The Guy With the Suitcase (Once Upon a Guy #1) (23 page)

His phone vibrated in his back pocket. These days he kept his phone on him in case Pierce had an emergency or found a room and he needed to check if Rafe would be free to look at it. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the attack and still had trouble getting up and sitting down or doing extremely physical things. But day by day he was getting better.

He stopped pouring a beer and checked his screen quickly. It wasn’t Pierce. It was an unknown number. And the time was 2 a.m. He wanted to pick it up, but the place was still buzzing with life and disorder, he didn’t know how. He looked at his colleague who was busy serving people at the bar and tried to get his attention.

“Can—can I get this real quick? I’ll only be a minute,” he whispered in his ear.

His colleague nodded but wasn’t too happy being left to deal with the entire place on his own. Rafe couldn’t do anything about it, though. The more his phone rang, the more worried he got. By the time he reached the back and entered the staff room, his phone had stopped ringing. He called Pierce. He usually picked up by the third ring, but this time he didn’t. He let it go to voicemail and hung up. Now he was really worried.

He found the number that had just called him and rang it back. In a second it was answered and his knees gave up on him. He collapsed on the sofa. “St. Andrew Hospital, how may I help?”

His mouth felt dry all of a sudden and his throat was hoarse. When his voice finally came out, it was stale and barely audible. “Hi, I just missed a call from you. Can you tell me what this is about?”

“What’s your name, sir?” the woman asked on her phone.
 

“It’s Rafael Arena Santos,” he replied.

She was quiet. Rafe kept quiet too. He was praying it was a mistake, that nothing had happened.

“Ah, there it is. Yes, I called you because your friend Pierce Callahan has been admitted in the ER and you are his emergency contact,” she said.

Rafe’s heart nearly ripped his skin apart and he gasped deeply to find the courage to ask what was happening. “Is he okay? What happened? When was he admitted?”

The woman typed something and answered. “His wound has been infected and was found by a homeless man passed out on Nassau Avenue. The man said he found his phone and called us because he wouldn’t wake up. He was brought in an hour ago,” she said.

“What—what was he doing in the street? What time did they find him?”

“We do not know that. He was found around midnight. Do you think you can come around? We don’t know when he will be out of the ER, but I’m sure he could use a friend,” she said.

Rafe got up and started fumbling with his locker, trying to get his bag out. “But is he going to be okay?”

“Like I said, sir, we don’t know for sure when he will be out, but the infection doesn’t seem to be life-threatening. The doctors are waiting for his response to the medication to have a better picture of your friend’s condition.”

Rafe nodded, said he was making his way over, and hung up. Next thing on his mission was finding Vance and telling him what had happened. He couldn’t possibly stay at work and finish his shift when Pierce was fighting for his life.

He found him in the empty kitchen, nibbling on some salad. Rafe choked on his words, trying to tell him he had to leave and the reason why. Vance put his salad down and gave Rafe a warm hug. His arms felt good around him. Fatherly almost, he would dare say, if he knew what a fatherly touch was. Vance reassured him that everything would be ok, then took his position behind the bar and took over for him. Rafe called a cab and hopped on it all the way to Brooklyn and St. Andrew hospital.
 

When he got there they told him Pierce was responding to the drugs and would be out within the hour. Rafe tried to sit down while he was waiting for the minutes to tick by, but he couldn’t. He was pacing the corridor, each time covering longer distances until he ended up in the hospital cafeteria and grabbed a sandwich, which he ate in minutes and only to put something in his stomach, even though nothing seemed to be going down easily. He ate so fast, nothing tasted of anything.

At 4 a.m. Pierce was taken to a room and Rafe sat down on the chair and finally got to nap a little after a long day, made longer by what had happened. Even sleep couldn’t let him find peace for long, and he woke up at 5, then again at 6. At 9, when he opened his eyes, Pierce was awake and watching the TV.

“Hey,” Rafe said and got up to touch Pierce and give him a kiss.

Pierce didn’t respond.

“What happened last night? How did you end up on Nassau?” Rafe inquired, his voice gentle, trying not to be too loud or intrusive. Although being considerate of the other patients in the room wasn’t on top of his list when his boyfriend was suffering.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned.

Rafe winced and asked for an explanation.

“I gave up on us. I’m sorry. I couldn’t take seeing you overwork yourself for my sake. I’ve literally seen you one full day since Wang told you I can’t stay there anymore. You just come home to sleep for a few hours and go back to work, and I just couldn’t stand seeing you like that. You’re unhappy. You need a break,” he said.

Rafe grabbed Pierce’s chin and turned his boyfriend’s head around to face him. “What are you talking about?”

Pierce closed his eyes before he continued. He sighed. “I decided to leave. Go back to the streets, so you don’t have to move out,” he said.

“What? Why? What about all the things we talked about?”

Pierce opened his eyes and looked directly at Rafe. “Well, now that I’ve left, you don’t have to work for the two of us. I’ve seen you go from a happy-go-lucky guy to a man who can’t even smile anymore without forcing it. This whole ordeal is making you unhappy and I don’t wanna be the reason for that. That’s why I left,” he explained.

Rafe didn’t say anything. He whacked Pierce across the head, infection or not. “My God! I
am
actually dating an
estúpido
. I’m not unhappy. I’m just tired. But I didn’t care because at the end of the day I slept next to you, even if only for a few hours, and having that, I could wrestle fucking lions the next day. Because I had you. Do you not remember what I told you that day that Wang was kicking us out? Don’t you? Do you think I am that feeble to take it all back, or that my feelings aren’t strong enough to last through a hardship?”

Pierce tried to say something, but Rafe didn’t let him.

