Page 18

FOURTEEN

DAYNA

I’m not watching the clock. I’m not.

But as the minutes tick down, the hollowness spreading through my gut becomes pain.

He’s late. It’s nearly eight p.m. and there’s no sign of him. I dropped a message, one of those ‘hey, I’m not checking up on you, but are you on your way?’ and there was nothing.

He hasn’t even read it.

Now, I’m sitting on my couch, legs crossed, hugging his hoodie like a desperate waif who knows she’s about to have her heart broken.

I was so stupid for thinking this time might be different, that he might be different. I’ve never had a relationship last as long as this one, and we’re less than a month into it.

At least I set a new personal best.

I trace back every word I said to him this morning before he left. I was riding a high. I thought he was too.

Maybe it was the message at lunchtime. Maybe he’s pissed I didn’t reply.

I swipe at the tear that rolls down my cheek. No, fuck that! I am not crying over a guy—especially one who didn’t have the courtesy to end this himself.

By nine o’clock, I’m eating my feelings. I have chocolate on his hoodie and crisp crumbs on the blanket pooled in my lap.

At nine-thirty, I relent and call him. Maybe it’s weak, but I just can’t believe he walked out of here this morning happy but decided not to come back. The way he kissed me was not the actions of a man who was planning on ditching me.

It rings, but he doesn’t pick up. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.

By ten-thirty, I’m done—both with eating junk and unravelling. I’m exhausted, crampy and pissed.

I’m about to go to bed when my phone rings. I pounce on it and frown when I see the name on the screen.

Ivy.

Even though I really don’t feel like talking about baby stuff or how amazing Riot is, I answer because Ivy is my best girl and you don’t leave your friends hanging.

“Hey, I was just about to go to bed. Is everything okay?”

“Has anyone called you?” There’s a tremble in her voice that makes my bones straighten.

“Plenty of people call me, Ivy, but are we talking about actual people or the ten thousand spam calls I get every day?”

“Shit.” She huffs. “I told Nate you wouldn’t know.”

Dread is building in my stomach. “Know what?”

“I don’t know what happened. The guys won’t talk in detail about it, but there was an attack on one of the club’s businesses. Dash was hurt. He’s in the hospital.”

My legs fold and I sag onto the couch, almost missing the cushion.

No…

No, no, no.

This can’t be happening.

All this time I was sitting here cursing him for abandoning me, and he was in the hospital?

Is he dying?

Is he maimed?

Guilt gnaws at me, and I swallow past the sandpaper coating my throat. “How bad?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry no one told you.”

“Which hospital is he in?” I’m moving, searching for socks and my trainers.

“You can’t go there. Nate and Mace have locked us down because it’s not safe. They don’t know who was behind the attack.”

“What hospital, Ivy?” I repeat. I’m not fucking sitting here while he’s lying in a bed without me.

“County, but Dayna, you should wait for him to call. He’ll tell you when it’s safe to visit.”

“Yeah, thanks, babe.” I hang up before she can say anything else, before she can argue. Because there’s no way in hell I’m waiting for that call.

My stomach is in knots and it feels like there’s a chain around my throat as I slip into my trainers and grab my keys.

The front door takes a frustrating amount of tugs to get it to latch and just when I’m about to set fire to it, the lock catches.

I don’t have money for a taxi or a bus. So I shove my hands into the front of his hoodie and I pound the pavement like my life depends on it.

My guilt eats me alive.

Please let him be okay.

When I reach the main entrance of accident and emergency, I’m vibrating with terror.

The waiting-room is heaving, every available seat occupied, and the smell of weak coffee permeates the air.

I blink against the fluorescent lights, too bright. Too much.

A baby is crying somewhere behind me, and the low hum of voices is like needles to my brain.

The receptionist glances up as I approach, her curly hair wild softening her face.

“I’m looking for?—”

Shit. I have no idea what Dash’s real name is. Between fucking each other senseless, it’s never come up.

The woman is staring at me, waiting, and I don’t have the first fucking clue what to say to her.

“Okay, this is kind of embarrassing but… so I’m really in love with this guy, which is weird because I’ve never been in love in my entire life, but I’m pretty sure I’m falling head over heels for him, because, well, he looks like him .

If you saw him, you’d understand.” I shake myself.

“Anyway, he was supposed to come over tonight and he didn’t, and I thought he was dumping me but was just too much of a coward to say it, so I’ve sat at home all night eating chocolate like some kind of garbage chute.

