Page 54 of Chasing Blue

There’s no bruise, no cuts, no breathing machine or any of the other things I was dreading. He just looks like he’s sleeping, and relief rushes through me with such force my entire body jolts.

Quickly raising my hand to my mouth, I press my fingers against my trembling lips, but a choked sob still manages to escape them.

Jack opens his eyes and blinks a few times before focusing on me. His lips twitch into a lazy smile as he holds his hand out towards me.

“Finally, I caught you,” he says quietly. “I was chasing you in my dreams, Blue, but you kept disappearing, and I couldn’t catch you. C’mere,” he says with a head tilt, and I don’t hesitate. Sobbing, I throw myself at him. His arms wrap around my waist, and he pulls me onto the bed and on top of him.

“Now we can sand jive, baby,” he says into my ear.

“I think we need to leave the sand jiving for another day,” I tell him. “Besides, I don’t know if I remember how to.”

“Then I’ll teach you, just like I did last time.”

“You remember that?”

“Sugarpie honeybunch,” he sings. His voice sounds rough, raspy, and sexy as fuck. “Told ya, I remember every-fucking-thing, Blue. Been running from it ever since you left.”

Tears spill over and trail down my cheeks as I look up at him looking down at me.

“Maybe I wasn’t running,” he says quietly. “Perhaps I’ve just spent my life chasing you.”

My stomach hurts as it ties itself in yet another knot.

“Well now you’ve caught me, you need to lay still and do what the doctor orders,” I tell him.

“You.”

“What?”

“The doctor ordered I do you. That’s the script he prescribed. You’re my medicine.”

That earns him an eye roll.

“Seriously though, how’d you feel?”

“Pissed the fuck off,” he says on a long sigh. “That fucker knocked me sparko. Didn’t even see it coming and he caught me right on the jaw.”

The image of him lying out cold on the floor, the sound of his head cracking against the tile hits me again, invoking an instant snot bubble cry.

“You scared me,” I sob between each word I manage to get out. “I was so scared, Jack.”

“I know, I know, baby, and I’m sorry.”

“Jack’s always been the lover of the family, not the fighter,” Shannon says from somewhere in the room.

“Fuck off, Shann, I can fight.”

“Obviously not.”

“I didn’t even know the fucker was there. I literally walked into his fist.”

“Yeah, yeah. Glass jaw more like.”

“Why are you even still here? You can go now.”

I actually find a smile at their sibling banter.

“Mate, if I leave, Scarlett will have to go too. The only reason she’s here is because I posed for selfies and signed bits of fucking paper. Show some gratitude.”