Jet (Marked Men, #2)(90)

He lifted and eyebrow.

“I like my pants.”

“Me, too. I like what’s in them even more.”

He groaned and opened one of the sandwiches I handed him.

“Don’t go there, Ayd. It’s been a while.”

I looked at him over my shoulder and stroked one of Asa’s finger with mine. It was about the only visible skin on his body that didn’t have a tube coming out of it or gauze wrapped around it.

“There was no pretty French girl or sexy Spanish chick to keep you company?” I didn’t really want the answer to that question, but I figured I should ask. It wouldn’t change things, but I felt like I needed to know.

“No. What about you? Sweater Vest was blowing up your phone when I left.”

I shook my head in the negative.

“Adam is a really nice guy, but he isn’t you. That was the problem with him all along.”

I felt him run his hand up the back of my bare thigh and I had to suppress the shivers that trailed in their wake.

“When do you have to leave?”

“I have four days and then I need to hook back up with the guys in Amsterdam. If you need me to stay, I will.”

I looked back at him and gave him a sad, lopsided smile. “No. I don’t know what his condition is going to look like over the next few days. If I need to, I’ll call the girls.”

“You should let them come anyway. They’re both worried sick over you.”

I sighed and went over to prop myself up in the arm of the chair. He put a hand on my knee and I covered it with my own.

“It was just me and Asa growing up. Mama was always off doing her own thing. Granted, he wasn’t always the best caretaker. Frankly, he was a piece of crap most of the time and he used me in ways I don’t really want to think about right now, but we’re family no matter how dysfunctional it is. I kind of feel like it should be that way now. If he takes a turn for the worse, it needs to be me and him, ya know?”

“I’m sorry you have to deal with this, Ayd, and I’m sorry for whatever you felt you had to do in the past.”

“Me, too.”

We fell into a kind of pattern the next two days. I didn’t want Jet to have to be at the hospital the entire time, so I sent him back to the hotel to sleep when visiting hours were over, and I stayed with Asa. I would go back in the morning for a shower and we would grab breakfast and then spend the bulk of the day keeping vigil over my brother. There was no change in his condition, which everyone tried to convince me was a good thing, but I wasn’t sure I bought it. He was still unconscious, still needed a ventilator to breathe, and there was no miraculous recovery showing on any of the scans of his brain.

Jet was a champ. He took it all in stride and never once complained or griped that he had come all this way to sleep alone in a sketchy hotel and drink awful hospital coffee by the gallons. If I hadn’t already loved him, this would have sealed the deal. He was just rock solid, and the only entertainment we had during the day was watching the nurses, all of them from the sixty-year-old ladies to the younger techs, try to get his attention. He was quickly becoming the star of the intensive care unit. At one point, he decided to sing me every old Southern folk song he could think of—“Little Birdie,” “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” “Amazing Grace”—it was like a private little concert, and by the time he was done, every single female who worked in the intensive care unit was as in love with him as I was.

It was the day before he had to leave and we were both tired and starting to think things with Asa were at a standstill. I could tell Jet felt bad that he had to go, that he was worried about me, and the idea of leaving me alone made him nervous. I had to promise to call if Asa turned a corner either way, and he insisted that if I was going to be there for another week, I should bring in reinforcements. It was bittersweet. He was so wonderful for putting his life on hold for me, and made it so clear that he was in this for the long haul, that I wished he was going back on tour knowing I would be fine. I wished that Asa would wake up and things would just go back to normal. Since none of that looked like it was going to happen, I just tried to reassure him that everything would be fine either way, and that I would still be here when the tour was over.

I was talking to Asa in a low voice, telling him all about the crew back in D-town, about Rule and Shaw and their crazy love story. I told him all about Cora and how wild she was, how fun and unpredictable she was. I told him about Nash and Rowdy, and explained that my guy had the best friends that anyone could ask for, but mostly I told him all about Jet. I told him about how talented he was, how kind he was, how I had loved him from the first minute I saw him onstage. I told him all about the rocky road I had traveled to finally reach him, and how I never really thought someone like Jet was going to be my end game. I talked and talked and somewhere in the middle of my telling him how happy I really was and how great my life was, even if he had stumbled in and messed it all, up his fingers started to twitch.

At first I thought I was just imagining things. I thought it was just wishful thinking, but then they did it again and I looked up, and eyes that matched my own were looking back at me.

I freaked out and had every nurse on the floor rushing in to poke and prod at him. I was systematically shoved out of the way while people moved around him and took his vitals and nudged at all his tubes and wires. They were droopy and unfocused, but those whiskey-colored eyes stayed locked on mine and I knew, just knew, that he was going to be okay. When Jet showed up, I was an incoherent mess. All I could really explain was that Asa had opened his eyes and that his fingers had moved, and that all the medical staff seemed optimistic, which was a good sign. It was such a good sign, in fact, that the staff insisted I finally go to the hotel for the night since this was a huge hurdle cleared. I initially didn’t want to go, in case he woke up again and was aware, but it was Jet’s last night and he was going to be gone for a solid two months. Sexy text messages and phone sex only went so far.