But it turns out he’s in the hospital. So now, I have an extra three thousand calories on board and a sugar headache mixed with intense guilt and I have no idea if he’s alive or dead. ”

The receptionist stares at me. “What’s the name?”

“Okay, so now, I’m really going to embarrass myself because even though we’ve been having sex for weeks, I don’t know what his name is. I mean… I know what everyone else calls him, but I don’t know what his real name is. Would it help if I described him?”

Her eyes narrow just a fraction. “Do you know what injuries he was brought in with?”

“No.” I’m debating phoning Ivy to ask the embarrassing question of ‘what is my boyfriend who is not my boyfriend’s name’ when I spot a guy wearing the same kutte as Dash’s. He steps through the doors that lead to the treatment areas, eyes everywhere in that same vigilant way Dash does.

I forget the receptionist and rush over to him. “Hey! Wait!”

When he turns towards me, my instinct is to drift back. He looked huge from across the waiting area, but this close up, he feels it too. It’s like the air around him molds to him. I swallow hard and keep my feet from drifting back.

“Are you with Dash?” I ask.

His eyes are glacial when I ask that. “Who are you?”

“I’m—” How the hell do I explain? “We’re together. Kind of. It’s new, but he was supposed to come over tonight and he didn’t, and then Ivy phoned me to tell me that he was in the hospital but?—”

“You’re Dayna.” He cuts me off.

I snap my mouth shut. It’s not a question. He’s not asking. He knows who I am, which means Dash has told him. He’s not… hiding us.

“Yes?”

His brows come together. “Are you asking me if that’s who you are or telling me that’s who you are?”

I shake myself. “No. I mean… yes, I’m Dayna. I’m not asking. She is me.” My god, stop rambling.

The way he’s looking at me has me wanting to shrink into myself. I don’t have to know that he could kill me with his bare hands.

“He came around for a couple minutes before they took him down for a brain scan. He was asking for Dayna. I didn’t know who that was.”

He was asking for me? In that tiny window where he was conscious, he was asking for me? The hope I had buried is now sparking to life again.

“Hang on… brain scan? What happened to him?”

He leads me through the doors to the treatment area, and I expect someone to stop us, but they don’t. People give him a wide berth though.

“He hit his head. Did you know that if you hit the frontal lobe hard enough, it can change your personality?”

I blink at him. “Did he… hit his head that hard?”

Does he not remember me? Is this guy trying to tell me that the only man who has actually given two fucks about me, who I’m fairly certain I’m falling for, has a brain injury that means he doesn’t know who I am?

No, he asked for me.

I need to breathe.

“The doctor said his scan came back clear. They’re only keeping him in because he lost consciousness.”

I glare at this mountainous man. “Then why did you say that?”

“It’s interesting.”

Who the hell is this guy? “Can I see him? Is he awake?”

He doesn’t say yes or no, just walks away. Am I supposed to follow him?

I rush after him, and when he rounds the corner, there’s a small cubicle. The curtain is pulled halfway over, but it’s not enough to hide him.

Dash’s face is pale, blood-crusted from his temple to just below his ear. There’s a bandage in his hairline, and they’ve dressed him in one of those awful scratchy hospital gowns. He looks too big for the bed, and unlike the times I’ve watched him sleep, he doesn’t look settled.

I pause at the end of the bed, my feet refusing to move any farther. The blood on his face turns my stomach, and my breath hitches violently enough that his eyes flutter open.

He struggles to focus, but then they settle on me, and his face softens in a way that makes my chin wobble.

“Hey, babe.”

Oh, shit. I’m going to cry. Like properly cry. I dig my teeth into my bottom lip, as if that can stop the flood threatening inside me.

“I thought you got fed up with me, and all this time, you were lying in a hospital bed bleeding.”

I let out a hiccupping sob.

“Come here.” It’s a command, and I follow it because, fuck, I need to touch him.

I need to hold him.

I need to make sure he is still breathing, even though he clearly is.

As soon as I’m close enough, he wraps his fingers around my wrist and pulls me down onto the edge of the bed. He’s warm—and alive. I fold my body in half, my head on his chest. Gripping him like he’s rope in stormy waters, I close my eyes and just… breathe .

“You’re okay. You’re okay.” I whisper the words.

The tears clog my throat. I can’t get air in between the suffocating sobs. I don’t try. I just cling to him, breaking wide open.

“Dayna,” his voice is soft, but I can’t lift my head to look at him.

Because now beneath the fear is shame. My reaction is crazy. He’s going to think I’m too much, that I’m hysterical.

“Look at me, please.”

I dig my fingers into my biceps, the pain of my nails grounding me long enough to lift my eyes.