Smart, Sexy and Secretive (42 page)

“
She wouldn’t leave. I don’t
know. Matt had to make her take a shower,” he laughs. “She was
pissed for hours.”

“
I’d love to have seen that.
I thought Matt could do no wrong when it comes to her.” I moan—I’m
really hurting.

“
The honeymoon period is
over,” he says. “You can only get a pass for having cancer for so
long,” Sam says, like what he’s saying is a fact. “Then the girls
start to treat you like you’re a normal asshole again.”

“
Where are Matt and Paul?” I
ask.

“
Paul has Hayley tonight,
and Matt went home to sleep.”

I nod.

“
Pete?”

Sam’s face falls. “Still locked
up.”

My heart twists in my chest at his
words. A nurse walks into the room, and she’s carrying a needle.
Thank fucking God. She smiles but she doesn’t speak to me. Hearing
people always worry about how much I can understand, so they avoid
communicating with me unless they have to.

“
Welcome back to the land of
the living,” she finally says. I feel a burn in my arm, and then
the pain starts to ease.

My head swims, but there’s one thing I
need to know. I look at Sam. “Did I really break my
dick?”

The sight of Sam’s laughter rocks me
back to sleep.

Emily

Logan drifts back to sleep within
moments of waking, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be back. I’m not as
worried as I was before he spoke to me.

“
Where are his hearing
aids?” I ask Sam.

He shrugs. “Did you check his
belongings?” He points toward a cabinet across the room. In it
there’s a bag with everything Logan had on him when the accident
happened. I look through it but can’t find the hearing
aids.

I pick up a small silver bar. “What’s
this?” I ask.

Sam’s face flushes. “Piercing,” he
mumbles, not looking me in the eyes.

“
Oh,” I say, and I bite back
a snicker. All of Logan’s jewelry is in the bag. They removed all
of his piercings and stored them for him. Even the one from the
base of his johnson. Goodness.

I open his wallet, just because I’m
nosy. There’s a charcoal drawing of me that he has in his
driver’s-license window, and there are a few dollars in cash in the
bill compartment. There’s a folded-up note, and I open it. I can’t
help it—the curiosity is killing me. I realize immediately that
it’s the note I wrote to him when I finally told him my name. Tears
burn my eyes. He saved it. He had it tattooed on his butt, too, but
he carries my note around like it’s important to him. “There are no
hearing aids in here.”

“
They may have been lost in
the crash.”

“
We’ll have to see about
getting new ones before he needs them.”

Sam blows. “Do you know how much those
things cost?”

I look up. I have no idea what they
cost. “A lot?”

“
Like way more than we
have.” He growls low in his throat. “I’m tired of being fucking
poor. It blows.”

“
Your family is rich in all
the ways that my family is not,” I remind him. I look at him as he
swipes a frustrated hand through his hair. “Is that why Pete did
what he did?”

He nods. “I think so.”

“
I told him not to get
involved with Bone. That it would only get him in trouble.” I told
him that months ago, when he first started talking with the man. I
hate to say I told you so, but when I do…

“
I was there that night,”
Sam blurts out. He rubs the back of his closely shaved
head.

“
What night?”

“
The night Pete was
arrested. I was there. We were unloading the truck
together.”

“
Oh.” I don’t know what more
to say. “How did Pete get arrested and you didn’t?”

“
Pete looked up at me and
told me to run. So, I ran, and Pete got caught. I’ll never forgive
myself.” He bites his lower lip, idly tonguing his piercing. “He
told me if I confess, he’d deny that I was there. Fucking
moron.”

“
Did you tell Paul and
Matt?” I don’t know why that matters, but it does.

He nods. “They know.” He shakes his
head. “I thought Paul was going to kill me.”

“
What did he do?”

He kicks at a piece of imaginary dirt
on the floor. “He hugged me.” He shrugs. “That’s all.”

“
Why were you messing with
Bone at all?” I ask. I can’t help it. Everyone knows who Bone is
and what he does.

