I lost sight of Merry behind me. Then my wrists were lifted, I heard the snap of a knife cutting through plastic, and my wrists were freed.
I turned, going back for Ryker’s pulse as Merry shifted, crouching across from me, shoving my hand aside and reaching in himself.
Colt, Mike, Tanner, Cal, and Sully came into my kitchen.
“Shit,” Sully whispered, eyes to Ryker.
Colt got close and crouched.
“Pulse. Weak,” Merry muttered. “Cher, get some towels.”
Pulse.
Weak.
Thank God.
I moved out. Mike moved in. By the time I got back with towels, they had Ryker on his back.
Men nabbed towels from me, went for a wound, and pressed.
I felt a hand on my arm and looked up at Cal.
He had one of my kitchen towels. He turned into me and his eyes watched his hand as he wiped blood off my face. He didn’t take a lot of time doing it before he caught my chin with his fingers and looked into my eyes.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded.
He studied me.
Then he grinned. “Tough chick.”
“You bet your ass.”
He shook his head and dropped his hand.
I started to move to Ryker, catching sight of Tanner as I did.
There wasn’t a lot of room, especially with Ryker’s big body sprawled on my floor, but Tanner was pacing what was left of it, eyes glued to his bud, movements agitated, face set in stone.
They were tight, Tanner and Ryker. And don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew that Tanner was fighting the urge to drill the body on my stoop with more holes.
I went to Ryker’s head and got to my knees. Lifting his head gently, I slid my thighs under it to act as a pillow.
“Merry?” I called.
Merry looked from Ryker to me. “Yeah, Cherie?”
“Jones said he shot Ryan.”
Merry’s mouth got hard and he looked to Colt.
Colt looked to Sully.
Sully pulled out his phone and stepped out of my kitchen.
I turned my attention to Ryker.
“You’re good, brother,” I told him, curling my hands around his neck. “You’re good. You have to be. Alexis is boy crazy and someone has to protect her from teenage pregnancy, and you are the walking, talking anecdote for any boy who wants to get in a girl’s pants, if that girl’s your daughter, that is.”
Ryker, unconscious, said nothing.
My fingers curled in tighter.
“You’re good, brother,” I repeated. “You’ve gotta be good. You got sugar in your bed. What man in their right mind would leave that?”
Ryker just lay there.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t Ryker.
Ryker didn’t just lay there.
He annoyed.
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.