Nash (Marked Men #4)(8)

“No, I’m not okay.”

I blew out a breath and crouched down so that I was more on his level. His gaze followed me as I lowered myself to my haunches. People told me all the time how pretty my eyes were and it made me blush and stammer. They were all right, gray and clear, and my patients seemed to find them soothing. But I thought, as I gazed somberly into the sad depths of his, that clearly no one who thought I had pretty eyes had ever looked into Nash’s. I had never seen a more striking or unique color than the columbine blue of his. Sitting under those raven-black eyebrows, they were just magnetic.

“You need to talk to someone, family, your friends, or maybe a girlfriend. This isn’t a good situation for anyone, Nash, and drinking and smoking a carton a day isn’t going to make it any better. You need to be strong for your dad, but you also need to be strong for you. It seems like you have a lot of people you can lean on, they’ve been in and out of that hospital room all week. Trust me, this is not a fight you want to battle on your own.”

He threw his head back until it thumped on the dark leather of the couch. He squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled his long legs up and clenched fists up on the top of each knee. He even had scrolling artwork inked on his skin from beneath the hem of his boxer shorts to his knee on one leg and to the top of his foot on the other. There was simply too much of it for me to pick apart all the separate images and designs, all I knew was that it was all bold, dynamic, and full of color and had obviously been put on him by someone with an incredible amount of skill.

“Until a few days ago I thought my father walked out on me when I was just a baby. My mom told me he was a deadbeat, that he didn’t have any interest in being a husband or a father, so every time that ass**le Loften talked shit to me, told me I was garbage, tried to put me under his thumb, I told myself it was cool because my mom deserved nice things, a guy to take care of her since my dad was an ass**le. Only Loften is a judgmental, superficial prick and basically forced her to pick me or him. She picked him even though my dad was in the same f**king state all along and never walked out on anyone.”

He gave that laugh that made me hurt for him again, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out a hand and putting it on one of his balled-up fists. I could feel the tension and dissonance creeping all over him.

“Turns out the only adult I ever looked up to, that ever showed me I was worth anything just the way I was, f**king lied to me my entire f**king life. Phil took me in when my mom kicked me out. He pretty much raised me, taught me how to tattoo, gave me a future, and showed me how to be a man. I walked into that hospital room, took one look at him, and wondered how I had missed what was right in front of me all along.”

He grunted and let his eyes drift shut again. I was following along as best I could with his story, but I was kind of lost. I felt like there was someone else he should be telling all of this to, but for whatever reason I was the one he had let in, both figuratively and literally. He hadn’t known Phil was his father until the other night? That was huge and just as hard to work through as the fact that his loved one was terminally ill. No wonder he was just a mess. I couldn’t blame him.

“He looks like he’s dying … so f**king sick, and he called me son. For twenty-five years I called him Uncle Phil and now that he might not be around much longer, he has the nerve to call me son. I grew up thinking I wasn’t good enough for anyone. Not my mom, not that shithead she married, not my dad who couldn’t even be bothered to see what kind of kid I would turn out to be … only Phil made me feel like I was worth a damn, and now I don’t even know what to do with any of this shit. Why didn’t he just tell me? He was more my dad than my uncle all along anyway.”

I sighed because he was spinning himself in circles and I could see the faster he turned the worse it was making him feel. I put my other hand on his and leaned forward.

“I don’t know, Nash. What I do know is the only person who can answer those questions is sick and hurting just as badly as you are. And I know that the two of you obviously need each other right now. This is wasted time you will never get back. I see it every day and you will live to regret it if you don’t move past it and go see him.”

He was drunk, obviously distraught and not thinking clearly. I doubted he would remember much of this heart-to-heart when he sobered up, but there was just a nagging part of me that wanted to try and make this heartbreaking situation more manageable for him. I thought I still hated him, still held him responsible for all my shattered teenage dreams of love and romance, but right now I just felt sorry for him. It didn’t matter how big and strong he was, or how much of a badass he appeared to be on the outside, not being able to fight back against something as devastating as cancer, especially when it was affecting someone he obviously loved, sucked. I knew it made him feel impotent and ineffectual, and right now it was obviously making him scared enough to think hiding from it was a viable option.

I gasped a little in shock when both of his wide hands suddenly seized my face on either side. His hands were a little rough but his touch was soft as his eyes suddenly flashed from periwinkle to a dark, intense indigo. His eyelids drooped down, and his erratic breathing suddenly slowed, making those flames dancing across his shoulders and pecs look like they were alive.

“You’re really beautiful, Saint.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and lifted my hands to wrap around his wrists. My fingers didn’t reach all the way around and I didn’t want to think about how sexy that was. It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him that he hadn’t always thought that, in fact if my memory was correct he had said it would take a bag over my head for him to be interested in spending any kind of intimate time in my offensive presence. I still felt the burn as the memory flashed behind my eyes.