“Go home,” Erin said. “Please.” Exhaustion loomed over her, powerful, deceptively frothy at the top, and while she appreciated Jack’s silent, looming, intimidating presence at her bedside, she wasn’t looking forward to the conversation they had to have, right now.
Jason scuttled out, avoiding eye contact with Jack.
He hooked the rolling stool with his foot and sat down beside her bed again. He ran a hand through his hair, then blew out his breath. “Do you want some water? They gave you pills for the pain.”
She’d refused anything with narcotics in it, accepting only prescription-strength over-the-counter medications, but even without codeine, she was getting sleepy. “I’m fine,” she said, and tugged her hand free from him. “You can leave, too. No need for you to hang around.”
His forehead furrowed. “Who’s going to take you home?”
“I’ll call Carol.”
“Okay. Sure. Why?”
She looked down at his hands, still resting beside her arm on the thin hospital blanket. “Let’s not make this into something it isn’t, Jack,” she said quietly. “I’ve done the things I said I was going to do. We should go ahead and end it now.”
Shock flashed across his face before the shutters slammed closed. “Erin, what the hell—”
She refused to flinch, just took his hand because it was the last time she’d ever get to touch him, her amazing, courageous man. “Look, Jack, you’re steady as a rock. Which is great. We’ve both done what we said we needed to do. It’s best if we make a clean break. Right now. Thanks for everything,” she finished, because her throat was closing off, and even though her heart was breaking, she refused to show it.
“Sure,” he said. He straightened, sending the rolling stool back against the wall.
Erin was too strung out to flinch at the crash.
“Fine. Yeah. Whatever. Have a nice life.”
It was a good thing she was so tired, she thought fuzzily as she slid down a long, dark tunnel into sleep. Maybe when she woke up this all would have been a dream.
*
Jack spent the next two days researching and writing his final paper. After he sent the paper to Professor Trask, he turned to his bike. But hours of speeding down tree-lined country roads, catching the glint of animals’ eyes in the ditches as he revved the engine to its max only proved to Jack what he already knew: he was rock solid again. No more nerves. Helping Erin paddle around in an adrenaline junkie’s kiddie pool somehow helped him, too. And now she’d cut him off with only the most pathetic it’s-not-you-it’s-me for a reason.
Finally, around ten, he parked the bike in front of his favorite bar, dug his cell phone from his jacket pocket, and scrolled through his recent calls to Keenan’s number.
“We’re not doing this over the phone,” Keenan said by way of greeting.
“Shut the fuck up and meet me at Jackson’s Hole,” Jack said, shrugging out of his sheepskin jacket. It was officially too warm to wear it now, even after the sun went down. A whiff of Erin’s subtle perfume still clung to the interior. Jack tried not to press his face into it and breath so deep he could fill the hole inside himself.
“Okay,” Keenan said mildly, and hung up.
Jack was three whiskeys in by the time Keenan arrived to toss his car keys and cell phone on the polished oak bar and settle onto a stool. He ordered a beer, then turned his gaze to the baseball game Jack wasn’t really watching.
“How’s Erin?” Keenan asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Jack said. “She kicked me out right after you and Rose left.”
Keenan raised an eyebrow, although at Jack’s statement or the second baseman’s fielding error, Jack wasn’t sure. “That day at the hospital. You weren’t mad about me and Rose. You were upset because someone you cared about was in a motorcycle crash,” Keenan said matter-of-factly.
“I was pretty upset,” Jack said, and knocked back another shot, thinking of red-light districts on four continents. “I know what you’re like.”
“Was like. I’m not like that with her,” Keenan said. “She’s different.”
Jack snorted.
“Dude. Get your fucking head out of your fucking ass. Do you think I’d move halfway around the world just to fuck someone? Knowing it would cost me your friendship? Your respect?”
Jack blinked. Remembered Keenan’s asshole father, the one who prized the military above everything else, and got himself killed taking just one more tour, one more deployment, when he was long past his prime as a Ranger. Remembered how Keenan hadn’t made any plans beyond contractor work in the Middle East. Jack wanted that work, that life. Keenan had been doing it because he thought there was no other option. “Wait, you’re here for Rose?”
“Jobs are jobs,” Keenan said offhandedly, eyes on the game. “I’m here for Rose.”
“Well, fuck.”
“I’m going to marry her,” Keenan added.
“Does she know this?”
“Not yet.”