All In (Cedar Mountain University #2) (23 page)

At 2:38 AM I
finally get a text from Robby letting me know the fights are over and Jacob is
okay. I type out a quick response before rolling over in my bed, hugging my
pillow against my chest.

Three weeks later my phone rings in the middle of the night again.
I was already in bed this time and where the soft chimes of the ringtone
typically wouldn’t wake me up, since I hadn’t had a real night sleep in weeks,
the sound easily penetrated. Sighing, I reach over to the nightstand where my
phone is plugged into the charger, scowling at the unfamiliar number that
flashes over the screen. I’m pretty sure I know where this phone call is
heading, and it ends with my dumbass crawling out of bed to go pick another
dumbass up from the bar.

I swipe my finger across the screen before lifting the phone up to
my ear. “What?”

The pulsing beat of music reverberates through the phone, nearly
drowning out the soft voice of Collins Riley. I manage to make out her calling
my name, “Grace? It’s Collins.”

“I figured.”

“I’m sorry to call.” I can actually hear the apology in her words.
“Grant is in no shape to drive.”

I rub my hand over my eyes. I want to tell her that I don’t fucking
care that Grant is in no shape to drive. That I don’t care if he has a bar bill
that he can’t cover, and no money for a fucking cab. I want to tell her that
his sorry drunk ass can walk home, and that I hope he gets lost on the way.

I want to tell her all of that, but instead I say, “I’ll be there
as soon as I can.”

Dropping my phone back on the nightstand I scrub my hands over my
face, trying to rub away the weariness that clouds my head. “I need to start
fucking going home on the weekends like everyone else.” I mutter to myself
before I roll out of bed.

There’s no rush as I move to the bathroom, running my fingers
through my hair on the way. I stare at my reflection in the mirror for a long
time, unaccustomed to the person I see staring back at me. I remember my mother
telling me that she had done nothing but cry when she had broken up with my
father.

I had no tears, no wetness making my eyes shine as they stare back
at me. There is just nothing but the achy weariness.

I run a toothbrush over my teeth, not concerned about my breath
smelling, so much as some small part of me takes joy in picturing Grant sitting
there slumped on the bar, wondering if I’ll show up to get him. I shuffle
slowly back into my room, pulling a sweatshirt off my dresser on my way past. I
yank it down over my tank top, tugging it into place as I pull out a pair of
socks.

A few minutes later I run out of ways to stall and I throw a
baseball cap down over my curls before I head out the door.

Even though I know spring is approaching, the biting wind that
whips through the ink black night doesn’t make it seem like winter is on its
way out, but just settling in for an extended stay. I pick up my pace, tucking
my hands under my armpits to keep them warm as I hurry to my car.

The ride to the bar is blissfully short and easy. I’m yawning when
I walk inside, noting there are still a few other patrons slumped over a table
in the far corner of the bar. Collins is behind the bar, wiping down the bar
top while trying, unsuccessfully, not to watch Lincoln who is stacking chairs
on tables. Grant is on the same stool where he was last time.

“Does it have his name on it?” I ask, sliding on the stool next to
him.

“What?” Collins turns away from ogling Lincoln. “Oh, hey, Grace. I
didn’t see you come in.”

A brief smile flirts with the corners of my mouth. “Hard to blame
you. He makes stacking chairs look sexy, which should sound ridiculous.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” A pretty pink blush
stains that tops of her cheeks. I lift an eyebrow “Uh-huh, sure.” I look back
over my shoulder at the table of other passed out patrons. “I’m only taking the
one.”

“Those belong to Lincoln.” She smiles, “They’re his brothers. He’s
almost done with the chairs, then I can get him to help you with Grant. Want
something while you wait?”

“Tequila sounds great.”

Her smile falters. “Um,”

“Tequila sounds great,” I repeat. “But I’ll take a diet coke.”

The relief that swamps her face is almost laughable. I have a hard
time picturing Collins as a bartender. I’m sure she’s drowning in tips from
drunk, horny guys thinking they can buy themselves a chance into her pants. She
just seems too sweet to be standing behind the bar dealing with drunks. She
pulls a glass off a shelf, dropping ice inside before filling it up with diet
coke and setting it in front of me.

“How high is his tab?” I ask after taking a quick drink.

“I’ll settle it up with him later.” Lincoln says, coming up behind
me. He slips on the stool next to mine, reaching over to grab my drink and take
a long drink. “Fuck, how do you drink that?”

“I just remind myself that I’m going to have to go bathing suit
shopping soon. “

His eyes skim down my body, then he huffs out a laugh. “I doubt you
have to worry about looking good in a bikini.”

