Page 40 of Only for Love

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Grayson

Aches and pains. It’s the only thing I can register. That, and my tongue feels like sandpaper. Slowly, I blink my eyes open. Everything is white. Searing light streams through a window. I look down and around. I’m in bed. In a hospital? Equipment is on both sides of me, monitors hooked to my arms and chest. Taking a deep breath, I turn and—oh, damn. Pain slices through my side. I moan, fight to catch my breath, and drop back.

My mind struggles to find the missing pieces, and a headache throbs. Dark flashes of action and memories of the insurgent attack—the voices, the screams. Everyone’s dead. Everyone… except me? Empty clips and useless weapons. By the time the extraction team arrived, I was the last man standing.

Constant pain consumes me. Gunshot wound? The memory of exploding pain surfaces. What else… broken ribs? Cracked bones? Have to be, because I can’t breathe. But still, I’m alive. Out of everyone, why me?

Emma.

I shake my head. A cold sweat drenches me. I had begged God to let me make it right. To stay alive and see my girl. A desperate shudder runs through me. It’s too late. It has to be. It’s been three fuckin’ years since I last saw her. They’ve been hell. I bitched out on a shot at love, at happiness. She’s not my girl. Not anymore.

All alone, I come apart.

Emma would’ve waited for me after basic, would’ve waited through these goddamn deployments. I’m a self-fulfilling fuckin’ prophecy. I’m everything Pops expected: a piece of shit, not good enough to do anything but ruin lives, ruin myself. I’ve been out fightin’ and doing my damnedest to forget that I love her. That I was too pussy, too jacked in the head to mumble the word “good-bye” and hope that she’d wait.

Nausea hits me. Regret shreds me. Emma’s moved on. Why wait for a man who never came back to bed? A girl like her probably has a boyfriend. Or a husband? Bile burns my throat. My hands tear into my hair, and my pain spikes again. How had I never thought about her moving on?

“You’re up!” A nurse walks in, heading for a bottle on the wall, and snaps me from a nervous breakdown. She squirts sanitizer on her hands, rubs them together, then snaps on gloves. “Time to take a look at your side, honey.”

I groan, hands still in my hair.

“You okay? Remembering again?” She sits on a rolling chair and scoots over.

“What?”

“Memory still foggy? That’s the painkillers. Give it a few minutes. The cobwebs will disappear.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t remember this woman. Flashbacks hit me… cracked ribs. Discharge papers. Maybe? I can’t remember what’s real, what’s a dream.

With a few well-practiced moves, the nurse lifts the covers, moves my gown, re-bandages me, and smiles. “Looks great. Probably still feels awful. I’ll let the doctors know you’re up, okay? And your girl.”

My girl? “She’s here?”

The nurse smiles again and snaps off her gloves. “Arrived a bit ago. She’s a wild one, that’s for sure.”

Wild one? Oh… no. Shit. “Um—”

“Grayson!” Behind the nurse, in walks crazy Mazie. That’s a face I could never forget. “You’re awake.”

“Maze—”

“I’ve been waiting forever for you to wake up.”

The nurse heads for the door. “Well, I’ll let you two be.”

“Wait, no.” But my words are muffled by Mazie’s smothering hug. “Ow, shit, Maze. That hurts.”

She finally pops up. “Hey, you.”

This can’t be happening. My head’s pounding. When I left Emma and ended up at basic training at Fort Benning, then stationed in the same place, I spent enough time with Mazie that we became close friends. She was one of the boys and always knew what was in my head. I told her, probably too many times, that I was in love with Emma.

Sitting up, I ignore the sense of loss that I woke up to her, not Emma. “You have to stop telling people we’re getting married.”

“That lines always works.” She shrugs. “Gets me in the door. I was worried about you.”

I nod.

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