Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (27 page)

She drifts closer to my bed, and I reach out to take her fingers in mine. I look at her soft, slender hands and feel that never-ending tug on my heart.

“Everyone says I want to be a hero all the time. And maybe they’re right—to a point. I would have wanted to help any girl in your situation. But I never would have put my dad’s fortune, my family’s safety, and my life on the line for just any girl. I never would have killed a man for someone I didn’t love, Carly.”

I look into her eyes, my heart racing in fear of what she’ll say next. Will she walk out? Laugh at me? Let me down easy—tell me that she’s too young for all of this?

I know that it’s none of the above when her hand presses against my chest as she lowers her head and brushes a delicate kiss across my lips.

“You’re
my
hero. And I can’t imagine ever loving anyone more than I do you, right this minute.”

I grasp the back of her neck and pull her closer for another kiss, this one deep and needy and full of everything I want to say but don’t have words for. When we break apart, we’re both out of breath and her eyes are sparkling with heat.

“You’re making a very quick recovery,” she whispers.

“Just give me a day or two,” I tell her, grinning.

She giggles, and I pull her up on the bed with me. When she lays her head on my chest, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in weeks. She’s safe, Lagazo is gone, and my family is here. Life just got a whole hell of a lot better.

**

Everyone’s heard some variation of the saying “nothing worth doing is easy.” I know my parents must have said it to me at some point in my life, and generally, I can get behind the premise. But after the last few weeks of my life, I really feel like I’m entitled to some easy for a while.

Unfortunately, that’s not in the cards.

“Good morning, Mr. Reed,” the nurse says as she enters my room a few minutes after Carly has left to go home and change. My immediate reaction is to correct her, but then I remember that it is indeed my legal name, and out of the blue, all I can think is,
What the hell was I thinking
? Why did I ever imagine—even for a moment—that changing my name would change who I am? I can call myself Juan or Derrick or Maximilian, but it won’t change the fact that I’m Pax. Pax
Clark
.

I’m rock and roll royalty, and it’s about damn time I accepted that and learned to live with it, because no amount of hiding out and name changing is going to erase it.

“I’m going to get you off of that IV this morning, and then we’ll start doing the pain medications and antibiotics in pill form instead,” she tells me as she sets a breakfast tray down on the tabletop that extends over my bed.

“Do I need pain meds?” I ask as I sit up a little more in order to eat. I’m famished. “My chest is a little sore, but nothing major.”

She laughs. “That’s because of the morphine drip. Trust me. When that wears off, you’ll be wanting those pills.”

“So you’re telling me I’ve been on morphine continuously for going on eight days now?” I’m stunned—and really damn unhappy.

“You had major surgery, Mr. Reed—”

“It’s Clark. I mean, you can call me Pax, but my last name is Clark.”

She wrinkles her brow. “I could have sworn…” She moves to the foot of the bed, where my medical chart is hanging. “Yes, here it is. Pax Reed. Are you saying that we’ve been using the wrong name since you came in? Dear Lord, I hope there isn’t another patient with that name. If we’ve mixed up the patient records…” A look of sheer panic rolls across her face.

“No,” I tell her quickly. “No, it’s… I’m…” I take a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts. “Legally, my name is Pax Reed. I used it so that people wouldn’t know who my family—who my father—is. But I’d prefer to be called by my real name—Clark.”

Understanding fills her eyes now. “Oh, I see.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Kind of tough having such a famous father sometimes, I imagine.” She moves up to me and pulls a blood pressure cuff out as she keeps talking. “I had a friend in nursing school whose mother was the lieutenant governor of Alabama. Poor girl could never go anywhere without someone accosting her about her mom.”

I nod. “Yeah, it can be hard, but I think I’ve learned that pretending to be someone else doesn’t make it any easier. I am who I am. Can’t get around it.”

She removes the cuff, seeming satisfied with the reading. She pats me on the arm. “You’re going to be just fine. If you’ve figured that much out at your age, the rest is cake.”

“So, about those pain meds?”

