I move fast, shrugging out of my hoodie and wrapping the sleeves tightly around his upper arm. My fingers shake as I pull the fabric tight, knotting it into a makeshift tourniquet.
As I tighten it, Ashton hisses in pain.
“Sorry,” I say, my stomach twisting at the thought of hurting him. “I gotta stop the bleeding.”
Luke grabs Ashton’s uninjured arm, looping it around his shoulder. “I’m gonna help you stand now.”
With a grimace, Ashton is pulled to his feet. I slide an arm around his waist, steadying him as he hobbles toward Luke’s truck. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, his head drooping in a way that makes my stomach tighten with dread. My hoodie, tied around his arm, is already soaked through with blood, the gray fabric a deep crimson.
“Sit in the back with him,” Luke shouts, yanking open the door. “Make sure he stays awake.”
We carefully lift him into the back seat of the truck. Ashton groans and curses through the pain, his body folding in on itself as I hold him against my chest. Luke guns the engine, zipping through the orchard so fast the trees blur past in streaks of shadow and light.
I cradle his face, brushing dried tears from his cheeks with my thumb. “Stay with me, baby,” I whisper. “We’re gonna get you help. You’re gonna be fine.”
His eyes flutter, half-lidded, as they meet mine. His skin is cold and clammy, damp from lying on the ground and coated in dirt and dew. He’s shivering.
“Troy,” he murmurs, each word slow and heavy. “I… love you.”
I inhale sharply. He wouldn’t be saying this out loud if he were fully aware of what’s happening—if he was conscious enough to understand we aren’t alone. I catch Luke’s brief glance in the rearview mirror, knuckles white as he grips the wheel, his eyes flicking toward us with something unreadable.
I tuck Ashton’s hair behind his ear and press a trembling kiss to his forehead. “I love youtoo,” I whisper.
A weak, loopy smile curls across his lips, and his eyes drift closed in my arms. I brush my palm over his cheek, feeling the coldness of his skin, the absence of its usual warmth.
My fingers are still streaked red, soaked with the blood of the man I love.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Troy
Thehospitalroomistoo quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet—just the heavy, sterile kind that makes every little sound feel too loud. The faint hum of the fluorescent lights. The distant squeak of a rolling cart in the hallway. The steady beep of the monitor beside Ashton’s bed.
I sit hunched on the stiff vinyl sofa against the wall, elbows braced on my knees.
My eyes haven’t left Ashton once.
Luke sits beside me, leaning back with his arms crossed, but the tension in him is obvious. Every few seconds his foot taps against the floor. He keeps gnawing at his fingernails, leaving them chipped and bitten down to stubs.
An IV runs into the back of Ashton’s hand, clear fluid dripping steadily through the line. His right arm is wrapped in a thick cast and supported in a sling across his chest. I remember the doctor explaining it before they wheeled him into surgery—something about the radial bone being broken in three places.
I blacked out as soon as she started mentioning plates and screws. A dangerous amount of blood loss. A few fractured ribs.
All I really heard was that the love of my life was hurting… and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fix it.
Now he lies in the hospital bed looking more fragile than I’ve ever seen him. My gentle giant seems unusually small right now, swallowed up by the blankets, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. His face is pale against the white pillow, his lipsdry and chapped. His hair fans messily across the pillowcase, a few strands falling over his forehead.
I want to reach over and run my fingers through it like I always do, but I can’t. Not with his entire family here.
Mark sits near the door, rigid in a plastic chair, slowly flipping through aFarmer’s Lifemagazine. His expression is blank, his jaw set tight, carved from stone. Debbie sits beside him, knitting quietly. The softclick-clickof the needles fills the silence between the monitor beeps.
The rest of Ashton’s siblings stepped out a little while ago to grab food in the cafeteria. Olivia drove down from Shelby Harbor the second she heard what happened.
I’ve been here the whole time. And I know it probably looks strange—Ashton’s “friend” sitting on the couch, staring at him like the world might end if he stops breathing.
Maybe Ashton wouldn’t even want me here. Like always, he’d probably worry about what people might think.
