“Go sit down,” Aleck ordered, coming up behind him. “I’ll make you some eggs and a protein shake.”
Both sounded awesome, and Mustang turned to go join his other teammates. Then a memory niggled at his brain, and he stopped in his tracks. “Fuck. Ashlyn. Where’s my phone?”
“Sit,” Aleck ordered. “Before you fall on your face.”
Slate ignored him. “Where’s my fucking phone?” he asked again.
“I’ve got it,” Mustang said, coming up next to him. But instead of handing him the phone, he put his hand on Slate’s shoulder. “Sit down. You can call Ashlyn in a minute.”
A feeling of dread descended. “What’s wrong?”
“Come. Sit. Down,” Mustang repeated, making it clear he wasn’t fucking around. “We’ll talk, then you can call Ash.”
“Is she okay?” Slate asked as he let his friend lead him toward the couch.
Looking at Midas for any kind of clue about what the fuck was going on only made Slate more anxious. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a look of pity on his friend’s face.
Shit shit shit!
“Okay, so…what do you remember from the moments before the RPG hit?” Mustang asked.
Slate took a deep breath. “Yelling at you guys to get the hell out, turning back to grab the kid. I couldn’t in good conscience leave him there.”
“Even though he was the one who gave the signal to blow the house?” Midas asked.
“Yeah. It was fucking stupid, I know,” Slate said. “But he was a kid. What, seven or eight?”
“A kid raised to hate Americans and with the ideology that it’s better to die for the Taliban than to live as a coward,” Mustang added.
Slate pressed his lips together. His team leader was right, but Slate knew if he had to do it all over again, he probably would’ve done things exactly the same.
“Right, moving on. Then what?” Mustang asked.
“Waking up in the clinic. Arguing with the doctor about going to Germany. Bits and pieces here and there about the flight. Concentrating on getting here. On lying down. Then you and Elodie prodding me awake, feeding me. That’s about it.”
Midas and Mustang shared a look that Slate did not like.
“What am I missing?” Slate asked.
“I talked to Pid. He was sitting next to you on the plane, making sure you kept breathing, shit like that,” Mustang said.
Slate winced. He should’ve stayed in the base clinic longer. Should’ve gone to Germany. He hated the position he’d put his friends in. But Mustang was still talking, so he didn’t have time to dwell.
“He said that as soon as the plane started to descend, you pulled out your phone and called Ashlyn.”
Slate stiffened. He’d called Ash? Fuck. He didn’t remember that at all. She must’ve been freaking out. “What’d I say to her?” He hated that he had to ask, but his friends already understood he didn’t remember much of the last two days.
“Pid said that you told her you were back, or almost back, and that you’d been hurt, but were okay. Said you were going home, that I’d be looking after you, and you’d talk to her later.”
Slate waited, but when Mustang didn’t continue, he mentally sighed in relief. That didn’t sound so bad. The way his friends were acting, he thought maybe he’d told Ashlyn he never wanted to see her again or something.
Aleck walked into the room and braced his hands on the back of the couch. “He doesn’t get it,” he said to nobody in particular.
“If you’d all quit beating around the fucking bush and just spit out what the hell you think I said that was so bad, maybe we can get this over with so I can call my girlfriend,” Slate seethed. The throbbing in his head was back, but he ignored it.
“You told your girlfriend you’d been hurt on a mission. That you had a concussion. And that Mustang would be looking out for you,” Midas repeated. “From what Pid understood from your side of the conversation, she volunteered to come over and nurse you back to health, and you said no. That you’d call her tomorrow…which, by the way, was yesterday. And in case it’s escaped your notice, you didn’t call her. You were knocked the fuck out because your brains had been scrambled in your skull, and you were too stubborn to get the proper care for yourself.”
Slate stared at his friend. Over the years, he and his teammates had gotten into plenty of arguments, but he couldn’t remember ever hearing any of them sounding as pissed at him as Midas was at the moment.
“I tried to call her, hoping to explain, but she didn’t answer. You and Ashlyn might only be fuck buddies, but that was a shitty way to treat her,” Midas finished.
Slate clenched his hands into fists. He didn’t like Ashlyn being referred to that way.
“If I had been hurt, and I’d called Elodie and told her Jag would be looking after me, how do you think that would make her feel?” Mustang asked in a far more mild tone. “And don’t give me any bullshit about us being married either,” he continued.
“She hasn’t called,” Midas informed Slate. “She hasn’t texted Lexie. As far as we know, she hasn’t gotten in touch with anyone. Probably because her boyfriend, who she’d been friends with for months before the change in relationship status, was deployed, and he called to tell her he was hurt but that no, he didn’t want her to come see him. That his friend would be there for him instead.”
“And she had to know that Elodie wasn’t going to sit at home and wait for me,” Mustang added quietly. “That she would rush over here to see me…and thus would help take care of you.”
Slate swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Fuck.
“He’s finally getting it,” Midas sighed.
Slate opened his eyes and met Midas’s gaze. “Give me my phone.”
“Slate, most of us have tried to call her. To explain that you made light of your injuries and what happened, but she’s been…evasive.” Midas spoke far more gently now.
“If I have to ask one more time for someone to give me my fucking phone, I’m not gonna be happy,” Slate said between clenched teeth. He wasn’t happy now, but that was beside the point.
Mustang held out Slate’s cell phone.
He leaned forward and grabbed it. Slate immediately saw a whole string of text notifications from the last day and a half. Lexie, Kenna, Monica, Carly, his other teammates…hell, even Baker wanted to know if he was all right.
There was one from Ashlyn. Just one. And it was short and impersonal, saying that she hoped he was feeling better.
Swallowing hard, he clicked on Ashlyn’s name. He stood up and walked back toward his bedroom. He loved his friends, but the last thing he wanted was them eavesdropping on this conversation.
Slate wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or pissed when Ashlyn didn’t answer. The sound of her voice on her voice mail made him long to see her even more. After the beep sounded, Slate left a message. “It’s me, Ash. I need to talk to you. Please call me back as soon as you get this.”
He hung up and paced restlessly back and forth across his room. He needed to fix this. He’d fucked up. Yes, he’d been out of his mind with pain and didn’t even remember much that happened after he’d hit his head, but if Ashlyn had been injured, he’d be going crazy with worry for her. The fact that she hadn’t stormed his castle, so to speak, let Slate know just how upset she was.