“You don’t know that.”
“I do, which is why we’ve already talked to your doctor about it and he’s agreed that four weeks is where it’s at.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You have not talked to my doctor.”
The twisted grin that stretches across Grayson’s face is enough to tell me exactly what I don’t want to know. “Want to make a bet?” Grayson chuckles, his usual dark and broody self nowhere to be found. “That doctor barely got a chance to sit down before these fuckers were hounding him. Trust me, if you didn’t have school and graduation to get through, they would have pushed for eight weeks.”
I gape at him, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing, but I shouldn’t be surprised. This is King and Cruz we’re talking about. I should have expected that they weren’t just going to sit here and watch me sleep for eight hours.
I let out a sigh and look back at the boys who sit on either side of me. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“It is,” Carver snaps from the back of the room. “You’re fucking kidding yourself if you think your body will heal after just two weeks of bed rest. You need four as an absolute minimum, six to be perfectly safe. Not to mention, just because the time ticks by, doesn’t mean that the pain is just magically going to disappear. For months, every time you bend over, or if you twist funny, you’ll feel it and it will ache.”
My lips press together as I meet Carver’s pissed-off stare. He looks right at me and the desperation pulsing through his eyes is nearly enough to shatter every piece of my soul. So instead of commenting on his need to keep me locked in my bedroom for the rest of my life, I look back at the boys. “Would you guys give us a minute? I think it’s time that Carver and I have a little talk.”
King’s brow arches as he looks back at Carver while Cruz’s hand flinches in mine. “You sure?” he asks. “You don’t have to do this now. You only just got out of surgery. Give it a few hours. Days. You can talk when you’ve both had a chance to come to terms with what’s going on.”
“I’m fine,” I tell Cruz. “Seriously. I just need to talk to Carver for a minute. You guys can just sit outside. You don’t even need to shut the door.”
Cruz’s lips pull into a tight line, but he nods and pulls himself up from the chair, letting our hands fall apart in the middle. He watches me a second longer before finally walking away, but he doesn’t leave the room without grabbing Carver by the front of his shirt and slamming him up against the wall. “If anything happens to her while we’re gone, I’ll fucking end you.”
Carver grabs Cruz, and in a flash, their positions are reversed and my precious Cruz is pressed up against the wall that Carver was only just occupying. “If anything happens to her ever again, I’ll happily let you.”
Well, fuck. That escalated quickly.
I watch in silence as the boys continue to stare one another down, both of them heated and ready to blow—and not in a good way. Grayson steps in beside Cruz and grips his arm, tugging him out of Carver’s hold. “Come on, bro. He’s not going to hurt her.”
“How do you know that?” Cruz scoffs, delivering one hell of a low blow as he glares at Carver. “You fucking missed. Eighteen years I’ve known you and not once have you ever missed.”
Carver’s gaze swivels back to mine with that same devastating guilt, and I know just by looking at him that he’s innocent. He may be an incredible shot, but he’s also human, and there’s not a single piece of me that believes otherwise, but I get where Cruz is coming from. He needs to yell, he needs to scream and punch something, the same way that I do when the world becomes too much, and unfortunately for Carver, Cruz is taking it out on him.
Grayson pulls Cruz out the door but not before glancing back at me. I catch his stare and a million messages pass between us before he completely disappears out of sight. King follows them out, and soon enough, it’s just me and Carver with one hell of an elephant taking up the majority of space in the room.
I hold Carver’s stare, hating the silence as my hand slowly slides across the bed. I grab the little remote and press the button at the bottom, and just like that, the bed slowly begins to rise, though not just the back part—the whole fucking thing.
“Shit,” I grumble under my breath, pressing the next button only to have the gears jump into reverse and start lowering me back down. “Fucking hell. How do I make this thing sit up?”