“Yes, dear. What do you need to know?” She deftly slides the IV needle out of my arm, places a cotton ball over the wound, and applies pressure.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that there’s a history of addiction in my family?”

“Do you have a history of addiction?”

“No! No. But my dad was an alcoholic—is a recovering alcoholic.”

She looks at me, waiting for more.

“I’ve always been really careful about drinking and medication, drugs and stuff. I don’t know if I inherited the tendency, but I don’t plan to find out the hard way.”

“So, you’re saying you don’t want pain medications?” She looks at me like I’m insane.

“Right. It’s been a week, I’m sure I can handle it on my own now.”

“I’ll need to talk to the doctor about this,” she says, her voice dripping with skepticism. “I’ll get back to you in just a bit. You’ll be fine for a few hours anyway.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

When she leaves, I sink back into the bed, already exhausted and I’ve only been awake for two hours.

My eyelids are heavy, but my mind goes back to this morning—waking up with Carly next to me, her little body curled around mine. The weight of her head on my shoulder, her warm breath fanning across my neck, her arm slung across my waist. It was heaven. I lay there for forty-five minutes, trying not to move or even breathe too much so as not to wake her.

My daydream is interrupted by my parents entering with Carly’s Aunt Beth.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom says as she comes over and kisses me on the cheek. “How are you feeling? Carly said you slept well?”

“You talked to Carly?” I ask, wondering what that’s all about.

“Of course. She knew I’d want to know how your night went. She called first thing this morning when she got back to your condo.”

My dad must see by the look on my face that I’m not catching on to things very quickly. “I’ve been staying with you overnight since the accident,” he tells me. “Last night was the first night in a week that I wasn’t here with you. Your mother didn’t want you to be alone. You’ve had one of the family in the room with you twenty-four-seven since the shooting.”

I swallow. “Wow. I had no idea. So, Joss and Mike? They’ve been here in Bittersweet the whole time? I figured they’d come and gone at least once. And Vaughn and you too, Beth?”

Beth nods and smiles. “Carly wasn’t going anywhere until she knew you were okay, so Vaughn and I weren’t going anywhere either.”
      “I don’t know what to say,” I tell them all. “Thank you. I mean, I’d never doubt Mom and Dad would be here for me, but I had no idea all of you had spent that kind of time.”

“We’re all just so happy you’re back,” Beth tells me, giving my hand a squeeze.

“So, the nurse has been by and she’s talking with the doctor about pain meds. Dad, they’ve had me on a morphine drip for a week. They took it out, but now, they want me to take pills for the pain. I told them no.”

My dad understands my fears and respects the way I’ve handled substances since I became a teen. “Would you like me to talk to the doctors?” he asks.

“Could you? She acted like she thought I was crazy to refuse the stuff. I can’t believe they just dole it out like candy.”

“Yeah, well, I can take care of that for you. Which nurse did you talk to?”

“The one with the dark hair, about forty?”

Dad looks at Mom. She’s the one who’ll know everyone’s name. Probably their birthdays and social security numbers too.

“That’s Mary,” Mom says. “She works the day shift. Let’s go find her.”

Dad nods and waves as he and Mom head out the door.

Beth turns back to me. “Carly said she’ll be back by ten, I left my rental car for her, and in the meantime, I need to make some phone calls for work.”

“There’s that lounge down the hall that’s pretty quiet,” Vaughn says, speaking up for the first time since they walked in.

A look passes between him and Beth, and she nods before giving me a smile and saying, “See you both in a bit.”

After the door closes behind her, Vaughn stares at the floor for a moment and an awkward silence descends. Just as I’m about to break it, Vaughn’s voice vibrates through the hard surfaces of the room.

“I’m not sure how I can ever apologize.”
      I sigh in frustration. “You didn’t do anything wrong, man. It was all me.”

“No, it really wasn’t. You were just trying to fix the mess same as the rest of us. You, me, Carly—we were all trying to figure out how to make it go away, and the fact is, we needed help. We needed to go to the authorities. Cops exist for a reason.”

“You mean other than to hand out speeding tickets and jack up our insurance rates?”