My eyes flick over to Collins, noting the look of defeat in her
eyes only seconds before she reins it back in. She gives me a weak smile before
moving down to the other end of the bar, wiping down the bar top as she goes.

I give Lincoln a dirty look. “You are such an ass
,
” I hiss.

“I know exactly what I am,” he says to me, but his eyes are on
Collins when he speaks. Finally his gaze drops to mine. “You doing all right?”

“I’m perfect. Don’t I look perfect?”

He nods his head, watching me intently. I want to squirm under his
scrutinizing gaze, but manage to keep still. I wrap both my hands around my
glass, taking a drink even though I’m not thirsty.

“He’s getting a walk on tryout with his old man’s old team.”

I blink, sure I didn’t hear him correctly. “Really?”

Lincoln nods, and I feel a little bit of the pain around my heart
smooth out. Jacob was going to be okay. Even without me. “That’s good.” I
whisper. “I’m happy for him.”

Lincoln chuckles. “You look thrilled.” Nodding towards Grant he
adds, “And this one stopped fighting for Ira. You got all the boys doing what
you want, sweetheart.”

“If that was the truth I wouldn’t be sitting here with you, now
would I?”
 
I drain the last of my drink
before sliding off the stool. “Can you load him up for me?”

I can feel Lincoln’s gaze on me for several long moments. I make a
big production of digging into my pocket for my keys, turning just as I hear
him say, “Yeah, sure.”

I’m in my car with the motor running when Lincoln walks out with
Grant stumbling along next to him. I keep my gaze straight ahead while Lincoln
opens the back door, all but shoving Grant inside. He closes the door, tapping
his hand on top of the car then stepping back. I don’t look back as I pull
away.

Grant shifts in the back seat, his head lolling against the window,
a groan escaping as he moves. I look at him in the review mirror, wondering why
I hadn’t just hung up when Collins had called earlier. Now it’s creeping toward
dawn and I’m roaming the streets with my drunk ex in the backseat silently
hoping he doesn’t throw up in my car.

The last time I had done this, I’d ended up in my first argument
with Jacob. I’d made a promise to Jacob, swearing Grant was nothing to me. Yet
here I sit, in the exact same spot I had that very night. My shitty little love
life coming full circle.

On that cheerful thought, I pull up silently in front of his place,
leaning my forehead against the steering wheel for a brief moment before
turning in my seat. I jerk in surprise when I find Grant watching me carefully
through wide brown eyes.

I swear you can hear the alcohol in his voice when he roughly
whispers, “I’m sorry, Grace.”

Here we are again. Grant is back to apologizing, not that it makes
a difference or really means anything to me anymore. Shaking my head I ask,
“For what?”

“For all of it. I’m so sorry for all of it.”

“It’s fine.” What else am I supposed to say? I push the unlock
button on the door, listening to the click reverberate in the silence of the
car. I turn back around in my seat, listening to him open the door. I know he
hasn’t gotten out of the car when I tell him, “I don’t blame you, Grant. I’m
the one who screwed up with Jacob, not you.”

“I’m still sorry.” He whispers, just before he gets out of the car
and stumbles his way up to the townhouse. I wait until he gets inside before
pulling away. This is what my life has become, I can’t help but think. It’s
almost four in the morning and I’m driving back to my apartment all alone,
where I will no doubt curl up in my bed and hopefully sleep the majority of the
day away.

I’d promised Holden and Ally I’d meet them for dinner when they got
back into town. Mostly because I know that I needed to start trying to put my
post Jacob life together, and not because I was feeling particularly social.
More than anything, I’d like to call Holden and tell him I’m just not up to
dinner.

I’m trying to think up a reasonable sounding excuse to get out of
dinner when I catch the flash of car lights out of the corner of my eyes. I
know what’s coming next, my brain processes the fact that I’m going to get hit
by another car quickly enough that a scream tears out of me just seconds before
impact.

I can’t quite force my eyes to open. I want
them to, I want them to open so I can assure myself that I’m not dead, but it
feels like glue has sealed them shut, and I’m just too fucking tired to force
them to open. I can hear the faint
whirl
swoosh
of machines, followed with the
beep
of a monitor just seconds before I feel pressure start to swell around my right
arm. Panic starts to settle in as the pressure builds, tightening around my
arm, squeezing tighter and tighter until I feel like my arm is going to be
squeezed right off my body. Another
beep
and the pressure instantly deflates.

Blood pressure monitor, I think groggily. Blood
pressure monitor and machines, and I’m in a hospital bed. So definitely not
dead.

That’s good. Not dead is good.

