All He Wants (20 page)

She just let herself feel the
now.

B
illy let his heavy eyes close as he held the phone to his ear and filled Zach in on Charlie’s condition. “He’s doing okay. He looks tired, but he’s cracking jokes and by the time we left there was some color back in his face.”

“Good. And how’s Maxi holding up?” he asked.

Even though Zach was Billy’s best friend and close to Maxi, he still felt like he’d be betraying her if he told his friend the truth. That she’d scared him tonight. He was really worried that this was all too much for her.

Instead of revealing that, he non-answered, “You know Maxi, she’s tough.”

“Yeah, I know.” Worry filled Zach’s tone. “But damn, she’s really been going through it. Any news on the other situation?”

Billy’s shoulders bunched as tension rolled through him at even the mention of it. “No. Nate’s still working on it on our end and Grover maintains it’s his top priority.”

“Does Charlie know what’s going on?”

“No, he doesn’t. Maxi was planning on telling him when he got back from Whisper Lake, but then this happened…”

Billy felt like an asshole for doubting Maxi when she’d insisted on not telling Charlie. If he had pushed it and this had happened…he didn’t know how he would’ve lived with himself.

“Alright man, well I’ll let you go. We’re going to be out there in a couple hours. We’ll drop off Maxi’s bag and then go over and see Charlie. You guys get some rest. We’re here if you need anything else.”

“Thanks. See you soon.” Billy disconnected the phone and when he did he saw his mom’s name listed six times in his missed calls.

He stared down at the device. He didn’t have to listen to the messages to know what they said. She wanted money. He’d told her at least a dozen times over the past week that he would gladly pay for her to go to rehab. But that was it, he wasn’t going to give her the five grand in cash she wanted. She wasn’t taking it well. He’d learned his lesson about handing over cash to an addict. He’d made that mistake once, right after his first big payday, and his mom had ended up being rushed to the hospital getting her stomach pumped.

Now he paid her rent to her landlord directly and did the same with the utilities. He also had a food service deliver groceries once a week. Did he wish things weren’t the way they were? Yes. But that didn’t change the reality. He knew he couldn’t fix his mom, that only she could do that. And at this point he’d given up hope of that ever happening.

“What’s wrong?”

Lifting his head, he saw Maxi standing in the hall. Her hair was wet from her shower and falling around her shoulders. She was wearing a T-shirt he’d given her to change into, it fell to her mid-thigh and wasn’t form fitting at all but there was something primal that got triggered seeing her in
his
clothes. She was his ultimate fantasy come to life. One word kept repeating in his mind,
mine
.

“Billy?” She took a step forward, worry etching her delicate features.

“Sorry, you just…” he trailed off then cleared his throat. He couldn’t tell her that she’d just rendered him speechless. That all he thought when he looked at her was, mine. “Nothing’s wrong.”

A crease formed on her forehead. “Who was on the phone?”

“Zach. I called to let him know what was going on.”

“Oh.” She shook her head slowly as she sighed softly. “Yeah, I should’ve thought of that. Did you tell Lloyd?”

Lloyd Gianni had been Charlie’s trainer when he’d been a heavyweight and when Charlie retired as a fighter he went to work as a trainer at Lloyd’s gym. There he’d trained a dozen world champion fighters, including Billy, for over twenty years.

“Lloyd was my first call. He’ll be here later today and he’s going let everyone at the gym know.”

“Thanks.” Her slender shoulders sagged in relief and she looked down at the shirt she was wearing. “And thanks for this. I was so out of it, I didn’t even think about clothes.”

“Jana’s packing a bag for you and Jessie is picking it up on her way here. Zach said they’ll drop it off before they go visit Charlie.”

Her jaw dropped slightly and her eyes widened. “I can’t believe you did that.”

He knew that she didn’t like people taking care of her so he quickly tried to diffuse the situation. “Jana offered, she said that she had keys to your apartment and Jessie was coming out here anyway.”

“No, I mean I can’t believe you even thought about the fact that I didn’t have my things,” she clarified.

Of course he thought about it. She was all he thought about. Not wanting that inappropriate truth-nugget to slip out, he changed the subject. “Are you hungry? I can make you something.”

The last time they’d eaten was at lunch the day before. He wasn’t hungry but it was obvious she was exhausted. There were dark circles beneath her baby blue eyes and her skin was a few shades paler than normal. He thought that maybe some food would help put some color in her cheeks.

“No. I’m too tired to eat.”

It was around four-thirty a.m. and neither of them had slept at all last night, not to mention the week before had been so busy they’d only caught a few hours of shuteye a night. Before taking a shower, Maxi had mentioned that she wanted to be back at the hospital when Dr. Shaw did his rounds at ten. If they went to bed now she’d only get a few hours of sleep before she wanted to be back.

“Alright, let’s get you to bed.” He started walking towards her but stopped cold when he saw the strange expression on her face.

Why was she looking at him like…?

Oh shit.
He hadn’t meant to say it like that.

“I didn’t mean…I’m going to show you to my room and then take the couch.” He had a three-bedroom house, but one room was an office and one was a gym.

He didn’t entertain much.

“Oh…I wasn’t…I didn’t…okay,” she stammered, fumbling over her words as a flush rose up on her face.

