Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2) (27 page)

“How would you feel if I said that to you?”

“I’d feel like you had your priorities straight. That’s how I’d feel.”

“No, you—”

The door flies open, and a nurse wearing purple scrubs and a scowl walks in.

“I heard our patient was awake.” She sets her fists on her hips and walks over to my bed. “Were you planning to argue her back to good health, Mr. Gray?”

Rhyson at least looks abashed, his eyes losing some of their heat when he glances back at me.

“I’m sorry.” He blows out his frustration. “We were just—”

“Oh, the whole wing heard what you were just doing.” She looks up at him from the blood pressure cuff she’s wrapping around my arm. “Am I gonna have to ask you to leave?”

Rhyson doesn’t answer, but takes his seat by my bed and starts scrolling through his phone. I’m not sure if it’s his way of demonstrating he’ll cooperate, or showing her he’s not going anywhere.

“Your vitals are good, but the doctor will be in soon to look at you,” she says to me. “How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty,” I croak. “And really drowsy.”

“We gave you some medication that kept you asleep because the best thing you can do to get better is rest.”

She offers me the water again. Each sip irrigates my dry, scratchy throat, so I keep sipping until the cup is almost empty.

“Slow down, honey.” She laughs a little. “It’s time for more meds actually.”

She chides Rhyson with a look.

“If he’s going to upset you, he’ll have to go.”

“He won’t,” I rush to say. “I promise.”

“If he can’t follow instructions—”

“Please don’t make him go.” I’m about to cry again. Is it the exhaustion making me such a crybaby?

“Don’t worry,” Rhsyon says without looking up from his phone. “She won’t make me go.”

The nurse lifts a brow, meeting Rhyson’s defiance with her own.

“You have some other friends who’d like to see you.” Her stern eyes soften on me. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. That’s fine.”

She leaves, and neither of us speaks for a moment, the memory of our argument too fresh in the room.

“Do you have any idea what you mean to me?” Rhys finally asks, his voice quiet, but still rich with emotion. “There’s no happiness without you anymore. This didn’t have to happen. I’m furious with Malcolm. I’m furious with myself.”

“Furious with me?” I ask softly.

He doesn’t answer, but the air throbs with it. This caged emotion that has been waiting for me to wake up, finally unleashed in a torrent. Fear and desperation stand in his eyes like water, reflecting everything he’s been through since he saw me collapse. I can’t be mad at him. And I know he won’t stay mad at me.

He gets up from the chair and steps close to the bed, leaning down to slide his arm under my back, scooping me close. He buries his head in my hair, gripping me like he’s afraid I’ll float away.

“God, Pep.”

“I’m okay.” I lay soothing strokes over the knotted muscles of his back. “Baby, I’m okay.”

I hear him swallow, feel his arms tighten around me.

“I can’t.” He shakes his head.

He doesn’t finish that thought, but I know. He can’t go through that again. He can’t be without me. He can’t lose me. I know because that truth hums through my veins as sure as whatever is pumping through the needle stuck in my arm. We are pieces that have interlocked, carved to fit by fate or something I don’t understand, but I know is real.

“I can’t either.” I push my fingers into his hair, gently nudging him far enough back so I can look into his eyes. “I don’t ever want to again.”

I lean up to kiss him, an innocent touch that flares with the desperate intimacy enshrouding us. He deepens the kiss, his hands drifting to my back, pressing me closer. Even with stale breath and two days on us, kissing him is so sweet.

The door opening startles us apart.

“For the love of God, man,” San says. “She’s got pneumonia. You can’t keep your hands to yourself for five minutes? It’s like
that
?”

I don’t have a fever anymore, but my face fires up because it’s not just San at the door. Aunt Ruthie’s back, along with Bristol, Grip, Grady, Em, and a white-coated doctor, all witnesses to the mortification of our sick bed make out session.

Rhyson steps away, a sheepish grin crooking his lips. He looks back at me, mouthing a silent “sorry.”

“The nurse said you wanted to see your friends.” The doctor walks over to the bed, taking my wrist, checking my pulse. “I guess we should have knocked.”

Grip snickers, a fist at his mouth to catch the sound. His eyes and the smile he gives me are warm. I’m not sure what Rhyson’s told him since Grady’s wedding when he set up our barn loft rendezvous, but he doesn’t seem displeased to see us together again.

Bristol’s glance pops between her brother and me like a rubber band. Her smile is stiff, and I see the concern in her eyes. It’s not for me, though. It hurt me to see Rhyson undone the way he has been since I woke up. I suspect it’s hurt Bristol to see him that way, too. And she knows it’s because of me. When someone loves you, especially the way Rhyson loves me, you have so much power. Every breath you take, every beat of your heart holds sway over them. You’re sometimes moments from crushing them without even trying. Without even knowing. I’m finally understanding that Bristol knows I have that power over her brother, and she’s not sure she can trust me with it.

Sometimes neither am I. Even though he has just as much power over me, sometimes I’m not sure I can trust me with it either.

Everyone crowds around the bed, talking at once, asking if I’m okay. They tease Rhyson ruthlessly about being an irrational pain in the ass while I was sedated. He backs away, propping himself against the windowsill to give them room. Every time I look up, his eyes burn over me like fever, and I have to force myself to look away.

The doctor, Dr. Wells, finally asks everyone to leave so he can examine me more fully.