Vaughn chuckles before he collapses in an armchair facing my bed. He looks tired. “I, uh…” He clears his throat. “I was really worried you wouldn’t make it and I’d never get the chance to apologize for the things I said.”

I nod. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have liked missing the chance to hear you grovel.” I look at him out of the corner of my eye.

“Even though you were the one who screwed up?” He takes up the gauntlet, and I can see him struggling not to grin.

“Hey. It’s never a mistake to borrow over a hundred grand from your famous rock-star father, give it to a known mob boss, and then wander around town free and easy for him to snatch you up and hold you for ransom.”

Vaughn snorts out a laugh. “All while trying to protect an eighteen-year-old girl you just met.”

“A stubborn eighteen-year-old girl,” I add, smiling back at him.

“With an overly protective cousin.”

“There is that.”

“Speaking of which.” He pauses. “Were you serious last night? When you said you’re in love with her?”
      My face heats, but I make sure to look him in the eyes so he’ll know I’m dead serious. “Yeah, I was. More serious than I’ve ever been about anything in my life.”

Vaughn leans farther back in his chair and stretches his legs out in front of him. “So I guess I’m not going to get rid of you all that easily, then.”

“’Fraid not. Is that a problem?”

He looks at me for a moment. Then his face clears. He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t look angry either. “No. I can see how much you care about her, and I know you didn’t mean this to happen any more than I did. I could have said no at any point and I didn’t. This is as much on me as it is on you.”

“So, we good?” I stretch out my hand.

He reaches for it and clasps my palm. “We’re good. We’re better than good. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see Carly with than you. You two make a great team. Even if it did end up in everyone getting shot and hospitalized.”

At that, I laugh, and when I do, I feel a twinge of pain in the right side of my chest. Painkillers must be wearing off already. I hope this isn’t too horrible.

**

It’s horrible. Not unbearable, but damn painful. The entire right side of my chest is on fire for the next three days until the muscles get used to moving around. My week in a coma didn’t help my surgical recovery any. I’m still on antibiotics to prevent infection, and I have to start doing special exercises to avoid pneumonia. But my punctured lung was repaired, and the doctors say that I should be as good as ever once it’s healed.

On day three after I’ve regained consciousness, they tell me that they’ll discharge me the following day. As soon as the excitement about getting out of the hospital wears off, though, I realize my life is a mess and I have no idea what to do next.

It’s late afternoon, Carly is out with her Aunt Beth, and Mom and Dad are back at the hotel, taking care of some band business. Vaughn has gone home to Portland, and Joss and Mike are leaving tonight. They both miss their families.

“You awake?” Mike asks as he knocks on the doorframe and enters my room.

“Yeah, man. I’m starting to get really bored. I guess that means it’s time to go.”

He throws himself down on the sofa, tipping the baseball cap he’s wearing over his eyes. “This place is great for napping though. It has the perfect amount of white noise.”

“So, you came all the way over here to nap?” I lift an eyebrow and roll my eyes. Mike is an original.

“Nah. I’m just resting. Get your lazy ass out of bed and come over here to talk to me.”

“Fine,” I grumble, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and stepping down onto the cold tile floor. They finally let me shower and put on some sweats, so at least my ass isn’t hanging out of a hospital gown.

I shuffle over to the chair facing the sofa and gingerly sit down, careful not to move my right arm too much in the process.

“Okay, I’m here. What do you want to talk about?” I ask.

He cracks open one eye and looks at me before closing it again and giving a satisfied sigh. “You’re getting out tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I can’t wait.”

“And then what?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, I guess Mom will either want to stay here with me for a while or she’ll want me to come back to Portland while I’m recovering.”

I can’t see his face, and he doesn’t move a muscle.

“You know that’s not what I’m asking,” he says quietly.

“It’s not.” There’s no question in my voice because I do know what he’s asking, only I don’t know how to answer it.

“You can’t stay here, Pax.”

“I’m not sure—”

“You. Can’t. Stay. Here,” he says in a clipped tone as he finally sits up and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees as he faces me. “You’ve been running from it too long, kid. It’s time to face the music. Literally. It’s time to take the bull by the horns and do it.”