All three of the boys nod and with that, Milo’s parents disappear through the big double doors of the hospital, leaving us all to settle back into our seats and wait the long agonizing hours before we finally get to check on him.
The exhaustion of my wild emotions has me falling into a fitful sleep on Colton’s shoulder, which is only possible due to the safety net he gives me with his arms wrapped tightly around me.
I’m woken three hours later to Colton’s soft murmuring, telling me that it’s time to go and see Milo. I peel myself off his shoulder, feeling as though I could still sleep for another ten hours. I’ve never felt so emotionally drained like this, but right now, there are more important things that I need to do.
I climb off Colton’s lap and he gets up behind me, slipping his hand back into mine as the four of us start making our way to the big double doors his parents had only disappeared through a few hours ago.
We walk down the hallway, studying the numbers on the door until Spencer stops in front of room 482. He steps into it and lightly raps on the door before pushing it open and peeking inside the room, either checking that this is the right room and if it is, that he’s good for visitors.
After a moment that seems to last forever, Spencer pushes the door wider and we all trail in behind him. The room is filled with clinical light and has that clean hospital smell that reminds me of death, but I put it to the back of my mind the second I lay my eyes on my best friend.
He looks like death.
I’ve never seen Milo so down.
He gives us all a small smile that doesn’t hit his eyes and as we finish pouring into the room, his parents walk out, giving us space to check on our friend.
Spencer awkwardly hovers by his side, staring over his new boyfriend in horror while Charlie hovers in the back, not as close as the rest of us. Colton stands by my side as I walk right up to Milo and look over his injuries.
His eye is black and nearly swollen shut while his usually beautiful face is covered in dark bruising of the deepest blues and blacks. His arm is in a cast and his neck scraped. The rest of his body is covered with blankets but I don’t doubt that it’s just as bad under there.
I gently lift his hand into mine, fighting back the tears. “Who did this?” I whisper, not sure if he can handle anything louder.
He groans at the slight movement in his hand but doesn’t try to pull away from my touch. “I …” he starts then gently shakes his head. “I don’t know, but they called me a fag.”
Everything inside of me shatters as he confirms exactly what we thought it was. Colton moves in a little closer to my side. “We’re going to catch the bastard,” he promises. “He won’t get away with it.”
“Two,” he grumbles. “Two guys. They made jokes about double-teaming me.”
Spencer growls, curling his hands into fists before dropping down to his knees beside Milo’s bed to be as close as physically possible. “I’m going to fucking kill them,” he declares, looking right into Milo’s eyes.
Milo nods but the movement has him cringing in pain. “Don’t try to move,” I say, all but diving on him to get him to lay still. “It’ll get better soon. How are you feeling? Do you need more pain meds?”
“I’m fine,” he grunts, his usual chirpiness a thing of the past. He looks to Colton and then to Charlie. “There’s security footage of that section of the property. My parents haven’t thought of it yet, but you could beat them to it before they find it and discover the reason why I was attacked.”
Charlie nods and quickly glances at Colton, knowing he’d be able to somehow get access to those tapes. “We’ll handle it.”
With that, the boys start to leave but Milo stops them as he looks up at Spencer. “You should go with them.”
“What? No. I’m staying right here.”
Milo cringes as he shakes his head. “Go,” he insists. “You’re not going to be able to think until this is handled. Go find the fuckers who did this, settle the score, and then come back to me. I'll be fine with Ocean until then. They weren’t wearing anything to cover their faces so you should find them pretty fucking fast.”
Spencer glances at me and it’s almost like a warning that if I was to even leave this room while he’s not here that I’ll be suffering the same consequences as the fuckers who hurt him in the first place. “I swear,” I tell him. “I won’t leave this room. Not even to pee.”
Spencer glances back at Milo with a heavy sigh. “If anything happens, if you need anything…”
“I know,” Milo groans. “I’ll call. Just go and handle this.”
Spencer glances back at us and very quickly drops down to Milo and brushes the softest kiss over his lips before walking out the door with Charlie and Colton behind him.
“Now, you,” Milo says, forcing my attention right back to him. “Get that fucking chair and drag it over here. You’ve been gone for three days and I want to know everything that’s been going on.”
I do as I’m told and as I’m dragging the chair over, I meet his eyes. “Everything?” I question. “Because I’m not sure that you can handle everything at the moment.”
“Shit,” he says. “Is it that bad?”
“Fucking worse than bad.”
“How is it that those fucking idiots keep fucking everything up? What the fuck did they do this time?”
“Only one of them,” I warn him with a heavy sigh, feeling the raw emotions of the last twenty-four hours creeping up on me. I settle into the chair beside his bed and prepare to tell him every last thing that has gone down over the past day. “You’ll never guess what fucking moron decided it’d be a good idea to propose.”
His one good eye goes wide and just like that, we fall into conversation without a single detail being spared until the boys finally return, each of them with bruised and bloodied knuckles, promising that justice has been served.
Chapter 33
I walk out of Milo’s hospital room with Colton, feeling a million times better now knowing that Milo is going to be alright. He has a long recovery ahead of him, but the second the boys returned with the news that his attackers were left hardly breathing, his spirits brightened right up.
He hadn't quite hit the usual level of Milo-ness that he generally functions at, but by the end of our visit, I could see him slowly beginning to return. Plus, the nurse came in and hit him with some pretty strong drugs so that could definitely have something to do with it.
Milo is generally a happy guy with high spirits so long as he holds onto that and doesn’t let this attack bring him down, he should be able to heal a lot quicker. There’s nothing better for a healing body than a healthy mind and with me and the boys at his side, he’s going to be alright.
Though, the fact that he told me where to find his porn stash, glitter, and sex toys, and then gave me the password for his computer to wipe his browsing history says a lot. His dramatic flair was back and that told me everything I needed to know. Milo is going to be back to bugging me as often as he can in no time.
We stayed in his room all through the night and it wasn't until the early hours of this morning that the nurses finally got sick of us and kicked us out, insisting that Milo needed to rest—despite his objections. But she was right, the door hadn’t even closed behind us before Milo passed out.