He sighs. “We wanted to be sure that we
had enough money saved to pay for Matt’s treatment, if he needed
one again. So, we started doing odd jobs. None of it was illegal.”
He holds up one hand like he’s testifying. “I swear it. We wouldn’t
have gotten involved if it was illegal.”

“
What kind of
jobs?”

He doesn’t look at me. “Delivering
packages, letters. Collecting on accounts. Unloading trucks. That
kind of stuff.”

The stuff that was illegal as hell, and
he knew it.

“
Pete’s paying the price.”
He growls and runs a hand through his hair again. “I’ll never
forgive myself.”

“
My dad is working on it,” I
remind him.

“
Your dad’s a miracle worker
now?” he asks, his brow shooting up.

I laugh. “Not the last time I
checked.”

He gets quiet for a minute. “Hey, Em,”
he says. I look up at him. “I never did thank you for saving Matt’s
life.”

I wave a breezy hand at him. “It was
nothing.”

His eyes narrow. “You love my brother,
right?”

I look down at Logan’s sleeping form.
“More than anything.”

“
You’re going to have to
marry him.”

I pretend to pout. “Well, if I have
to…”

Sam laughs. “I’m glad he has you. I’m
glad we all do.”

Tears prick at the backs of my lashes,
but I blink them back. Sam pulls me into a tight hug, and I don’t
know what do for a minute. I get this from Matt all the time but
never Sam.

Sam turns away from me, and I see the
tattoo on the back of his neck. I don’t know why I never noticed it
before. It says “Pete” in big, chunky, gothic-looking
letters.

“
Why do you have Pete’s name
tattooed on your neck?” I ask.

He grins widely. “When we were twelve,
our dad still couldn’t tell us apart. So, he decided to tattoo our
names on our necks.” He smiles even more broadly. “When he sat us
down in the chair, he asked which one I was, and I said Pete. And
then he put my name on Pete’s neck. Our mom was so angry. You have
no idea.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I kind of like
it.”

“
I do, too.”

Logan

It has been a week since I woke up. I hurt like a motherfucker for
days, but it’s getting better. Today, I get to go home. Emily is on
the way to pick me up, and we’re going to her apartment, since she
has an elevator and I can’t take the stairs. My leg is in a cast
from the middle of my thigh to my toes. It itches like crazy, but
they keep telling me not to scratch it.

The nurse helps me settle into a
wheelchair. They say I can’t walk out of here. I want to go home so
badly. Or at least go somewhere that I can sleep in a bed with
Emily. Somewhere that I can hold her close and keep her next to me.
I never, ever want to let her go.

She comes out of the elevator just as
we’re heading toward it. She smiles, and my heart tries to take a
flying leap out of my chest. I fucking love her so much. She holds
the elevator door open, and the nurse pushes me past
her.

Ready to go
home
? she asks.

I nod. It’s rude to sign in
front of hearing people; I know this, but I have to tell
her.
I can’t wait to go home and take you
to bed.
I waggle my eyebrows at
her.

She giggles.
Are you well enough for that?

You might have to get on
top.

Shit. I’m getting hard just thinking
about it.

The nurse in the elevator with us bumps
into my chair, and then I see her cough into her closed fist. Emily
pats her on the back. “You okay?” she asks.

The woman nods. I think she’s really
laughing, but I can’t tell.

A black sedan pulls up to the curb, and
I see Emily’s dad driving it. My gaze shoots to hers, and she
smiles.

He wanted to do
it
, she signs.

Why?

She shrugs.
Ask him.

“
Logan,” her dad says in
greeting. His eyes meet mine, and he sticks out his hand to shake.
I take it, and his grip is firm and strong. “How are you
feeling?”

“
Ready to go home, Mr.
Madison.”

“
Please, call me Ralph,” he
says. My gut clenches, and I look toward Emily but she’s stowing my
belongings in the trunk. I stand up tentatively, holding onto the
edge of the door. I get into the front seat because there’s more
room. I hop on one foot until I’m in position and then drop down
into the car.