“And what is wrong with you? You’re acting like you don’t want to do better in life. Like you’ve made up your mind that you are homeless and that you’re going to be for the rest of your life, despite the fact that so many opportunities have come your way to prove to you that you
can
get over this. I thought you loved me and you wanted to be with me,”

“I do,” Pierce hesitated before he interrupted Rafe. “I do love you. I do want to be with you,” he added.

“Then prove it,” he shouted. Rafe was raging and he didn’t care one bit. He loved Pierce, but he was so annoyed he was having his doubts about whether he truly felt the same. “Prove to me that you do, because I am seriously
this
close to walking away from whatever
this
—” he shook his arms around them two, “is supposed to be. Because until a few minutes ago I thought
this
—” he repeated the same action, “was a relationship.”

Pierce was biting his lip and looking at the sheets covering him. He didn’t dare to look at Rafe and it was making him even more furious. He growled, then turned around and picked up his jacket, ready to leave. He was so blinded by his anger that at the moment he didn’t care what happened to Pierce unless he showed the same willingness to commit to their relationship.

“I’m an idiot,” he cried and stopped Rafe from turning the latch and opening the door. “Don’t go. Please.”

Rafe didn’t move. He couldn’t decide if he could trust Pierce’s words anymore. He seemed to be using them sparingly but without any real emotion. He needed proof. He told Pierce without turning his head, still staring at the door.

“I don’t know how. I don’t know how to stop you from going away. I do love you and I don’t know what’s so fucked up with me that I can’t see that you do too. I will understand if you go. It will break my heart, but I will understand it. I’m not an easy person to be with. I think my parents fucked me up more than I realize. But that’s no excuse. So if you have to go, go. The only thing I can think of to convince you to stay is to tell you ‘please take me home’.”

The room went quiet. The patients that were awake were all surely looking at Rafe because he could feel their prying eyes burning his back. Even the noise of the TV in the back of the room seemed to mute itself in anticipation for Rafe’s response. He was so sick of words, of Pierce’s words. Of Pierce realizing his stupidity and apologizing. Of Pierce throwing sorries around like they were cookies. But damn it if he’d walk away from him when he was begging him to take him home.

“Okay,
estúpido
,” he said and turned around.

Like he had guessed everyone was looking at him. And Pierce was too. And his eyes were crying. He was a fucking mess. But he loved that mess with all his heart. He covered the few steps between them and took his hands. He kissed him. The other people in the room made their existence known by fawning over them, and both Rafe and Pierce, without breaking their kiss, looked at them.

Yes, they were going home. And home was wherever each other was. Even if that meant they were both back in the streets and sleeping in subway trains.

Pierce woke up and, before doing anything else, changed his bandages.
 

Coffee was next on the list.
 

He wanted to go out for another photographic session, but the place was a mess and needed a tidy-up, so he spent the next hour doing that. It was surprising how much time cleaning a tiny space consumed. He put his and Rafe’s clothes in the washer and put the clean ones back in the wardrobe. Changed the sheets for new ones and put Rafe’s growing sketchbook collection in order. Then he dusted, cleaned the window, and vacuumed.

Rafe had already left for work. He had forgiven Pierce so quickly, but he hadn’t done so yet himself. Everything Rafe had told him at the hospital was true, and he couldn’t stop beating himself for making Rafe hurt so much with his reckless actions. He wasn’t going to do anything similar again. He had learned his lesson.

He never wanted to break what he had with Rafe, he never even wanted to put it at risk. He did what he did to make life easier for Rafe. Sure, they’d agreed to go on together, but when he kept seeing Rafe’s mood declining, his work hours increasing and his sleep time reducing, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Rafe was also a sick man, despite his medication, and Pierce’s condition was putting him on extra stress. All he thought of every time Rafe got back home and dropped on the bed to sleep was that he was making him feel sick again. He felt like a burden to his own boyfriend because he felt like a burden to himself. He hated that he couldn’t get back to work yet. Vance had agreed to take Pierce back part-time when he was ready, but that wouldn’t be for another month, if his brash behavior hadn’t pulled an extension on his recovery.
 

He still couldn’t lift things, bend down or kneel. Walking helped. It was everything else that was a struggle. His medication was strong and wore him out quicker. Sometimes when he complained about being tired to Rafe he felt egocentric, compared to Rafe’s exhaustion. Not that he wasn’t happy with his baby’s development in the restaurant. He wished he could be there with him, working with him and helping with their situation. He felt like an imposter that had been given all this spare time with nothing to spend it on but taking pictures.

So that was why he’d ran away. He wanted his baby to be fine and well, even if it meant he wouldn’t, that they’d be apart. He was trying to help. Of course looking back now, not even five days later, he wanted to hang himself for his idiocy. However, he was sure if he tried, Rafe would find a way to revive him and kill him with his own hands.

It did seem as if he had a death wish. Every time things got rough, he wanted to run away and then he would complain that his life was going nowhere. His life
would
go nowhere if he kept running, and he understood that the moment Rafe nearly walked out on him. Leaving him to have a better life was hard, and he was sure he would manage the pain, but Rafe walking out on him, not loving him anymore, he wasn’t sure he could. He did want to do better in life. He was sure that meant being with Rafe. He just needed a constant reminder. A constant reminder that he was worth as much as Rafe said he was, and that he was loved and needed as much as he loved and needed Rafe.

He finished with the room and had something quick to eat. He felt very dirty after cleaning the room, even though it hadn’t been too dusty. But he couldn’t have a shower, as much as he wanted to. His wound still hurt like a motherfucker and he needed help getting in and out, even turning was a strain, so whenever he needed a shower, he did it with Rafe. He couldn’t complain. It made the process much more fun. It made him forget the pain.