Enjoying the Chase (Guarded Hearts 2)

I tried to smirk at her, but I don’t think I pulled it off properly. “Yeah, I know. I’m awesome.”

She chuckled humourlessly. “That you are, Nate. That you are,” she replied. “I’ll see you at the hospital in a couple of minutes,” she promised before pushing herself up and heading back to DJ’s ambulance.

It took a few more minutes before they were happy that I could be moved too. I gritted my teeth as I was lifted onto the gurney. My whole body felt like it was still on fire. There was so much pain that I didn’t know which part to feel first. My arm and ankle had been strapped up, and I had plastic wrap covering all of my charred skin of my legs to keep the germs off. They’d put gauze over most of the little cuts that was caused by me jumping out of the window. The pain meds that they’d been pumping into my arm were slowly working their way around my system, making me tired and my limbs feel heavy.

My weary brain couldn’t really focus on anything as we moved from the ambulance to the hospital. I was moved from place to place, machine to machine, doctor to doctor. They treated me for suspected internal bleeding but by the relieved looks on their faces, I figured I was safe. I’d already had what felt like endless IV fluids pumped into me, and they were going to continue to monitor me constantly for the next couple of hours. The worst part, by far, was when they put my dislocated knee back into place. That had hurt worse than the fire and the break put together, I could even still feel that through the heavy pain meds I was on. Thankfully though, they were satisfied that it went back in with no need for surgery which I was more than grateful for.

Rosie was still with DJ in the children’s ward, but the nurses told me that she was driving them crazy asking about me every couple of minutes. Ashton turned up after a little while. I wasn’t sure who called him, but I was grateful not to be on my own with the irritating nurse who insisted on talking to me every time I tried to get some sleep.

Ashton seemed to do everything in his power to keep my mind off the pain. I just laid there listening to him talk and joke around; I didn’t have the energy to respond. He’d called my parents and told them – they were driving straight here so I knew they’d be here within a couple of hours. I actually wasn’t looking forward to dealing with my panicked mother.

After half an hour of Ashton’s terrible ‘Man walked into a bar’ jokes, I was about ready to throw myself back into the building, when the doctor came in with my x-rays. I’d been for several sets once they were satisfied that I could be moved safely. I’d had practically a full body scan – well, it had felt like that anyway. The doctor smiled reassuringly as he shoved the x-rays onto the light box mounted on the wall.

“Right then, Nate. As we suspected, you’ve broken your ulna so we’ll have to cast that. The fracture is a clean break though, so no need to reset it or anything,” he explained, nodding to my arm that was in a temporary sling. I nodded, and he pointed to the next x-ray, the one of my leg. “The right fibula is also broken in two places so we’ll have to cast that too.”

I pulled the mask off my face so I could talk. “There goes my dancing plans this weekend,” I joked, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

The doctor laughed quietly. “Because of the burns to your legs, we can’t cast it straight away. We need to let the skin heal a little before we can cover it. We’ll have to leave the temporary one on for a few days, then see how you’re getting on after that. You’ll have to stay here for a few days, I’m afraid. The burns need monitoring, and you’ll be started on a two week course of antibiotics to ward off any infections.”

I frowned. I really didn’t want to stay here, I hated hospitals. “Will the burns heal or…” I trailed off, wondering what my legs were going to look like after this. The worst of it was on my right leg, covering most of my shin.

He nodded. “We’ll move you to the burns centre as soon as we’ve dealt with your other injuries. They’re more equipped to deal with it there. You were very lucky though. The dampness of your clothes and the fact that the fire-fighters acted quickly to put it out, has limited the damage. It could have been a lot worse. I don’t think you’ll need skin grafts, but they will be able to answer your questions at the centre a lot better than I can,” he explained, smiling kindly.

I nodded. The fact that DJ was alive was totally worth it. I’d once told Rosie that she should wear her stretch marks on her stomach with pride, I couldn’t exactly feel different about the little DJ badge I now had on my legs.

