Off Base (Out of Uniform 1) - Page 67
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Someday—”
“Someday,” Pike echoed, voice a hollow shell of his usual self.
“I need time,” he begged.
“We almost didn’t get more time.” Pike rubbed his face. “I’m trying. I really am, but—”
“Wait.” Zack heard voices coming down the hall. Man, even in a hospital setting, his mother’s voice carried. Not thinking, he gave Pike a little shove. “My parents.”
“Of course.” Pike’s tone was final as he hopped off the bed, straightened the covers. “Bye, Zack.”
“Will you be back?” Fuck. Now his voice was the one cracking.
Pike’s eyes squished shut as he paused by the curtain. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. But give Ryan an update for me? I lo—care about you. No matter what.”
“This is it, isn’t it?” Zack needed to put a name on this...thing cleaving his heart in two.
“We’ll talk when you’re better.” Pike didn’t deny Zack’s conclusion, and with a final sad smile, he was gone. Gone. And it felt like the foundation of Zack’s life had been wrenched free, like his perfect little house was crumbling around him, unable to support itself without Pike.
And the worst thing was that Zack knew he was the one to make it fall. He’d blown it. He was the one who hadn’t had the words to hold them together.
The curtain swished and his parents were back in the room, Dad taking the chair that had held Zack’s whole life moments earlier.
“Who was that leaving the room?” his mother asked. “A friend?”
“Yeah.” Zack’s voice was thicker than wool socks, throat just as scratchy. “A friend.”
He had a healthy fear of falling, an innate knowledge of what a bullet could do, but he hadn’t thought a single word could end him. But here he was, dying as his heart walked out of this place with Pike.
Chapter Twenty
Pike’s heart was firmly lodged twenty minutes away at the medical center while he was walking around home with a hollow ache in his chest. Professor Hu, whom he really should start calling Cynthia, had texted him that she’d taken care of his Friday classes, so he had nowhere to be other than the one place he couldn’t be. The professor’s partner, Joanna, had found him last night during his long vigil in the waiting room, brought him a coffee and an update she’d managed to procure that while he had more high-powered antibiotics ahead of him, Zack was out of the woods and expected to make a full recovery.
Thank God. Not that it helped make the waiting more bearable. If anything, it made Pike angrier—Zack had almost died for days. And Pike hadn’t known. Hell, he wouldn’t even know as much as he did if it wasn’t for Joanna pulling some strings and Ryan having connections.
So it wasn’t any wonder that by the time he’d finally gotten to see Zack, he’d been a mess of warring emotions. He hadn’t meant to tell Zack everything right then, but he had reached the conclusion over the lonely hours in the waiting room that he couldn’t go on like this, couldn’t be the barest of footnotes to Zack’s life, couldn’t wait indefinitely for Zack to tell the people most important to him. Pike needed—deserved—more.
But after a sleeplessness night, he still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing more or less telling Zack that the ball was in his court. What if that was it, the last time they touched? The last time he got to see Zack’s whole face light up simply because Pike had entered the room? Was he really ready to let go of that?
Fuck. He just didn’t know. This was a thousand times worse than his humiliation after Roger in high school. Instead of having everyone laughing at him and the burn of shame, he had a thousand pinpricks of doubts assaulting him. Was Zack destined to let him down as surely as Roger had? Had he misplaced his affection yet again?
Despite mainly being a soda drinker, he put a pot of coffee on. Went through the motions of feeding the cats, checking on Nectarine, who was recovering nicely from her own surgery.
Ring. Ring. His pulse sped up as he looked at his phone. What if Zack wasn’t really on the mend? What if he’d had a setback? What if it was Zack calling to tell him to vacate the house, that things really were well and truly over? Pike almost didn’t answer, but he looked at the screen.
Hector.
Huh. Well, if nothing else talking to his War Elf contact should distract him from this endless loop of worrying and pacing.
“Hey, Hector, what’s up?”
“Glad I caught you! I’ve talked to the brass, and we’d like to get you up here for an interview ASAP. Any chance I could get you on a plane today? Or maybe for Monday?”
“Hmm.” Pike tried to buy himself some time to think.
Source: readsnovelonline.net