“Because Maddox Locke is cooler, and it makes me smile. Maddox Locke is funny. He told me that one day I’m going to be a big boy and I need to watch how Daddy acts so that I can be the bestest man in the whole world, just like Daddy. He says it’s the key to being a superhero. Maddox Locke keeps his secrets all locked up. He told me that. But sometimes he unlocks his secrets and tells me some. So he’s my Maddox Locke.”
I have to take my eyes off the road and look at him. I’ve never noticed him and Maddox having conversations long enough for all that. Maddox is, for the most part, quiet and pensive. I’ve always known that he holds some deep pain, and while it’s no secret with the girls that he’s got a seriously secret soft side, this is the first I’ve heard of him and Cohen bonding like this.
“You know, he might be onto something there.”
“I know.”
I smile, focusing my attention back on the road when we finally start making some progress through the intersection that’s been backed up for a while now.
“Uh, they need to do something about all this traffic,” I mutter under my breath. They’ve been working on this intersection for what seems like years. The light that was a last-ditch effort to relieve some of the congestion seems to be making it worse. No one pays attention to anything.
Right when I’m about to cross over the intersection, I hear a loud horn followed by Cohen’s scream in the backseat. Checking the car in front of me, seeing that it’s a good distance ahead, I don’t even get my eyes to the rearview to check the one following before I see it.
Just out of the corner of my eye, I see the flash of red before I hear the twisting, bending, moaning, and screaming sounds of metal and glass colliding. I can feel the tiny pieces of glass that fly from my window piercing my skin. My seatbelt pulls tight and digs into my skin. Every inch of my left side is on fire, burning in a way that makes my vision dim.
It takes only a second, but in that second, I think about the little boy in the backseat, praying that he’s okay and unharmed. I pray that the little girls still growing in the safety of my belly aren’t affected. And I think about the handsome man who isn’t going to be okay if anything happens to his family.
“Co-hen . . .” I gasp when the car stops moving. My brain fights to understand where I am and why I can’t open my eyes. Fighting every single fiber in my being that tells me to just let go and fade away.
I struggle to stay awake; I try to fight the pain and the fear. I beg my body to move, to stop just lying here and get to Cohen. He needs me, and I need to know he’s okay.
I know it isn’t going to be long now. I can feel my body slowly going numb, and the overwhelming pain starts to wash away when each part of my body becomes a stranger to me. My eyes keep rolling around in my head like they aren’t attached anymore. My vision fades from color to black and gray, the webs of nothingness closing in and pulling me away.
“No . . . Co . . . hen . . . love.”
Right before I feel the numbness crawl into my head, I hear the sweetest sound in the world.
I hear Cohen return my love. And even though he’s crying, I know he’s alive and that he knows that I love him.
CHAPTER 9
Greg
The ride to the hospital is a complete and total wash. I don’t see a single mile. I don’t feel anything except soul-crushing pain. My family, my reason for living, is beyond my reach, and I wasn’t there when they needed me.
My mind passed rational thinking about ten miles ago. Beck’s words still echo like a badly scratched CD through my mind.
Accident.
It doesn’t look good.
Airlifted.
I can feel the fear taking over. It doesn’t matter how many times I beg and plead, pray and beg some more, I feel like I lost a piece of myself when he spoke those words.
Not knowing and fearing the worst but grasping on to that sliver of hope that keeps bursting through the darkness is the only thing keeping me from crumbling.
That and knowing that Cohen’s going to need me . . . and I’m going to need him.
“We’re almost there, brother.”
Axel doesn’t need me to respond. Hell, I’m not even sure if I could at this point.
The second I see the turn off for the hospital, I sit a little straighter in the seat. When I see the brick of the building pop through the trees, I lift my hand to the door handle. The second I feel his truck slowing, I unsnap my belt. And right when I see the doors to the emergency room, my door’s released and I jump from the cab.
Luckily, Axel had already been slowing when I leaped from his moving truck, so there wasn’t any resistance when I landed and took off at a dead sprint for the glass doors.
I can hear Axel screaming and cursing behind me, but I don’t even pause. My body is driving me since my mind refuses to think. The only thought I’m capable of at this point is finding my boy and then my wife.
The little old lady sitting at the desk visibly shrinks back when I all but break down the wall to get into the hospital. Her eyes widen for a second before she catches herself and wipes her expression clear.
“Can I help—”