“I don’t like the way you’re talking. It sounds so permanent.”
“It’s not. I promise. I’ll be back. Just don’t forget about me while I’m gone.”
“I’m not going to forget you. You’re all I think about. There has to be another way to do this without you just up and leaving.”
I took his hand and gazed into his worried eyes. I desperately wanted to give him what he desired—to put him first. But my life was also hanging in the balance, and I needed to safeguard that too.
“There’s not.”
Bodhi was waiting for me on the other side of the door. We’d never had a conversation where Breeze wasn’t riding shotgun, and I had no idea what to say to him. Bodhi’s fame terrified me in unexplained ways. Sure, RJ was famous too, but because I hadn’t recognized him for the first five months of our rocky relationship, his celebrity status just sort of crept up on me little by little. But Bodhi… he came at me as a fully formed star.
Catching sight of my wary expression, he asked, “Do I scare you?”
“What? No.”
“Okay, because you always look like you’re going to vomit whenever I try to talk to you.”
I laughed because his take on my behavior was totally accurate. Spacing my fingers slightly apart, I held them up for show and tell. “I’m maybe just a little bit scared of you.”
“Well, don’t be. In comparison to RJ, I’m harmless. Hey, listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Have you noticed anything, um… unusual about RJ?”
“Unusual? What do you mean?”
“He’s taking this really well, don’t you think? Almost too well. I mean, he lost his foot, and he’s acting like it’s no big deal.”
“It’s not that it’s no big deal, but he escaped death. It changes you.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I woke up in a fully engulfed building and had to fight my way out. I looked death in the face. I promise you, I know what it feels like.”
His stark response stunned me. Of course I’d read all about his near-death experience in the news, but I supposed you never fully understood what another person had been through.
“I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. Sorry. But you have to understand RJ knew exactly what he was doing in that parking garage. He knew it was his foot or his life. He was very rational about it. I think he’s just grateful to be alive.”
“Sure.” Bodhi nodded, not looking convinced. “But rational and RJ have never gone hand in hand. All I’m saying is, something feels off. The guy I know would not be okay with this.”
The first tiny prickles of concern crept over my skin. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we should probably board up the windows and batten down the hatches because Hurricane RJ is swirling out in the Atlantic, waiting to come ashore.”
“I think you’re not giving him enough credit. You didn’t see the guy in the parking garage. He was calm. Levelheaded.” I pointed to the hospital door. “Just like the guy lying in that bed right now.”
A conflicted-looking Bodhi glanced my way. He was biting down on his lower lip. Clearly, he didn’t agree with my take on things. Either Bodhi was a crappy friend or I was living in a post-apocalyptic fairy-tale world because no way were we talking about the same man.
“Why is this so hard for you to believe?” I asked.
“Look, Dani. I want nothing more than for you to be right. I really do. But you’ve met him. You spent five months with him before the earthquake. You know RJ well enough to know that the levelheaded dude lying in the hospital bed is not him.”
“Um… you forget that I spent five months with the slimy blowfish Chad Woodcock, not RJ.”
Bodhi blinked, his face twisted in surprise.
“Dani,” Bodhi finally said. “That slimy blowfish is RJ. RJ is Chad Woodcock. The guy in there?” He shook his head. “Not RJ.”
The revelation knocked the wind out of me, and I leaned back against the wall. My god. Bodhi was right. What in the living, breathing hell had I been thinking? Of course RJ was Chad. Somehow, in the progression of the unfolding disaster, I’d separated the two in my brain.
RJ, the perfect brave hero.
Chad, the toilet-clogging dipwad.
Two separate entities… but they were one and the same.
Oh, yes, there was most definitely a storm coming… and I was in its direct and destructive path.
26
RJ: Meeting Halfway
I ended the phone conversation with Dani the same way every conversation with her ended. When are you coming home? Pathetic, really… begging for her return. She’d been gone for nearly two weeks, and I’d been home from the hospital for one of them.
She kept promising me she was coming back, but there was a hesitancy in her voice, as if she were just saying what she thought I wanted to hear but didn’t really believe it herself. What was she doing? Her life was here. She had her job, her siblings, me. I could sense her pulling away. I needed to get to Dani to remind her who I was and what I was willing to do to have her. I’d never fought for a woman before, never felt the need or desire, but this was different. This was my future, and she was threatening to strip it away from me.
“Julio,” I called from across the patio. “I need you to drive me to Temecula.”
Julio sighed. “We’ve talked about this, RJ. No traveling long distances in enclosed spaces until the risk of clots has passed.”
“It’s passed. Just take me. Stop being a douche.”
“Not being a douche. I’m doing the job you hired me to do. Now come sit down and rest.”
With the help of my crutches, I crossed the outdoor lounge area in record time and plopped down into an oversized outdoor patio chair.
“Dude,” Julio chastised. “Slow down. You have to protect your knee until you strengthen the muscles.”
“Dude,” I mimicked him. “I sat down. If there’s a way to slow gravity, I’m all ears.”
“Actually, you set the crutches down and use your hands. You don’t need a slide presentation to know that.”
Julio was the new Heather, micromanaging my every move… and I paid him for the privilege. Before discharge from the hospital, I’d convinced him to take a temporary leave from his job to become my live-in nurse for a month while I healed from my injuries. I paid him triple his normal income to live at my estate, take care of my health needs, and not to take my shit like Roland Akers before him. I’d told him at the time of hiring that I wanted him to kick my ass so I could be back on my feet in record time. And he had. With the added support of a physical therapist, I was up and moving pretty damn well on the temporary prosthesis while I waited to be fitted into the permanent one currently on order.
As much as I hated the present contraption, which traveled halfway up my thigh, I knew I was luckier than many who undergo emergency amputations. I’d been young and healthy before the accident, which helped with wound healing. So by the time I was finally released from the hospital, I was able to walk my ass out of there.