He hadn’t fed her, but he was still responsible for putting some color on her cheeks and that made him really happy.

It wasn’t really the best time to tell her that she was fucking adorable, but he was having a hard time keeping that information to himself. He was having a hard time keeping a lot of information to himself. Like the fact that he was pretty damn sure that he’d fallen in love with her this past week. Or
more
in love. He was almost positive that ship had sailed years ago and he’d just been pretending the S.S. Heart was still docked at Never Gonna Happen Port.

When things weren’t so crazy, he planned on telling her. He had no idea how she was going to take the news. If she would be happy and fall into his arms, or if she’d shut him down like she had every other time he’d hit on her over the years. But, as soon as her life settled down he was going to find out.

And until that happened he was sticking with his plan to show her how he felt. Starting with putting her to bed. He crossed the distance between them and easily picked her up in his arms, the way a groom would carry his bride over the threshold.

She gasped as her arms wrapped around his neck. “What are you doing?”

“You’re tired so I’m taking you to bed.” He made his way down the hall to his bedroom.

“I’m not too tired to walk,” she protested weakly even as her arms tightened their hold.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he teased.

She smiled as her aqua gaze peeked up at him through a bed of thick, dark lashes. Just like the end of the cartoons he used to watch as a kid where a circle of black got smaller and smaller until it was the size of a pinpoint, his world narrowed so that all he saw was her smile. He knew, then and there, that if he could keep putting that smile on her face, he was the luckiest bastard in the world.

When he reached his bed, he set her down gently beside it and lifted his comforter. “In you go.”

“Are you planning on tucking me in?” Her left brow rose.

He winked. “I’m a full service bodyguard.”

“Wow. Does that line usually work?” she asked as she crawled onto the mattress and lay down.

He covered her with the comforter. “I have a beautiful woman in my bed, so I think that’s your answer.”

“Goodnight,” she said sleepily as she snuggled against the pillow. “And don’t be mad but
thank you
, for everything.”

Without weighing whether or not it was the right thing to do, he leaned down and kissed her on her forehead before wishing her a soft, “Goodnight.”

He stood back up and was about to ask her if she wanted him to leave the bathroom light on when he felt her fingers wrap around his wrist.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she blurted out. “It’s hard for me to sleep in new places under normal circumstances, but with everything going on I know I’d lay here and my mind would just keep running—”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

She didn’t need to explain, he’d do anything for her. Not that this was any kind of a hardship. He’d happily sleep next her tonight, tomorrow night, and…forever. Since the night they’d spent on the couch, he’d tossed and turned and it wasn’t just from sexual frustration. He’d wanted to hold her, to feel her against him.

After stripping off his shirt he turned off the light on the nightstand before moving next to her. He lay on top of the blanket, because his brain knew that nothing was going to happen, but his body wasn’t totally convinced. It didn’t help his case when she rolled over and laid her head on his bare chest.

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer to him.

“Do you really think he’s going to be okay?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, I do. He’s too stubborn not to be.”

She chuckled a little before once again growing serious. “He needs to slow down. He’s not going to be happy about that.”

“I know,” he agreed. “We’ll figure it out.”

She tucked herself even closer to him and unable to resist, he kissed the top of her head. After a few minutes, her breathing pattern slowed as her body relaxed against him. As he closed his eyes he was reminded again that when everything else in the world felt wrong, this was the one thing that felt right. Maxi in his arms. She was his right.

“W
ell, I have to get back, but I just wanted to check in and say hi and tell you that you are in good hands with Dr. Shaw. He is one of the most sought after cardiologists in the state,” Becca Sloan, Jessie’s youngest sister and a resident at this hospital, assured them.

“Thanks so much for stopping by,” Maxi said sincerely as Becca stepped out of the room.

Her eyes watered as a yawn claimed her. She’d gotten four hours of sleep last night before returning to the hospital today. Even though it had been four of the best hours of sleep she’d ever gotten in her life thanks to being wrapped up in the arms of the
literal
man of her dreams, she was still exhausted. This past week with Ricco had gone smoothly, thank God, but she’d paid the price, and that price was sleep and maybe a little sanity.

Whether it was the stresses of her job or the scariness of her personal life, she felt like she was one
call
, one
incident
away from a nervous breakdown.

“How many Sloans work here?” her dad asked after the door shut. “They’re coming out of the woodwork.”

Billy smiled and her stomach flipped at the sexy sight. “I think that’s all of them.”

She tried to ignore the havoc that his deep voice and bad-boy grin played on her body. That was a lot easier to do before she’d given into her greatest temptation and now had intimate knowledge of the person that voice and grin belonged to. She hoped that her dad wasn’t picking up on it. She had no idea what he would think about it, especially since he was always trying to hook Billy and Maxi up with different people. Thankfully, there’d been a lot of distractions.

Today there had been a constant stream of visitors and a good percentage of them had been Sloans. Jamie Sloan was first and she came in with her husband Alex Sloan, who technically didn’t work for the hospital, but explained that he was there because he was a firefighter/EMT. Next was Chelle Sloan a nurse who was married to Riley Sloan the second oldest Sloan brother. Then there was one of Jessie’s other sisters Krista who worked as a physical therapist in the PT department. And finally Becca Sloan who’d just moved back to Harper’s Crossing and was in her first year of residency.