to laugh at himself, the way Sam would. And she’d be pissed he hadn’t shared this months earlier. “Did the one thing I always swore I wouldn’t—I fell in love.”
He stopped to listen to the whir and beep of the machines a minute, as if there might be an answer in their rhythms. “And you know what’s funny? I know I could tell you, and you’d think it was great. ‘Go Wes, finally finding love.’ Because that’s you. You always find the bright side, even when I’ve made some downright shitty choices. I’ve... I’ve put someone at risk. And there’s really no way to fix it.”
Wait. Was that really true? Wes studied Sam, thinking of every time she’d encountered an obstacle in her life, how she’d conquered it. She’d inspired him to do the same—from his first triathlon through basic training through every mission. Find a barrier. Smash it.
“I remember when you were a baby,” he said. “Man, you were cute. And such a fighter. Every time they said there was slim odds, you proved them wrong. And that’s what you’re going to do again. You keep fighting, you hear?” He took a deep breath. “And if you keep fighting, then maybe I can do the same.”
And he would. Life was too short not to find a way forward.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You need a drink.” Dylan didn’t phrase it as a question as he passed Dustin a beer from the open fridge in his and Apollo’s gleaming, open kitchen.
“Yeah.” Dustin didn’t bother pretending otherwise. Dylan had demanded his presence for fish taco night at their house, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy and social. Not that he could, even if he wanted to. It had been a long-ass week. And while he’d apparently run out of excuses for Dylan, he still wasn’t fit for company.
“Do we get to call you Uncle Dustin now?” one of the twins asked, ducking around Dylan to grab a juice box.
“Hey now, dinner’s almost ready.” Dylan plucked the juice back. “And what do you say, Uncle Dustin? Has a ring to it.”
“Whatever.” Dustin only realized how dour he sounded when the kid’s face fell. “I mean, knock yourself out, squirt. Uncle Dustin it is.”
Dylan waited until the girl had run back to the living room where her sister was playing to speak again. The noise of a kids’ show filtered out of their play space. “Dude. You’ve been off for months now, but snapping at one of the kids? What crawled up your ass and died—”
“Great visual, man,” Dustin deflected.
“I’m serious.” Dylan pulled his shoulders back. He wasn’t nearly as tall as Dustin, but he knew how to stare a man down every bit as good as the guys on Dustin’s team. Like Wes. And there he was, thinking of him for the millionth time that week.
“I’m home.” Saving Dustin’s bacon, Apollo strode into the kitchen, stopping to give Dylan a kiss that went on several moments longer than Dustin had the stomach for. Being happy for his friend and brother was one thing—routinely getting evidence of it was another. Still weird to think of his kid brother with any sort of love life.
“Fish smells great,” Apollo enthused when he came up for air. “You make the slaw already?”