“When can I go home?” I demand. I feel weak, but so much better even than I have for the last few weeks. “I can recuperate at home, right?”

“I need to examine you, but based on what we’ve been seeing in your lungs, in your levels, that might be fine.” He bends a look over his spectacles. “In a few days, as long as someone is there to take care of you.”

“I’ll make sure she follows all your instructions,” San offers.

“The hell you will.” Rhyson’s sharp words slice into the conversation like it’s butter.

The room goes pin-drop quiet, everyone holding their breath while San and Rhyson hold a stare.

“Let’s work out the details of where she’ll be going and who’ll be enforcing doctor’s orders later.” Grady saves the day with his characteristic diplomacy. “Why don’t we get out of Dr. Wells’ way so he can examine Kai properly?”

Everyone drifts out the door with promises to check on me and hopes that I’ll get better. Rhyson, San, and Aunt Ruthie remain. Before Dr. Wells can shoo them away, I need to clarify something.

“I want to go home,” I say, my voice even and strong, despite the insistent fatigue pressing in the longer I’m awake.

“Of course.” Rhyson grabs my hand. “Sarita will—”

“Not to your place, Rhys,” I say softly, gently, before looking up at Aunt Ruthie. “I need to be in my mama’s house.”

Aunt Ruthie nods, pressing her lips tight against the emotion dampening her eyes.

“Okay.” Rhyson takes a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets and heaving a sigh. “If that’s what you want, then of course I understand.”

He’s studying his shoes, the muscles along his jaw tensed, brows lowered over his eyes.

“Think you could spare some time in the country with me?” I ask, stretching my hand toward him.

A huge grin breaks out on his face, and he takes my hand to his lips, kissing my fingers folded over his.

“I might be able to work that out.”

NOTHING IN THIS HOUSE HAS CHANGED
but me.

The pencil dashes Mama made charting my height from childhood and through adolescence still mark the kitchen wall. The same white and green hand-made eyelet curtains hang at the window over the sink. Many a night after dinner, I’d stand here washing dishes, watching Mama cross the yard to her work shed out back where she canned vegetables from our garden, made her soaps, and jarred preserves. She could have done that here in the house, but I think she had Mr. McClausky build that little shed as an escape. As one of the few places she truly had to herself. With Glory Bee below, me sleeping across the hall, and Aunt Ruthie within snoring distance, there wasn’t much room. I know because near the end, I felt these walls closing in on me. With death hovering over our little house and the demands of Mama’s illness heavy on my back, there was barely room to dream. And when Mama could no longer leave her bed, I’d slip off to that little shed to see if there was any peace out there. To my dismay, all I found were shelves of Ball jars stuffed with fruits and vegetables, captured at their peak of freshness. I hope that little shed offered Mama more than that, but I’ve never been sure.

“You up here, babe?” Rhyson asks from the living room.

I heard him clomping up the steps that lead to our little place above the diner, but I was too caught up in memory to offer my help. Not that I’m much help. For all my blustering that I felt better and was ready to go home, my body is worn down. What the infection didn’t ravage, exhaustion did. All bold and sure when I was stretched out in a hospital bed and freshly un-sedated, but I was embarrassingly weak the first time I tried to even get out of that bed. Aunt Ruthie had to help me to the bathroom. Rhyson left the room, faking a phone call, but I know seeing me like that made him furious.

I don’t know how much time I have before he brings up Malcolm’s contract, but I know it’s not long. I seem to have quite a growing list of things I’m too embarrassed to share with him. First the sex tape from a one-night stand with a guy he detests, and now a bad deal I foolishly signed when we were apart, which I see no way out of.

Yay, me.

“Pep!” he calls again.

“Sorry.” I go back into the living room, my legs still trembling a little from the climb up the stairs. “Let’s put the bags in my room.”

He follows me down the narrow hall leading to the room where I used to sleep, pausing by the room where Mama died. One thing in this house
did
change. Mama’s old room is now an office of sorts. A desk on one side, littered with invoices and bills. Mama’s old sewing machine, crammed in a corner, and baskets of what Mama used to call ribble rabble. Just crap you never can find the right place for. I don’t think Aunt Ruthie even sews. She just probably can’t make herself take that Singer down to Goodwill.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen these rooms again. I was here for Christmas, and all these things were the same and Mama’s room was already different. I think I feel it so profoundly this time because
I’m
so different. The girl who slept in this room listening to Rhyson’s music never imagined he’d be standing by her bed.

“This okay?” He places my bags at the foot of the bed.

“Yeah, that’s cool.” I lift up on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck, waiting for the familiar weight and heat of his hands to settle just below the curve of my hips.

“Where are you?” he whispers in my ear.

I know what he means.

“What do you mean?” I ask anyway.

“You’re in your head or something.” He toys with the end of the braid looping over my shoulder. “You okay?”

I nod because I can’t put words to it yet. I would sound crazy if I told him I envy that girl with her simple life waking to make biscuits before sunup. That girl with the hope of a dream burning in her bright and strong. That girl who never considered sex tapes and sketchy contracts. Her life, though hard, was open and honest. With the tour behind me, Rhyson wanting to go public, and that sex tape still hanging over my head, I’m wrapped in lies. The girl I thought was so lost back then was in many ways much more sure than I am now.

“Really?” Rhyson searches my eyes. It’s such a blessing and half a curse how attuned we are to one another. You tend to pay close attention to someone you’re obsessed with, and we’re happily obsessed with one another.