But this was something else. Where my grandmother was coming apart at the seams, there was nothing holding him together. His chaos was etched into every inch of him. His hair was wild around his shoulders, tangled as if he’d been almost ripping it out. The veins atop his scarred arms pulsed. His face was painted in pure violence.
Until his eyes met mine.
He was across the room in two strides. My father actually scuttled from my bedside. He had no idea Gage was mine; all he saw was a biker with death in his eyes striding toward his daughter’s hospital bed. But still he stepped aside. And I didn’t blame my father for that.
The Devil himself would’ve stepped aside.
Gage reached my bed and my body responded to him violently.
But he didn’t touch me.
He just stood there shaking, eyes running over me. No, eyes clinging to me, as if I was the only thing keeping him topside.
“Who is that man? Should we call security?” I heard my mother hiss.
“Probably,” my grandmother said. “If only for the entertainment of seeing Gage snap him in two.” She sighed. “But they need privacy, and as much as I want to ignore that need and watch the show, I’m feeling charitable.”
“What?” my mother demanded. “I’m not leaving my daughter in a room with him.”
Grandma laughed. “You’ll have a hard time with her leaving a room without him. Let’s talk about this over terrible hospital food. Come on now, shoo.”
I didn’t even look to the slight scuffle, imagining my grandmother shooing my parents from the room. There wasn’t much fight. Battle. Not because they were bad parents but because they didn’t fight. Or battle. They just accepted life.
Normal.
“Gage,” I whispered, my voice throaty, echoing in the room my parents had long since left.
He’d spent the time just standing there, fists clenched at his sides, staring at me.
He flinched when I spoke.
Flinched.
“This is ’cause of me,” he said, sounding more hopeless than I’d ever heard him.
“What are you talking about? Because unless you poisoned me, which you wouldn’t because that’s far too subtle for you, then this is not your fault.”
The doctors who’d visited me the second I woke up told me I’d been poisoned. Obviously my mother lost it at that. I’d just nodded.
My grandmother had smiled, but there was a lot of pain in the faux show of happiness. “Only the most fabulous people get poisoned.”
My parents had been demanding to know how I, their safe and logical child, could be poisoned.
Then Gage had come in, explaining everything and nothing.
Likely my grandmother was doing her best to tell them, hopefully the bare minimum.
Pain saturated Gage’s eyes. And guilt. Similar to what laid behind them when he told me about his daughter, but different.
“It fuckin’ is. I did fuckin’ poison you. The second I put you on the back of my bike.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I thought we’d gone over this. It was my choice to get on that bike, and I thank the powers that be every day for that. You’re tarnishing me by loving me, Gage. And you’re not pushing me away again.” It took a lot for me to put strength into those words, considering I was barely recovered enough to stand on my own two feet, but I would’ve used the last of my life to make sure Gage went nowhere.
His fists tightened. “No, babe, I won’t. No matter if it is the best thing for you.”
“Gage, don’t make me get out of this hospital bed and smack you,” I said through my teeth.
He grinned. “Would like to see that, but I’ll fuckin’ smack you if you move while you’re still healin’.” His eyes held promise.
And though I’m sure it wasn’t the intention, my core clenched at that promise.
“Lauren,” Gage bit out. “You’re not allowed to look at me like that not only when I can’t fuck you, but when I’m trying to tell you somethin’ serious.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You were poisoned by a woman named Jade.”
I froze. Because like when he’d told me about Missy, there was a lot more to the words.
“We used to date in LA,” he continued. “No, we used to fuck.”
I flinched at the words and the images that came with them. I already hated Jade, if not for poisoning me then for having me conjure that image.
Gage clenched his jaw at my flinch but continued. “Was a crazy time for me in general. Got caught up with her. ’Cause she was dangerous, and not in the good ways like you. She was gonna destroy me, one way or another, because she was part of a street gang that made me look well-adjusted. I realized that the second I laid eyes on the bitch. Guess she was a suicide wish wrapped in a woman’s body.” He shrugged. “Even though things were as good as they could be with the club, my brothers were still bad. Was a weak moment, a weak collection of moments adding up to ten years. I was tired. So fucking tired of it all. So I toyed with destruction, and I toyed with her. It was toxic. Nasty. She was the human version of heroin, and I got addicted for a while. Not because she made me feel anything, but because she made me feel nothing.”