“There’s one more thing,” the doctor added, turning off the light box. I looked at him curiously, wondering what else there was. I was pumped full of drugs at the moment, I had no idea if anything else was broken or burnt. “The x-ray we did of your h*ps and pelvis showed that there is a possible fracture of the coccyx. It wasn’t clear on the x-ray so I’d like to send you for another one specifically for that,” he stated, scribbling on a pad.

My mouth dropped open with an audible pop. “No! Oh, come on, no, please? I’ll never live that down with the guys!” I whined, shaking my head. Life couldn’t be that cruel, could it?

Ashton burst out laughing next to me, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his face. “You broke your ass? Dude, that’s awesome! I can’t wait to tell Seth!” he cried, chuckling wickedly.

“You tell anyone and, I swear to God, I’m telling everyone about that time we went to Long Beach and you hooked up with that girl. You know the one I’m talking about… what was her name again?” I asked, raising one eyebrow at him challengingly.

His eyes narrowed at my threat. “You promised me we would never speak about that ever again,” he hissed, shaking his head fiercely. I smirked at him, already knowing that I’d won. When we were eighteen we’d gone out and got completely hammered. Ashton had ended up making out with some chick – but, after, we’d had some concerns as to whether this chick, was actually a chick or not. He’d made me promise that we’d never tell, and to this day I hadn’t breathed a word of it – but if he really wanted to go there then we would!

“Have I broken my ass?” I asked Ashton, looking at him sternly.

He shook his head. “No way. Besides, only pansies break their ass,” he replied, laughing quietly.

The doctor looked between the two of us, obviously a little confused as to what we were talking about. “Right, anyway, I’ll order another x-ray and we’ll see. It might just be a shadow or something,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll have someone come in and get a cast on your arm.” He headed out of the room and Ashton looked back at me, shifting on his chair.

“I’m pretty sure it was a girl anyway,” he said, crossing his legs confidently.

I smirked at him. “Uh-huh, she was just freakishly tall,” I agreed, laughing quietly.

He made a distasteful sound in the back of his throat. “She was tall,” he admitted, wincing and closing his eyes.

Two hours later and I was drifting in and out of sleep. Ashton had gone to get some food even though it was only just after five in the morning. Thankfully, and I think to give me a break, he’d taken my parents with him. My mom was driving me nuts, fussing over me, crying, and wailing that she could have lost me, Rosie and DJ all in one night. She was exhausting me.

The door to my room opened, so I looked over, expecting them back. Instead, Rosie stood there. My tense muscles relaxed as I saw her. She looked beautiful as ever, even though she was covered in dirt and soot. She was just standing there in the open doorway, looking at me with the most adoring expression on her face that I had ever seen.

“Hi,” I croaked, pulling the mask off again. I’d been on oxygen for hours now, it was helping with the tight feeling that I had in my chest from breathing all of the smoke.

She let the door swing closed behind her as she stepped into the room. “Hi. I’m so sorry I couldn’t come sooner. DJ wouldn’t let me leave him, even with my mom there. He was scared and so I had to wait until he fell asleep. I’m sorry, I wanted to come sooner. I’ve been so worried,” she apologised, walking to the bed quickly.

I smiled and shook my head. She didn’t need to apologise to me. “Is he okay? Did I hurt him when I landed?”

“He’s okay.” Her gaze raked down my body as her eyes filled with tears. “You’re not though.” Her chin trembled as she spoke. “God, Nate, look at you.”

I smiled reassuringly. “I’m fine. Though, I may need a nurse to look after me for a while. Someone might have to push me around in a wheelchair and give me sponge baths for a few weeks,” I teased, trying to cheer her up.

She didn’t laugh like I thought she would. Her watery eyes met mine again. “I just don’t know how to thank you. What you did, it was… so incredible. Thank you,” she whispered. A tear rolled down her face, and I longed to kiss it away.

