Page 2 of Troubled Skies (Blue Skies #3)

As soon as she left the room, Ricky felt tears well in his eyes and rubbed at them with angry swipes. He hated feeling weak, hated crying, hated feeling sorry for himself. But the room was dark and sterile and cold, and he was alone, his body and mind battered by what he’d experienced.

“Hey, you!”

Ricky turned his head at the cheerful greeting and groaned. All morning long he had requested the door to his room remained closed, but the nurses insisted on leaving it open which meant there was no barrier between him and Luis. No way to hide and pretend he wasn’t there either.

“I don’t suppose you’d leave if I told you I want to be alone?” Ricky said as his former housemate crossed the threshold into the room.

“Why would I leave, buttercup? You’re family.”

The aggrieved breath Ricky drew into his lungs made him cough. Luis was immediately at his side.

“You all right? Do you need me to get anyone?”

Ricky waved him of. Off all his former housemates, Luis was the one he got along with the best, but that didn’t mean he appreciated Luis’s high-strung histrionics and how prone he was to overreactions. As soon as Ricky regained his breath, he told Luis he was fine.

“Of course you are. And, you’re a hero!”

“How am I a hero?”

“Oh. My. God. So modest.” Luis bumped Ricky’s shoulder with his fist. Gently, but it still caused Ricky to wince. “I’m so sorry. What hurts?”

“Everything.” He glared at Luis as the other man seemed ready to grab and fluff his pillows or something. “Why are you here? And what’s all this hero crap? All I did was survive a plane crash. And where’s your other half?”

Luis snorted, then smiled and held up his index finger.

“One, Darius is still parking the car. Between the press and the number of visitors for the people you saved from the fire ,” he eyed Ricky and waggled his eyebrows, “there’s hardly any parking.

” He raised a second finger, “That’s what all this ‘hero crap’ is about.

” A third finger rose beside the other two.

“And I’m here because I love you, sweetheart, and also because I’m still listed as your emergency contact, so they called me to make sure you had someone to take care of you after you’re discharged. ”

It took Ricky a moment to process everything Luis had said, and another moment to figure out what to respond to first. “I am not going home with you.”

“Sugar, you’re in pain even lying down, there’s no way you’re going to be able to take care of yourself.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Fine.” Luis crossed his arms over his chest. “Get yourself to the bathroom.”

“Fuck off. I don’t have to go.” Which was something of a lie, but Ricky didn’t want to give Luis the satisfaction of seeing him ease out of the bed, gasping at how sore his body was.

He’d already been through that with assistance from one of the nurses this morning, and that was humiliation enough for one day.

“Until you can get yourself to the bathroom without assistance, you need to be with someone.” Luis scowled at him, arms still crossed.

Standing barely five-five, Luis looked like he was prepared to fight Ricky, and Ricky knew it was useless to argue with him.

The idea of moving back in with the newlyweds and watching their happily ever after play out in front of him made Ricky’s guts roil, though, so he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“I have a place to stay,” he snapped.

“I know you do, but you’ll still need help for a few days. And the media is camped outside your place, so you can’t go there if you want to get the rest you need.”

“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?”

“Of course he has.” Darius practically purred the words as he entered the room and put his arm around his husband.

“We know you, Ricky, and we know you don’t like to accept help, but just give us a couple of days to take care of you until you’re able to walk around without pain.

You scared the shit out of all of us, and we want to make sure you’re okay.

So stop being a prickly ass about this, all right? ”

“Fuck.” Ricky tried to blink away the tears that suddenly blurred his vision, but it was no use.

He shook his head as they tracked down his cheeks and gritted his teeth to hold back the sob.

And then Luis was hugging him, and Ricky didn’t mind the aches in his body because he’d been trying so hard to keep it together for the past twelve hours, and it had been too long since someone held him with so much affection.

Once the floodgates opened, he couldn’t stop the tears. Especially not after Darius walked around to the other side of his bed and wrapped both him and Luis up in his arms.

“We’ve got you,” Darius murmured. “We’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Neither Luis nor Darius said anything other than gentle words of comfort until Ricky hiccupped and struggled to disentangle himself from their arms. They let him go, and he sat up wiping at his face.

Luis found him some tissues, and Ricky took his time to wipe his eyes, blow his nose, and get himself under control.

Then he saw that the shoulder of Luis’s shirt was completely drenched, and he let out a shaky laugh.

“Hope you brought a change of clothes for yourself,” he said and smiled weakly as Luis and Darius laughed.

Darius gave him one last hug. “You know we love you and want to help, right?”

Which was all it took to make Ricky break down all over again.