Hold On

He got up in your shit.

He threw back drinks and spouted inappropriate crap that made you want to smile and punch him at the same time.

I leaned over him as far as I could get.

“You gotta be good, brother. People like us, Ryker…people like us, we can’t give up. We gotta show the world. We gotta show our kids. We gotta show ’em it’s okay. We gotta show our babies we can do it if we don’t give up. We gotta show ’em it pays off, it comes to you if you got it in you to wade through the shit. You’ll get the good if you don’t give up. You can live it if you just dare to dream.”

I heard the sirens.

I bent even further, my forehead to his.

“You got it all, brother. You finally got it all. Don’t give up,” I whispered.

Ryker said nothing.

He just lay there in a puddle of his own blood on my goddamned kitchen floor.

*

Ryan

He was trying to open his eyes.

All he saw was fuzzy. Blurred.

But he smelled weird stuff. Like he was in a hospital.

He felt nothing.

He blinked slowly, the only way his eyelids would move.

The blur was still there when he was done.

But he felt something.

His hand was squeezed.

Then he heard it.

“You’re good.”

Cheryl.

She was there.

As crazy as it was with all the shit that had happened to them, she was always there.

The best friend he’d ever had.

“You’re good, Ryan,” she whispered. “Rest, brah. Yeah?”

He tried to nod.

He didn’t succeed.

He fell back to sleep.

*

Garrett

Three Days Later

“Well, fuck yeah, of course. Because I am,” Cher declared loudly.

Garrett stood at the door, shoulder to the jamb, and watched his woman move away from the hospital bed. She rounded it and gave Lissa a hug. She went to the chair Alexis was curled into, bent, and kissed her cheek.

Then she moved to Garrett.

Garrett nodded to Lissa, smiled at Alexis, and looked at Ryker in the bed.

When he caught Ryker’s eyes, Ryker lifted his hand, tubes stuck in it.

It took him time, but he finally executed his badass salute.

Lissa ruined it when she grabbed his hand on its descent and tucked it to her belly.

Ryker shook his head on the pillow.

Garrett bit back laughter.

Then he mouthed, I owe you.

After which Ryker did not mouth, “I know.”

That was when Garrett shook his head.

Cher made it to him, grabbed his hand irately, and yanked on it.

He took that and the fact she didn’t stop moving as indication she wanted him to follow.

He held tight to her hand and followed.

He also bit back his smile as they walked and he watched her annoyed profile.

“What are you?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“What are you?”

“What am I?”

“You said to Ryker, ‘of course I am.’ Of course you are what?”

She rolled her eyes and faced forward, still moving.

He tugged her hand and stopped.

She had no choice but to stop with him.

“What are you?” he pushed.

“Mom and Ethan are at your place. It’s been three days. I bought ready-made Christmas cookie dough. I gotta bake that shit, then we got a tree to decorate. But before that, we’re going to the fucking phone store. I’m getting you a new phone and no back talk. It’s your Christmas present. You can use it between now and the big day. I’ll swipe it Christmas Eve, wrap it, and…surprise.”

He ignored all that, though they definitely were hitting the phone store on the way home. Cher just wasn’t buying his new phone. She could buy him something else for Christmas that didn’t cost hundreds of dollars.

Instead, he kept at her.

“What are you?”

She looked at him a beat then looked away. “Colt has a big mouth.”

He tugged her hand again. “Cher.”

Her eyes came back to him. “It was that dare to dream stuff,” she snapped. “Colt told him. Ryker thinks it’s hilarious. He called me a girl.”