How About No
Page 6

It was the emergency room.
“Mrs. Johnson, I’m calling about your husband coming in with a gunshot wound…”
***
Shot in the thigh. Lacerations to his liver and broken ribs from being beaten. A concussion that was considered quite severe. A fractured foot.
The list went on and on, and by the time the doctor was finished explaining the full list of his injuries, I nearly broke down and cried.
“He’s in surgery right now to remove the bullet from his leg. Once we’re finished, we’ll call down here and let you know how surgery went.”
That was two hours ago.
I’d been sitting in the surgical waiting room for what felt like forever, surrounded by men that I knew despised me.
The moment that Wade and I had broken up, I’d become numero uno on their dislike list.
At one time, I’d been the wife. At one time, I’d been loved.
At one time…
Needless to say, if I saw one of them, they went out of their way to avoid being in my presence.
It hurt.
It hurt even more due to the fact that they’d called me first, and when I’d shown up, all of them had looked at me not only as if I did not belong there, but that I was also unwelcome.
Honestly, if they could wish me gone from a room, I’d have disappeared hours ago.
To make matters worse, everyone was talking about me like I wasn’t even in the room.
I could hear the woman that was with Rome speaking about me—complete untruths—as she tried to get more information on me. Rome was talking too softly to her for me to hear his replies, but I was sure those were just as untruthful as the things coming out of the woman’s mouth.
Each word that came out of their mouths caused me to hunch further and further into myself.
There I sat, in the corner, praying that Wade didn’t die.
Praying that one day, being a cop in this world wouldn’t automatically make you hated.
I’d just finished asking God to take me instead—because what was I good for, anyway?—when a commotion had me lifting my head.
That’s when I saw a gun aimed at me and thought, this must be it.
It hadn’t been the way that I expected to go.
Honestly, I always expected that I’d die on an operating table.
The man fired the gun.
I raised my hand as if that would protect me, and I felt fire race through me moments later.
The entire room went electric.
Another shot was fired.
And then another.
And another.
And another.
All the while, I felt like laughing.
Up until this point, I’d always thought that God wasn’t listening to me. Thought that he didn’t care.
I guess I was wrong.
Chapter 4
I’m not on drugs. I’m just weird.
-Coffee Cup
Wade
I opened my eyes to darkness—at least semi-darkness anyway.
Everything hurt.
My face. My teeth. My toes and elbows.
Honestly, there wasn’t a single thing on my body that didn’t ache.
I rolled my head and yep, even my neck hurt.
Super.
When I turned my neck to the other side, my eyes caught on something—a lumpy form—and I blinked, trying to get my eyes to focus.
My hand twitched, and that was when I felt the remote in my hand.
Closing my fingers around it, I lifted it up and sat up slightly, finding that it was the intercom thingy that allowed you to connect to the nurses’ station, as well as turn on the lights and adjust the bed.
I hit the lights, and the harsh bright glow of the ones right above my face had me blinking rapidly to dislodge the stars now flashing in my eyes.
I blinked once more and then tried to focus on the lumpy form that was actually a woman—my woman—or my former woman.
Landry was passed out in a chair, her upper body and head plastered against the soft weave of the blanket that was covering three-quarters of my body.
And, unlike when we used to be married, the stark overhead light didn’t affect her in the least.
Guess her hating me wasn’t the only thing that had changed since she’d last been in my bed.
I found myself getting irrationally angry over the light.
When I had been married and sharing a room with Landry, I would have to set my shit out the night before and get dressed out in the living room after being very sure to not only close the door—but do it as quietly as possible.
Landry was a very light sleeper.
So light, in fact, that any number of things could wake her up in the morning.
The water running in our bathroom. A cabinet closing. The zipper of my pants. Hell, even making coffee had woken her up.
I’d tiptoed around that place when I’d gotten ready for work, all because I hated waking her.
And here she was, bright light shining in her face, and she was sleeping like a baby.
It shouldn’t have made me so angry, but it did.
I shifted my foot next to her face, bumping her lightly.
She came up with a cry of pain, tears already streaming down her face, and her bandaged hand clutched to her chest.
And that was when I realized that she’d been hurt, and I’d just kicked her.
“Fuck, Landry. I’m sorry,” I apologized, reaching out to her.
She blinked a few tears from her eyes and then focused on me for a few long seconds.
Her mouth fell open, and she stared at me in awe. “You’re awake!”
And then she was throwing herself forward.
Before I could so much as get my mouth open to demand her to tell me what was wrong, she was on me.
The minute she hit my chest, her face burying itself in the crook of my neck, her tears started coming faster. So fast that I could feel them running down my neck and curling around my shoulder blade to disappear into the sheet beneath my battered and bruised body.
A battered and bruised body that felt like it’d been run over by a log truck and every single log it had been hauling had broken free and rolled over me as well.
“I’m so glad that you’re all right,” Landry whispered. “They called me to tell me you were shot. Apparently, I’m still listed as your medical emergency contact. I raced up here, and they’d already taken you to surgery. You scared the crap out of me.”
I had hundreds of questions looming through my brain that I wanted answers to.
The first question was, why was she here, not only beside me but half on my bed? Secondly, did she still love me like I loved her? Three, was that what it took? Me getting hurt for her to talk to me other than a few civil words here and there as I helped her with the daycare?
She hadn’t held an actual conversation with me in the time that we’d been separated.
My thoughts then progressed into what should have been my first question, what had happened to me? And the last thoughts, why the hell did it feel so good to have her in my arms? Did she feel the same way when I touched her?
My mind had been thrown into turmoil with the thought that Landry was here beside me. So, finally, I settled with asking the question that was bothering me the most.
“What happened to your hand?” I rasped.
My voice didn’t sound like it usually did, and I had it answered moments later as to why.
“Don’t talk too much,” she ordered. “They just took the tube out of your throat that was helping you breathe. Are you feeling okay?”
She hadn’t answered my question, which made me nervous.
I wouldn’t be answering any of her questions until she answered mine first.
“What happened to your hand?” I repeated.
When she went to pull away, I latched onto the long hair that was laying on my shoulder, holding her in place.
I saw her eyes dilate, and I knew what she was thinking.
I fucking loved her long hair. It was one of my favorite things about her.
When she was around—when we were married of course—her hair was always touching me in some way.
If I was close enough to her, my hand was wrapped around her braid, or my fingers were sifting through her ponytail. God, I loved it. There was something about having her hair in my hand that made me feel comforted, and I couldn’t tell you why.
And it always would.
Just like I’d always love her.
“I don’t know,” she hesitated. “The doctors said not to get you riled up. I have a feeling if I told you, you may get upset.”