Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(62)

Sleep should have come easily for me too. I needed it badly. The thought of doing anything more taxing than laying here next to Saylor almost made me groan aloud. Creed’s grim face kept intruding. There was something else, too. I wanted to make them suffer, whoever hurt Chase. My fists clenched as I struggled with the itch to make someone bleed for the cowardly attack on my brother. I knew it would feel good to put the hurt out, the same way it had felt good to pound on Devin for what he’d done to Saylor. But I also knew what a thorny road that was. I’d seen too many of my kind walk it before. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay here, in the arms of the girl I loved.

“It’s enough,” I whispered in her ear although I wasn’t at all sure. She must have descended more deeply into her dreams because she didn’t seem to hear me this time.





CHAPTER TWENTY ONE


SAYLOR



I awoke to a buzzing noise and realized it was my phone. Cord was sound asleep next to me. I pulled a blanket around my naked body and padded into the living room, finding my purse on the floor where I’d dropped it hours earlier.

“Brayden,” I sighed into the phone.

“Say. How is he? I called the hospital looking for information but they kindly said ‘Tough shit, you’re not family’.”

Briefly I told Bray about Chase’s injuries. I left out the increasing agitation I was sensing between the other two Gentry brothers. If Cord and Creed thought they knew who had attacked Chase, what would they do about it?

Bray repeated his offer. He said he was available in any way Chase or the boys needed. I told him I would get the message to them. The sound of my voice must have awakened Cord because he wandered into the living room, yawning and naked. He searched around the floor for a few seconds and then started pulling on his boxers.

I looked out the window, surprised to find bright daylight. The last twenty four hours had been so hectic and draining I’d lost all sense of time.

“It’s five o’clock,” I told Cord. He nodded, finding his phone and calling Creed as he walked back to the bedroom while talking quietly. By the time I followed him, he was done with the call.

“He was in a lot of pain,” Cord choked, coughing once and peering at me sadly. “They had to give him a higher dosage of meds to deal with it. And he also started running a fever. Could be nothing, but could be a sign of infection.”

“I’m sorry.” I held him. “Let’s get you back there.”

Cord wanted to know if I would mind driving Creed back. The truck was still at the hospital and he wanted to just keep it there until it was time for him to leave tonight when visiting hours ended. I also got the feeling he was trying to keep Creed as contained as possible.

“Besides,” he grinned a little and grabbed me, running his hands down my legs, “I need you to come back here and keep my bed warm.”

“I can do that,” I answered, kissing him. I wasn’t relishing the idea of spending time alone with sullen Creed but I brushed off the feeling.

Back at the hospital, Chase was flushed but sleeping soundly. Creed merely nodded when Cord asked him to return with me to the apartment. I paused over the prone form of the rowdy, sharply intelligent Chasyn Gentry and felt a surge of emotion as strong as if he were my own injured brother. This was immediately followed by a twitch of rage toward whoever was responsible for hurting him. I tried to imagine that feeling magnified a hundred times in the hearts of Cord and Creed. The notion made me shudder.

“You ready?” Creed asked me, a little sharply.

Cord bent down and kissed me. “Later, honey.” He gave me a brief swat on my rear end. “Think about me.”

“Couldn’t stop if I tried,” I told him. He stared down into my eyes for a long moment before Creed cleared his throat irritably.

It was already awkward as we walked down the corridor together and took the elevator to the ground floor. Creed stayed several feet away from me at all times and kept his head down while I struggled for words. Chase was easy; he was a goofier version of Cord. But Creed gave intensity a new meaning. I was sure there was a lot going on in his head. And I suspected I didn’t want to know about it all.

“You hungry?” I finally asked brightly when we reached the parking lot.

He just gave me a mute blue-eyed stare.

I cleared my throat. “It’s the dinner hour. You know, a time of day when people usually require some sort of sustenance. I thought-“

“Not hungry, Saylor,” he cut me off, scowling as he tried to open the passenger door to my car and found it locked.

“Well, all right then, sunshine,” I grumbled, unlocking the doors and starting the engine.

I searched the radio but there seemed to be a conspiracy of commercials on every station. I sighed and glanced over at my passenger. He took up a lot of room, even more than Cord. In fact he was an intimidating mountain of prickly muscle, all packaged in stony silence. It wasn’t hostility, not exactly. But it wasn’t pleasant either.

As I navigated the streets of Tempe I decided to overcome Creed’s aloofness by being annoyingly perky. A commercial ended and Lorde’s ‘Royals’ came on the radio. Despite the fact that I couldn’t carry a tune with a gun to my head I began belting out the words. Creed looked a little startled but I didn’t let that dissuade me. I turned up the radio and raised my voice as I tipped my head out the window and serenaded all of Tempe.