After the door is shut, the
nurse who pushed me turns to me and signs,
Hope you feel better soon.
Shit. She
can sign. I scrub a hand down my face in embarrassment, but she’s
laughing.
Take it easy, and don’t overdo
it
, she instructs.

I nod as heat creeps up my face. Emily
just smiles and shakes her head. Busted. This is why you don’t sign
in front of hearing people. Aside from the fact that it’s just
rude.

Her dad is quiet the whole way to her
house. He doesn’t say a word and neither does she.

When the car stops outside Emily’s
apartment, he gets out and opens the door for me. I stick my hand
out again. “Thank you for the ride, sir,” I say.

He brushes my hand away and helps me
get settled on my crutches. “I’d like to come upstairs so we can
talk.”

I look for Emily again, but she is in
the driver’s seat of the car, and she waves to me as she pulls
away.

“
Where is she going?” I
ask.

“
To run some errands and to
pick up your medicine,” he says.

“
One of my brothers could
have done that.”

He waves a hand at me. “No
need.”

Henry, the doorman, rushes forward and
helps me turn to get through the door. “So glad you’re back,
Logan,” he says.

“
Me, too,” I say with a
laugh.

Emily’s dad smiles, and I still don’t
know what to do with his unexpected friendship. He’s quiet in the
elevator, and he doesn’t speak when I take out a key and let myself
into Emily’s apartment. I should probably explain why I have a key,
but I really don’t want to.

I drop onto the couch. I’m exhausted,
and I really didn’t walk very far.

“
Are you hurting?” he
asks.

“
No.” I look around the
room. “Where’s Trip?” I expected to find him in his boxers on
Emily’s couch.

“
He has gone back to LA,”
Mr. Madison admits.

He sits down opposite me on
the couch and looks uncomfortable. But it’s not the
I-don’t-know-what-to-say-to-you uncomfortable. It’s more like the
I’m-emotional kind of uncomfortable, which makes
me
not know what to do
for
him
.

“
For good?” I
ask.

“
Yes.”

“
Oh, wow.” I didn’t see that
one coming.

“
Logan, I need to apologize
to you,” he says. His cheeks are rosy, and he’s obviously
anxious.

“
It’s really not necessary,
Mr. Madison,” I begin.

He cuts me off by holding up a hand.
“Ralph,” he corrects. “I need to thank you,” he says again. “What
you did took amazing courage.”

“
Really,” I say, trying to
cut him off.

“
Let me fucking finish, will
you?” he asks, still smiling.

Did he just drop the f-bomb? “Have you
been hanging out with my brothers?” I ask.

He chuckles. “No, but I’m from the same
fucking area as you. I just forgot somewhere along the way where I
came from.”

I don’t know what to say. I had no idea
Mr. Madison had poor roots.

“
I grew up dirt-poor. In a
worse neighborhood than yours.” He blows out a breath. “Somewhere
along the way, I lost sight of what’s important,” he says. “My
family means the world to me. Without them, I am
nothing.”

He grimaces as though he doesn’t know
what to say next.

“
I’m proud that you’re in my
daughter’s life. I couldn’t be more pleased with her choice in
someone to love.”

“
Thank you, sir,” I say.
I’ve been blindsided, and I feel like someone has flipped my world
around. I didn’t see this coming at all.

“
I know you have plans to be
with my daughter forever.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out
a small jewelry box. He presses it into my hands. I open it up, and
there’s a small diamond engagement ring inside. You would probably
need a microscope to see the diamond, but that’s okay. The ring is
beautiful, with a lot of detailed etching around the band. It looks
like an antique. “If you decide to ask her to marry you at some
point, I’d like you to know you have my blessing. And you can use
her grandmother’s ring.” He suddenly looks uncomfortable again. “Or
you can use your own. I don’t particularly care.”