Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (25 page)

“How long is a while?” I whisper.

Bruce shakes his head.

“Couple hours at least,” he says. “Maybe longer.”

This is good, right?
I think.
That he’s okay enough to have surgery?

I have no fucking idea.

“Is he gonna...” I start. I swallow, then clear my throat. “I mean, will he—?”

I can’t.

“It’s looking better than it was,” Bruce says.

“Did anyone call his parents?”

“They’re heading down.”

I look out the hospital window. It’s dark outside, and I can see the glow of the strip far away. Raylan stands.

“How’d you find this out?” I suddenly ask Bruce.

“I’ve been a reporter since I was your age,” he says. “I wouldn’t be very good at it if I couldn’t get information.”

“I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” Raylan says. “I may as well be useless in comfort.”

I stand and give him a slightly awkward hug.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say.

“I’m sorry about that picture,” he says.

We detach and I cross my arms in front of myself.

“Thanks,” I say.

Raylan leaves, and Bruce is still standing there.

“You too,” he says.

“I’m not leaving,” I say.

“I know you need to eat,” he says. “You’re no good to anyone here. You may as well have a meal, Mae. Jackson’s gonna be under for a while.”

I know he’s right. I don’t want to leave the hospital where Jackson is, but it’s not like I can do anything while he’s in surgery.

It’s not like I can do anything, period.

“Okay,” I say.

“You like sushi?” Bruce asks.

I nod.

T
here’s
a fancy sushi restaurant next to the Wynn, and they seat Bruce and I at a table way off in the corner. I sip a tiny cup of green tea, and every time I put it back on the table, Bruce refills it from a ceramic teapot.

He orders. I’m barely listening.

I’m thinking of Jackson saying,
you’re my monster
. Of him saying
I wish everyone knew I was yours
.

Finally, Bruce drinks his own tea and looks at me.

“Mae, I think you should tell me what’s going on with you and Jackson Cody,” he finally says.

I sigh and shove my fingers through my hair.

“We’re dating,” I say.

He looks like he doesn’t quite believe me.

“Dating,” he says. Bruce has been reporting on rodeo for a long time, so he knows as well as anyone that Jackson Cody doesn’t
date
.

I take a deep breath.

“Yeah,” I say. “We, uh...”

I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if I start with a bottle of Boone’s Farm in a pickup truck, or if I start at Pioneer Days, or if I start when he called me a week later.

“We started seeing each other in Oklahoma,” I say, because that seems like as good an introduction as any. I go through the phone calls, the texting, mention that I’ve been visiting Jackson after-hours here in Vegas. I show him the pictures on my phone: Flossie, sunsets, tractors, fields. Jackson’s cute nephews.

He believes me by the end.

“I know you warned me,” I say.

“I tried,” he says.

Sushi comes, and we start eating in silence. Incredibly, it makes me feel a little better.

“Am I fucked?” I ask Bruce.

More scenes flash through my mind: freaking out in the media area. Causing a scene backstage.

“I don’t know,” Bruce says. “I can only tell you what I think you should do.”

I wait.

“Call your editor, Erica,” he says. “The minute the offices open in New York, and tell her everything. It’ll go better if she hears it from you first.”

I chew on my thumb and nod.

“If you just went back to New York tomorrow morning, you could probably get away with it,” Bruce says. “You and Jackson became friends at Pioneer Days, so it’s natural that you had a reaction to him getting injured.”

“I can’t just go back,” I whisper.

“I’m just laying out the options,” he says. “I didn’t think you would.”

He pauses, chopsticks hovering over his plate, and looks at me.

“You’re a good photographer, Mae,” he says. “That should be the first thing people think when they hear your name. Not something else.”

Something else meaning
sleeps with the people she’s photographing
, I assume.

“Thanks,” I say.

* * *

A
fter dinner
, Bruce makes a phone call and somehow gets more information. Jackson’s still in surgery. I go to my room and try to watch TV, but I can’t. I end up taking a long walk down the strip, wandering through casino after casino. I’ll take any loud, horrible, flashing distraction to get my mind off of what’s happening.

I wonder if Jackson is waking up from surgery and no one’s there, and then I just pray that he’s waking up. At midnight, I find a number for the hospital and call, but I can’t get anyone to answer my questions. I wander back to the hotel. I change my flight to one four days from now, because that seems like as good a time as any. It costs four hundred dollars and I put it on my credit card, praying that I get paid for this job before my rent is due on the first.

Then I make myself lay in my bed and shut my eyes.

Every time I drift off to sleep, I see it again: Jackson on the ground, Crash Junction galloping toward him. I wake up with a jolt. At five a.m., I give up. I call the hospital again, uselessly, so I shower and find their visiting hours. They start at eight.

I text Bruce a single question mark, because he seems to be the only person who can find anything out.

At 5:50, I sit at the table in my room and look out the window. I’ve got a view of the block behind the strip, facing east. There’s not much to look at, just the horizon starting to turn pink and gray since the sun hasn’t come up yet.

Call her and tell her
, I think.

I don’t want to. There’s a tiny part of me that thinks, somehow, we can keep this a secret until I’m done with the job. That somehow I can see Jackson in the hospital and not have everyone know.