I can remember the accident with electrifying
detail. The bright flash of the headlights from the car that hit me, the scream
that had bubbled up and exploded from inside of me within seconds, because I
knew. I knew what was going to happen before it even happened.

My scream had been drowned out then. Swallowed
by the sickening crunch of metal against metal before my car went airborne. I
wasn’t in the air for long, before slamming back down on street several feet
from where I’d taken off. I’d rolled in the air. I remember the tilt of the
world, everything spinning around me, righting itself just seconds before I
landed.

Voices. I remember voices, a strange blend of
them, pitched high as they surrounded me. I remember them asking if I was okay.
Some logical part of my brain knew that this wasn’t an abnormal question in a
situation like this, but logic had flown out the window while I was spinning in
the air because I clearly remember saying that no, I fucking wasn’t okay.

That’s where it stops. Everything from then to
now is a blank slate in my mind.

The not okay part was apparently true because
now that I am semi-conscious again the pain is slicing through my entire body.
Everything hurt. Jesus, even my fingernails hurt. I really, really, would just
like to curl in a ball and cry, but seeing as moving any part of my body seems
like a colossal effort, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. The
crying though? I’m pretty sure I can feel the tears leaking out of the corners
of my eyes.

The pressure cuffs starts to inflate again,
squeezing painfully tight around my arm for what seems like forever before
releasing once again. Over the sounds of the machines I can make out the faint
sound of breathing. I force myself to focus on that sound, letting it drown all
the others out.

Whoever is in the room with me is sitting close
to the bed. I can feel the warmth of their skin along my hand, and the soft
rush of air against my cheek every time they breathe out.

It takes an exorbitant amount of concentration
to get my fingers to move, even just slightly, under the hand that covers mine.
The breath against my cheek stalls for a second, before starting once again.
Whoever is lying there next to me isn’t waking up any time soon, at least not
with the pitiful movement I had managed.

But I hear the scrape of a chair sliding across
the floor, the sound of feet moving across the room, and someone is touching my
cheek. A gentle brush of fingers along my skin, and I know it’s Jacob. I know
I’m crying harder now. Because of course it takes a freaking accident to get
him next to me again.

“Pixie?”

Now I’m glad my eyes don’t want to open. I don’t
want to see him. It will only make it worse, only make it harder later when he
walks away again.

The only reason he is standing in this room
with me is because I was in a car accident. The weight of that disappointing
thought pushes down on my chest until I feel like it’s a struggle to even drawn
in a hiss of air into my lungs. Guilt is probably eating him alive. Because he
walked away, because he wasn’t there, because he didn’t do something, anything,
to prevent me from getting in a car accident.

Just like with his mom and Lacey.

No matter how much I want to, and God knows
every fucking part of me wants to, I can’t build a relationship with him based
on his guilt.

“Please, pretty girl, please open your eyes.”

“Grace? Did she wake up? Gracie Lou, open your
eyes.”

My mom’s voice whispers across my skin. The
hand that had been bushing up against mine, squeezing softly. “Baby?”

My lips are so dry they feel cracked, and the
jolt of pain that sears through my head when I tilt it toward my mother makes
me want to cry harder. “Mama.”

“Baby, open your eyes. Jacob, go tell the
doctor she’s awake.”

I feel the cool brush of his lips across my
forehead. “I’ll be right back.” He whispers.

“Grace, you need to open your eyes for me.”

I whimper, “Hurts.”

“I know, baby, I know it hurts.”

You don’t, I can’t help but think. It’s not the
physical pain that’s choking me, it’s the emotional. Because what I’m about to
do, there’s no coming back from. I squeeze my eyes tight, before forcing them
to open. The lights above me would probably be blinding, if my mother wasn’t
leaning directly over me blocking the majority of them. It takes a moment for
her face to come into focus. When it does I whisper, “Hey, Mama.”

“Hey, baby.” She’s crying. “Hey there. You’re
going to be okay. You’re going to be just fine. Your father is going to be so
pissed that you woke up while he was off getting something to eat.”

“Jacob?”

She smiled softly. “He just went to get the
doctor. He’s hardly left your side.”

“Make him go.” I close my eyes again. “Please
make him go.”

***

“I just don’t understand why I can’t walk out
of here on my own two feet.” I grumble, while trying desperately not to wince
as I lower myself into the wheelchair that Cole is holding in place for me. Can
I just say, breaking your ribs is no joke. I can’t get comfortable. Not laying
down or sitting up. It all just hurts. Every time I breathe the pain spreads
through my entire body.

“You’re the worst patient ever.” Cole tells me
cheerfully. “The wheelchair is hospital policy.”