I patted the bed with my good hand. “Come sit with me.” She nodded and obediently sat down, taking the plastic mask out of my hand and putting it back over my mouth again. I smiled. She was going to be worse than my mom, I could tell. “What did the doctors say about the kid?” I asked. Both Ashton and I had been asking for information from the nurses but as we weren’t ‘family’ we weren’t entitled to know. All I’d been told was that he was doing well.

Rosie sighed; the back of her fingers stroked the side of my face as she spoke. “They said he’ll have to stay in for twenty-four hours for observation. He’s coughing because of the smoke, but they said that should start to clear up soon. He has a couple of little cuts, but only one of them needed stitches. Some bruises and a twisted ankle, but other than that, he’s perfect, just… perfect. He’s been asking for you.”

She bent down and kissed my forehead softly. I closed my eyes at the feel of it, just loving the attention from my girl.

“And what about you? Are you okay?” I asked, looking at her curiously as she pulled away.

She smiled and held up one hand showing me a couple of little blisters on her palm. “Just this. I’m fine too,” she assured me. “Can I lay with you, or will that hurt you?”

“You can always lay with me,” I replied.

She immediately lay down at my side, barely touching me. She was looking at me so softly, so tenderly, that it made my heart speed up. “I can’t believe you did that. You risked your own life to save my son, you could have died. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met, Nate,” she whispered. She was stroking my chest, her fingers grazing along the edges of the coverings they had put on the little cuts. “I love you,” she purred.

I looked into her eyes and sighed. I hated this moment. I didn’t want to have this talk with her at all. I shook my head and pulled the mask off again.

“No you don’t, Rose.”

She frowned; a bemused smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, I really do.”

I closed my eyes, loving the sound of those words coming out of her mouth. I just wished they weren’t because of some stupid trauma attachment. “Stripes, you’re just confused. This is perfectly normal. I see this all the time, actually. It’s an attachment disorder that happens to a lot of people. It’s when someone saves you or a loved one; your body can’t differentiate between love and gratitude. You’re just confused right now because of what happened,” I explained.

Rosie laughed and shifted next to me. I opened my eyes to see her moving to lean over me, our faces inches apart. If I raised my head I would be able to touch my lips to her sweet little mouth, and I wanted nothing more than that in that second.

“Nate, I think I know how I feel,” she countered raising one eyebrow at me playfully. I shook my head, opening in my mouth to protest and tell her that it was a proven fact, that it was documented, but she put her hand over my mouth stopping me from saying anything. “When you ran into that building, I couldn’t stand it. The thought of never seeing you again, never talking to you or hearing any of your slutty remarks, that hurt so much. It has nothing to do with some disorder that you think I have. When you ran into that building, it felt like you took my heart with you, and I was so scared that I would never get to tell you how much I loved you. I thought you died. This isn’t some gratitude thing because I knew I loved you before you and DJ got out.”

Holy shit. She really loves me? She means it?

“Yeah?” I asked, just wanting to hear it again.

She grinned, blushing slightly as she nodded. “Yeah.”

I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. The girl I was in love with was in love with me too. Life couldn’t get any better than this. Well, actually, I could have her na**d and covered in whipped cream, that would certainly make this moment better!

A stupid grin stretched across my face. “I love you too,” I whispered.

She seemed to visibly relax as she closed her eyes. Her eyes opened and locked onto mine, and I could see it there in those big brown orbs. It was totally obvious, and I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it before. All of my dreams that I’d had over the last couple of months seemed to be coming true. Rosie York was in love with me, and her son loved me more than chocolate cake. Life didn’t get much sweeter than that.

Wait… f**k it!

“Damn it, Rose! Seriously, you had to say that right now? Your timing sucks!”

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Huh?”

I sighed dramatically. “I had two things I wanted to do as soon as you said those three words, and now I can’t do either of them. Way to ruin it for me, Stripes,” I grumbled, frowning playfully.