“Fine.” I shrug before I get serious. “What’s going on with him?”
“Doc wants to call hospice in.”
“Shit.” I try to tilt my head enough to see where they are, but I can’t.
“Luckily, when I talked to Remy this morning, she said that it doesn’t seem like Marc is heading this way right now. She said he’s not making any sense, almost like she feels like she keeps missing emails.”
“Why would she be missing emails?”
“I have no idea. She said that’s the weird part. He’s probably just losing it, who knows?” He shrugs but looks up at me, concerned. I nod in our unspoken agreement before walking inside as Ash pulls up in the driveway.
If Marc is becoming unstable, then that makes him more dangerous.
Sitting around the house, shortly after we get here, Oz falls asleep; he’s been in and out all day. Jag has spent most of the time that Oz has been awake, sitting on the bed with him. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Oz happier, and we’ve spent a lot of time together in the last 4 years.
We’ve been here since 9 this morning and it’s now edging closer to 8. Hospice got here around 5. When I talked to the nurse earlier, she said that the meds she’s going to put him on shortly will sedate him. For the next few hours, he won’t be very coherent.
His body has been shutting down for the last couple of days. But he’s been powering through because he’s been spending the last few days with Jagger.
I watch Ella walk out of his room. I can see the redness circling her eyes. She says a few words to Ash; he looks up at her, nods, and then walks towards Oz’s room. I glance over to Jag still asleep on the couch as the door closing piques my interest and I walk out to see her.
“Hey,” I try to keep my voice low, as if not to scare her. She turns and looks at me and for a second, I can see the tears rolling down her face. I hear her swear as she turns around and quickly wipes her face. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve seen you worse.” She actually laughs out. Which makes me smile as I step up to her. “Shit, come here.” I pull her into me and hold her as she buries her face into my chest, just as she had done when I took her to the hospital to see Ash or when I went and picked her up on her birthday.
“What am I going to do?” She whispers. “Why did I stay away so long?” She looks up at me and I ,like always, I just want to take all of her pain away.
“Because you were thinking about Jag.” I tell her. “You were doing what was best for him.”
“But was I?” Her eyes are too large and sad.
“Babydoll,” I whisper back to her, cupping her face in my hands as I force her to look up at me, “yes, you were. Oz will not be upset about that.” She looks up at me, almost thankful for the words that I’m telling her. She doesn’t look away and neither do I. Just continuing to look down at her.
Realizing the situation and the emotions that we are both feeling at the moment, I quickly drop my hands away from her face and she takes a step back. Clearing my throat, I look down at her and nod. “I just wanted to come and make sure you were okay.”
“Thank you, Axe.” She gives me a weak smile before she sits down in the chair on the porch. Pulling her knees up to her chest. I catch movement in the window as Ash walks across the room. He scrubs his hand over his face before he walks out the back door. “The drugs are kicking in.” She whispers, and I know she’s worried about what that means.
“Ella, come on.” I reach down for her, pulling her up even when she objects. Pulling her by her hand, nodding to the rest who are sitting in the living room before we follow Ash out to the backyard. Letting go of Ella’s hand, I then walk over to Ash and nod to him to grab some wood. “Get a fire going.” I tell him before he nods his head. The few times over the last couple of years that Ash and I had really hung out were here, at Oz’s, with a fire in the fire pit. Usually after we were fucking with Jake.
Sometimes it would just be us showing up wherever he was and staring at him. Other times it was a prolonged ass-beating.
Walking back into the house and into Oz’s room, I try to figure out how I’m going to go about this. Pushing the chair in Oz’s room towards the double doors that open up to the backyard, I look. When I stand up, he’s watching me. I jump when I notice. “Fuck, don’t do that.” it causes him to laugh out loud, as much as he can. “Come on,” I walk over to him, and he shakes his head for a second.
“Wait.” It’s a whisper and I can tell that he’s struggling. I hate seeing him like this. “I wanted to talk to you.” He tells me and I pause. “Axe, promise me something.”
“Anything.” I tell him as I fight off the tears that are threatening me.
“I would say take care of them, but I know you already will without me saying anything.” I nod my head.
“Of course.” I’m curious now what it is. “I won’t let anything happen to them.” He nods his head.
“Don’t give up on her.” He looks up at me. “She’s always been tough. She puts up a front, but deep down…” he trails.
“She has the biggest heart.” He nods his head.
“I have no fucking clue how she kept it surrounded by all of us.” It makes me laugh.
“Come on, get up.” I tell him as I reach down and help lift him up.
“Axe, she’s lost so much.”
