Capture & Surrender (Market Garden, #5)(62)

Now that I’ve had time to feel this strongly about you.

Frank rested his elbows on the desk and wiped at his stinging eyes. This had to be done. It had to. He coughed a couple of times to relieve the ache in his throat, but it didn’t help. The slamming door still rang in his ears, and the finality of Brandon’s departure was settling in on his shoulders, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep himself from collapsing under his emotions.

So he quit fighting it. He covered his face with one hand and cried.





He only left his office after Raoul confirmed that Stefan had left the club. Frank could almost hear the WTF in Raoul’s texted response, but being the boss meant you could sometimes be a coward and get away with it. Raoul’s gaze followed him when he left the club, but Raoul was way too busy with several people to get in his way.

The drive home passed in a blur—literally. And when Frank unlocked the door, it immediately hit him that he was coming home alone, and likely would for the foreseeable future. No banter on the other side, no heated kisses, no barely contained impatience to get to the bed or shower. Not even that quiet companionship that lent depth to a relationship. Spending time together with no other aim but to be together.

He dropped his keys on the work surface in the kitchen. Nothing but pills to swallow, and then to bed alone. As he went through his routine of setting them out for the next day, he wondered why he was still doing this. If the illness would still get him in the end, why not just let it take him?

That was madness, of course, possibly depression. And yet the thought of going back into therapy was unspeakably wearying.

His friends. They cared whether he lived or died. And he, too, would get over it.

You did the best you could. You did the right thing.

He finished swallowing his pills and settled in front of the TV. Nothing on, so he headed upstairs for sit-ups and press-ups. Gym tomorrow, yet another routine that kept him going.

Travelling might rip him out of this, but not if he planned to actually make the changes to the Garden, not for a fair long while.

When they’d both been diagnosed, Andrew and he had made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Not because either of them believed in a higher being (or that a pilgrimage might heal them), but because it was an excuse to leave normal life for a few weeks, doing nothing but walking, eating, sleeping. Nothing focused the mind as much as the bleeding feet and pure exhaustion on some of the harder parts of that route.

But that would forever be tied to Andrew in his mind.

He stood and rubbed his burning pecs, then left the bedroom and headed down the corridor. To the room. To that room.

He placed the hand on the doorknob. Turned it. Moved forwards. Stepped inside.

He disliked the room, hated it, in fact, though it wasn’t so bad when he was actually standing inside the white walls and the drawn yellow curtains. Peaceful. Part of him always expected to see Andrew lying in the bed in the middle of the room, the bones inside his face visible—his own death image. Expected to see Andrew lying there, dead.

He’d always expected he’d spend his last few weeks in the same room, staring at Andrew’s favourite paintings on the far wall—colourful, energetic acrylics, large bare canvases on their wooden frames. Fully expected to lie in the same bed: one of those specialist ones with air pumps that prevented bedsores. Part of the insurance money had gone towards buying all the things Andrew needed, and Frank had never gotten rid of them. It seemed only prudent to keep them for later.

And what he’d done tonight may have been cruel in its own way, and hurt both of them more than Frank liked, but it meant not putting Brandon through seeing him in here. No sitting beside the bed and wondering if this downturn was another setback or if it was really the end. No finding too much hope in every upswing only to have that hope dashed again in a matter of days or weeks. Death was both kind and cruel: the overture was pure torment for anyone involved, but the conclusion was merciful.

Frank didn’t want Brandon to suffer so much that the final drawn-out tone on Frank’s ECG monitor would be welcomed.

He sat in the chair beside the empty bed. Resting his elbows on his knees, he pressed his loosely clasped hands against his lips. He wouldn’t be alone when he died here. He had Geoff and Mike. Emily. No family to speak of, at least not anyone close enough—geographically or otherwise—to be in this room, but he wouldn’t be alone. Not completely alone, anyway. Someone would be sitting in this chair, the one he’d been sitting in the night Andrew slipped away, but it would still be empty in its own way. Somebody would be sitting here like he had, listening to his laboured breath that drew out longer. Paused. There would be a sick thrill of fear, anticipation, relief. Then another breath, and a sinking feeling mixed with relief. Then no breath. No breath. Nothing.

And self-pity never did any man, dying or otherwise, a damn bit of good.

He pushed himself up and left the room without looking back, pausing to pull the door shut behind him before he headed into the bedroom.

Once today was over, and he’d had some sleep, then he could figure out the future. One step at a time: get through the rest of tonight. Get through tomorrow. Take it from there.

The sleep part would be complicated, though. Lying awake and staring at the ceiling seemed to be the more likely scenario for tonight. Occasional glances at the clock kept him abreast of how long he’d been like this. Midnight. Half past. One. Half past. Two.