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Someone got out a machine that popped the doors off the car, and they pulled Hayes out the passenger side. “Hayes!”
His face was coated in blood, and he had a collar on his neck too. “Tally,” he breathed, before his eyes closed again. I tried to stand, to go to him, but Chadwick pushed me back down.
“He’s okay. He’s going to the same place as you, and they’ll let you know when they know more. Now, let’s get you on the board and into the bus.”
They were still working on the driver’s door, and I wanted to vomit when I saw it. It was completely caved in, like a monster had put his foot through it. “Rocco,” I breathed. But then Chadwick was shutting the doors and driving away.
“You have to tell me about my husband, Rocco Passero,” I asked the nurse for the hundredth time.
She patted my hand. “He’s in surgery, but it’s going well. I promise you, Mrs. Passero, as soon as I know more, I’ll let you know.”
Hayes was in the room next door to me, with three broken ribs, a fractured tibia and a concussion. But he was alive. He would heal. They wouldn’t let me see him, but I knew he was okay.
I heard shouting from the halls, and then Jesse was in my room. “Sir, you can’t—Sir, that’s the wrong room!”
Jesse burst toward me with a wild and frantic look in his eyes, and Bobbi-June in her carseat, frowning, her lip jutting out like she was about to cry. “Tally,” he breathed, coming over to the bed and kissing me firmly.
“Mr. Banks, the person we contacted you about is one room over.” A pissy nurse, not mine, appeared in the doorway. She blurred in and out of focus, and I realized I was crying.
“This is my partner. That’s my baby.”
My nurse looked so confused. “Your husband is in surgery.” She was definitely going to give me another cognitive test, like I’d lost my mind.
I nodded, pointing to the next room. “That’s right. And the guy in there is my partner too. Jesse, please, go check Hayes is okay. I need to know.”
He nodded, not asking any more questions as he disappeared into the room next door, taking Bobbi-June with him. The ER administrator who’d chased him down followed along with a sigh.
My nurse came in and took my blood pressure once more. “I think, perhaps, you’re going to have to explain it to me slowly. So the guy who just left is…”
“My boyfriend. Well, more than that. My partner. It’s not a throwaway thing.”
“And the guy next door?”
“Same thing. Also Jesse’s best friend, which is why he was his emergency contact and not me yet. We didn’t expect…” I choked back the sob that wanted to bubble out. “We didn’t expect something like this to happen.”
The nurse patted my hand. “Of course not. Now, the guy in surgery, Rocco Passero, he’s your…”
“Legally wedded husband. I can only marry one of them, but if I could, I would marry all of them.”
The nurse nodded, adjusting everything. “I don’t blame you,” she said conspiratorially. “We’re just waiting for your scans to come back, but everything looks good.”
I still didn’t know what had happened. One second, we’d been waiting for a train to pass, and the next, we were on the tracks and in its path.
My brain was given the all-clear, and my nurse walked me next door into Hayes’s room, giving me another chair even though it was against policy. He looked way worse than me, his face all swollen and a cast on his leg. I burst into tears.
“Fuck, Tally. Fuck. I’m so thankful you’re okay,” he breathed, though it was slurred because his face was swollen. “Come here.” I gently laid my head on his, trying not to touch him too much and hurt him more than he’d already been hurt. “I heard you yelling about Rocco. Any word?”
I shook my head, the hollow pain in my chest making me fear the worst. I looked over at Jesse, who was holding Bobbi-June, though the baby was still frowning. I kissed her face over and over and over as I cried. It had been so fucking close. So close.
“I love you, baby. So, so, so much. Both of you.” I shifted to kissing Jesse, and he returned it with the taste of fear and pain on his lips. He looked like he’d aged a hundred years.
“I’ll take her outside and feed her, and call Rafa. Rocco’s family will want to know what happened and that he’s in surgery.”
I nodded, kissing him hard on the lips once more. “Call Will and Colin too.” He stood, and even just the idea that they’d be out of my sight made anxiety climb up my throat. “I love you so fucking much, Jesse,” I told him. I would tell him every two minutes, because for a split second, there’d been a chance I could never tell him again.
Just as he stood, two uniformed cops knocked at the door. “Tally Palmer-Passero? Hayes Davis?” I nodded. “We’d just like to ask you a couple of questions.”
FORTY-SIX