“Well hospital policy sucks. Why aren’t we
moving?”

“Mom went to get the paperwork from the doctor.
We just have to wait on her.”

I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to go
home. Three days in the hospital is about three days too long in my book. Not
that I’ve ever spent any significant amount of time in one before now, and now
that I have, I’ve no immediate plans to come back.

How in the hell are you supposed to recover
when they come in at all freaking hours of the day and night to take your pulse
or draw so many vials of blood that I was starting to think they were feeding a
contingent of vampires.

And the jokes about the suckage of hospital
food? They aren’t jokes. True story, everything I ate tasted like sandpaper.
Except the
J
ello, and now I’ve had so
much of it I don’t ever want to see another Jello cup ever again.

“Can we meet her in the hallway? I don’t want
to be in this room anymore.”

“Nope.” Cole has settled onto the little couch
in the room, which I’ve been told is as uncomfortable to sleep on as it looks
like it would be. He’s messing around on his phone. At first I think he’s
playing a game, my brother has a hidden obsession with
Candy Crush
, but after a moment I realize he’s texting someone.

“Who are you talking to?” I miss my phone. Like
seriously I could shed tears over the fact that my phone had been recovered
from the scene in about four different pieces and apparently my begging and
pleading hadn’t helped in moving getting it replaced higher up the priority
list. I feel so lost without my phone.

“Jacob.”

“What? Why?”

Cole shoots me a look just as his phone chimes.
He reads whatever is on the screen then starts typing out a response. “What are
you saying to him? Why are you talking to him? Let me see the phone.”

“I’m telling him that you must be feeling good
because you’re your usual delightfully bitchy self. I’m talking to him because
you won’t answer his calls and he’s worried about you. And no.” Cole answers my
questions without even looking up from his phone.

“Don’t talk to him.”

Cole arches one black brow. “Seriously?”

Dammit all to hell. “No, not seriously. Just,”
I hesitate briefly. “I don’t want him to think this is going to change anything
between us. Because it can’t.”

“Why not? No, don’t give me that look, I’m
serious. Why not, Grace? He obviously cares about you, God knows why.”

“Because I made a total fucking fool of myself
trying to get him to listen to me and he wanted nothing to do with me. Wouldn’t
even give me the time of day when I was standing in front of him begging for
it, crying for him to just listen to me.” I knuckle away a tear. “He told me to
stop.” I whisper, saying the words to someone else for the first time. Sharing
my shame. “He told me I needed to stop calling him. And I promised myself after
Grant that I wouldn’t let anyone else be in charge of my happiness.” Drawing in
a breath I add, “So the break up hurts, but I’ll survive”

The room becomes silent. Like, quiet as a tomb,
I don’t think either one of us are even breathing quiet. Cole is watching me
intently, his eye dark and unreadable. His phone chirps, indicting an incoming
text, but he doesn’t take his eyes of me.

“You hurt his pride, Grace.”

I snort. “Oh, well then, since I hurt his pride
it makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t let me apologize, that he wouldn’t
listen to what I had to say. So now that his pride’s all healed up I’m supposed
to be like, okay sure let’s go again. I don’t think so.” Even as I say the
words, I’m picturing him standing in that dirty room prepping to step in and
fight for Grant. My mouth dried up as I remembered the way he’d looked when he
told me why he was fighting. Because I was important to him. Even though we
were no longer together.

Thankfully the door creaks open before Cole can
say anything else and Mom comes back in the room. She looks so tired. For the
first time ever I think my mother looks her age, and it’s all my fault. She’s
been worried over me for the last few days, and has hardly left my side.

Both she and dad want me to go home with them
and give myself a little more time to recuperate. I just want to sink back into
my life. Or as much as my freaking ribs will let me. I’d been lucky, the
cracked ribs, a ruptured spleen, a cut on my head that had been easily fixable
with some stitches, a concussion, some bruises and a broken arm.

So while I would be in pain for a several more
days, and sporting a lovely cast for an additional five weeks, I would heal
fairly quickly. At least physically.

Hearing Jacob’s voice had set me back mentally
about a million steps. Not that I had made very many steps in the getting over
him direction to begin with. Hearing his voice though, listening to him call me
Pixie, had been heart breaking. There was a large part of me that wanted to
talk to him, to hear what he had to say.

There was just a larger part of me that
remembered the pain of him not listening to me. I couldn’t go down that path
with him again. I know that I would never be as happy without Jacob as I would
be with him, I also know that I wouldn’t survive him walking away from me
again.

“All right, you’re all set, Grace. Dad’s
pulling the car around front. You ready?”

“So ready.”