“Please go… I just need a minute,” Wood begged. He couldn’t let this happen in front of Trent, no way. “Go.”
“All right. I’ll wait right here in the kitchen,” Trent promised, then got up, taking his heat with him.
Wood was beginning to wonder if he’d ever get to feel a man’s welcomed touch again. Feel his strength and warmth like he had just now. He shook his head, then immediately regretted it. He wouldn’t if he had to be honest first. Good men didn’t sleep with murderers.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Trent
Trent woke with a hard jerk, as if someone had poked him in the ribs with a stick. Shit. He sat up and reached his hand around to work a kink in his lower back. Groaning from the discomfort, he glanced around, wondering how the hell he’d fallen asleep at the dining room table. It was still dark outside, but his internal clock told him it wasn’t long until daybreak. Damn, I must have been exhaust—
Trent didn’t finish his thought before he tore out of his chair and ran down the hall to Wood’s bedroom as last night’s events slammed into him. “Wood!” he yelled when he stumbled into an empty bedroom. “Fuck!” Trent hauled ass through the trailer and shouldered out the back door, knocking the screen off its hinges as he did. He didn’t know what the sound was that belted from his mouth when he saw Wood lying facedown in the dirt because he’d never made it before.
“No, no, no, no,” Trent gritted out as he hurried over and gathered Wood’s big body up in his arm and tried to move him. It felt as if he was attempting to lift a Volkswagen. “What the fuck have you done? Wood! Wake up!” Trent’s breathing stuttered at the first feel of Wood’s ice-cold cheek, and the look of his pale, chapped lips. “Come on, damnit. Don’t you even fuckin’ think about it.”
Trent tried with all his might to get Wood up, and he only managed to scoot him a few feet. He slapped Wood repeatedly on his cheek, trying to rouse him, feeling he wasn’t strong enough to carry him. He scrubbed his arms up and down Wood’s chest and arms to give him some friction. “Wake up, wake up. Or I swear I will call the police right now, parole or not, if you don’t fuckin’ wake up. You hear me?” Trent threatened.
Wood eventually groaned and his thick body began to tremor fiercely, and Trent breathed a slight sigh of relief, regardless that it sounded as if Wood was nothing but a massive ball of agony. He doubled his efforts trying to wake him, calling his name louder. Whatever it took, he’d do it. Wood’s body began to convulse as he heaved violently, and Trent went from scared to petrified. He got behind Wood and forced him up on his knees with his arms wrapped around him as if he was about to administer the Heimlich. Trent shoved his clamped fists into Wood’s midsection as he doubled over and emptied his stomach onto the grass. “That’s right… get all that shit out.” He could only imagine how much discomfort Wood was in, and he thought the alcohol may had even poisoned him, so it was good he was getting it out of his system.
Wood vomited until his body was nothing but a quivering mess in Trent’s arms. He held on tight, showing Wood he had him and he wasn’t letting him go. After he hoped most of the liquor was out of his system, Trent knew he had to get Wood out of the morning cold, now. He ran back inside and yanked Wood’s comforter off his bed. He returned and noticed the sky was already a shade of purplish sapphire, the first glimpse of day ready to peek through at any moment. Trent was so angry at himself he could spit fire; how could he have fallen asleep and left Wood out there? He wrapped Wood in the thick comforter and channeled every bit of that fury he was feeling—at himself for not being there and at Wood for putting them through this—and began to drag Wood inside the house with it.
Trent was able to get Wood through the kitchen and down the hall into his bedroom. He ignored the spasms in his back as he unwrapped Wood and hurried to get the cold, damp clothes off him. Trent had worked outside most of his life, so he knew what to do if a person started to experience any signs of overexposure to the cold. And under any other circumstance he would’ve called the fire department by now, but if AA and staying sober was in Wood’s parole conditions, then after he was treated at the hospital, he could possibly be on his way back to prison. Trent couldn’t do that. Not if he could help first.