But Bruce was right, of course. My options are
go back to New York
or
fess up
.

At 5:59, I hold my breath. When the clock says 6:00 — 9:00 on the east coast — I pick it up and dial Erica. Her assistant picks up on the first ring, and when I tell her who it is, she puts me through right away.

“What’s happening out there?” Erica says. “Any word?”

“Last I knew, Jackson was in surgery and it sounded pretty serious,” I say. My throat’s closing up. “I don’t know what’s happening right now. Also we’ve been dating for the past month.”

There’s a long pause.

“You and Jackson?” she says.

“Yes,” I say, and then I spill the whole story. I start with Oklahoma but I end up going back to the bonfire party, then to Oklahoma, then to Vegas, then to the middle part, and it’s a goddamn mess.

Through the whole thing, Erica just says, “I see,” over and over, and I have no idea what
that
means.

I finish. There’s a long pause.

“Thank you for telling me first,” she says, but her voice is rigid. “Though I wish I’d known sooner.”

“I apologize,” I say, and hope my voice isn’t shaking. “I’ll still have the pictures to you by Tuesday.”

“That would be excellent,” she says. “I’ll have to get back to you about everything else, Mae.”

When we hang up the phone, Bruce has texted me back.

H
e’s out
.

I
grab pants
, pull my hair into a ponytail, and leave.

* * *

H
is room is
in the ICU, which isn’t surprising. The doors to it are badge-operated and don’t have windows, so I can’t even see in. When I bother the nurse at the front desk she
very
firmly tells me that visiting hours start at eight, and there’s no one even at the desk outside the ICU yet.

I don’t know what to do, so I drink coffee in the hospital cafeteria. It’s not good coffee, but at least I won’t have a headache later.

He’s alive,
I think.
It’s been twelve hours, and he’s alive, and that’s good
.

I have no idea what else could happen. Internal bleeding sounds pretty bad, and shattered leg sounds pretty bad, and hell,
everything
sounds bad. I construct scenarios in my head, one after the other: he dies suddenly, still in the hospital. He’s paralyzed from the neck down. From the waist down. He’s in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He’s got serious brain damage and doesn’t know who I am.

At 7:45, I make myself stop and go back upstairs. At 8:00 exactly, someone comes and sits down at the ICU reception desk, and I go up to her.

“Hi, I’m here to see Jackson Cody,” I say.

She looks at a list.

“You family?” she asks.

I stare for a second, and I panic.

“I’m his sister,” I hear myself say.

She looks down again.

“His parents didn’t clear a sister,” she says.

“Mom and Dad are really shaken up right now,” I say. “They probably forgot. Please, just let me go see him.”

She shakes her head.

“Sorry,” she says.

Desperation wells up in me, and I try to tamp it down.

It’s important that he’s alive
, I tell myself.
You seeing him is secondary.

“Are his parents in there now?” I ask. “Can you call his room?”

“I’m not calling,” she says.

“Please?”

She just looks at me.

“Look, I don’t know who you are—”

The ICU doors open, and a woman with short gray hair steps through. She’s fit and no-nonsense looking, with a paisley shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans. She’s got bloodshot hazel eyes.

She looks at me, then looks away.

Then she looks at me again.

“Mrs. Cody?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, then frowns slightly. “Are you Mae?”

I just nod, and before I know it, she’s hugging me.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” she says. “I wish circumstances were different.”

“Me too,” I say.

She leads me back to the ICU doors.

“She’s with me,” Jackson’s mom tells the woman.

“That your daughter?” the woman asks, a little sarcastically.

Jackson’s mom looks at me.

“Sure,” she says.

The ICU hall is quiet except for beeping. Mrs. Cody is a little taller than me and walks fast, then stops suddenly outside a room.

“You haven’t seen him yet,” she says.

“No,” I say.

“It’s still touch-and-go,” she says. “He looks bad, Mae. His face is all busted up, he’s covered in casts, and he can’t really move. Plus, he’s on a heavy morphine drip, so he’s not quite all there right now.”

“Okay,” I say.

She gives me a hard look.

“No one would blame you if you turned back,” she says, her voice sinking almost to a whisper. “He’s got a long hard road ahead, and if you want out, now is the time.”

I stare at her. It hadn’t even
occurred
to me that I might leave Jackson.

“I don’t want out,” I say.

She nods once, curtly.

“Good,” she says. “He likes you.”

Then she opens the door to his room, and I take a deep breath.

“I found a stray,” Mrs. Cody says, and I walk through the door.

He’s fucked up.

Jackson’s got casts on both legs, bandages around his torso, a neck brace, a black eye, and a split lip. There are tubes and wires sticking out of him everywhere, both forearms and the backs of both hands.

But he’s
alive
.

I just start laughing. I’m giddy with relief and joy and happiness, and his eyes slide toward me.

“Izzat Mae?” he asks. He sounds like his voice box has been through a wood chipper.

“It’s me,” I say.

At the side of his bed I grab his fingers and hold them in mine, because that seems like the only part that’s safe to touch. I
want
to throw my arms around him, I want to kiss him. I want to hold him tight, but that’s all a spectacularly bad idea right now.

His fingers curl into mine.

“Hey,” he whispers.