Changing Lanes (Devil's Knights 2nd Generation Book 4), page 10
Bristol’s light laughter floated into the bathroom. “No guarantees, Pie.”
I glanced in the mirror and was surprised to see the huge smile on my face. Bristol was the one who put that there. She made me happy even when she was just lying in bed, exhausted.
Washcloth in hand, I walked back in the bedroom, planted a knee on the bed, grabbed the covers, and exposed Bristol’s naked body. I gently wiped the cloth over her breasts and stomach. My desire for Bristol rose again even though I had just had her twice.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered.
My hand froze, and my eyes connected with hers. “Do what?” She was the one who had told me she was sticky and needed to be wiped down.
“Look at me.”
I was looking at her. “Babe.” Did she want me not to look at her?
She sighed and covered her eyes with her arm again. “You look at me like I’m what you want, Pie. Please don’t do that. Don’t look and say things you don’t mean.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I growled. Every word that came out of my mouth when I was with her was the God’s honest truth.
She moved her arm and a tear streaked down Bristol’s cheek. “Just please don’t do this if you don’t want to. Don’t be here just because you don’t have anything else to do.”
I was here because I wanted to be. It wasn’t like Bristol was begging me to be here. Right now, a fucking hurricane couldn’t drag me away. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“I just do, Pie,” she whispered. “That’s how this always is.”
“You think I’m like all of those other assholes who have been in your life?” Why in the fuck would she think that?
“I don’t know, Pie. I just want you to know if you change your mind about being here, please don’t stay.”
I tossed the washcloth on the floor, swung my leg over Bristol’s, and caged her in with my arms. “I’m gonna say this one fucking time, and you better fucking hear me.”
Another tear streaked down her cheek. “I’m listening,” she whispered.
“I’m here because I fucking want to be.” I leaned down and pressed my lips to her chest. “You didn’t call me up and beg me to come over.” I trailed kisses up her neck to her ear. “I could have easily driven past you and not even thought of stopping.” My lips brushed against the lobe of her ear. “I hollered for Frost to turn around. I chose to walk up to your window and knock. No one but me made those choices. I made those choices because I want to be here. I want to feel your body next to mine. I. Want. To. Be. Here.” I pressed a kiss to her skin after each word.
“Pie,” she whispered.
“Brock,” I growled. “Call me Brock.” I normally hated my name, but with Bristol, I wanted her to feel like she was special to me. I wanted her to have a connection to me that only family had.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to call you that. You’re Pie to me.”
“No, I’m not,” I insisted. “My family calls me Brock, and that’s what you’re going to call me.”
Bristol opened her mouth to argue, but my phone rang.
“You better get that,” she whispered.
I didn’t want to answer it. I didn’t care if the fucking president was calling me. They weren’t more important than Bristol.
I shook my head. “I’m not answering it. We’re talking right now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
The phone stopped ringing, but ten seconds later, it started again.
“Answer the phone, Pie.”
“No,” I grunted. “It’s probably Zig and Zag wanting to go toilet paper King’s house again. I can talk to them in the morning.”
Bristol pushed me off her. “I doubt they would call you twice.” She rolled out of bed to grab the phone, but it stopped ringing before she could grab it.
“I don’t care who it is, Bristol,” I grunted.
Before she could argue with me again, the damn thing was ringing again. She snatched it off the nightstand and connected the call. She pressed it to her ear. “Hello?” she called. She listened and then told whoever it was who she was.
“Hang up the phone, Bristol,” I called.
She shook her head and held up her hand to me. “Uh, where?” she asked.
What the hell was she doing? Where what? “Who is it?” I asked.
“Uh, I’ll make sure he heads that way right now.” Bristol listened for another second and then ended the call. “You needed to get dressed right now,” she shouted at me.
“Wait? What?” I rolled off the bed. “Who the hell was that?” I asked.
“That was Hero. Uh, you need to go to the hospital.” Bristol tossed the phone to me. She snatched her panties off the floor and stepped into them.
“Why am I going to the hospital?” I looked down at my phone and saw I did have three missed calls from Hero.
Bristol pulled her panties up her legs and bent over to grab her bra. “Hero said they just took King to the hospital by ambulance.”
My breath caught, and my stomach dropped to my feet. “What?” I gasped.
She maneuvered her arms into the straps of her bra and reached behind her to fasten it. Then, she grabbed my shirt and tossed it at me. “He doesn’t know exactly what happened. He collapsed and wasn’t conscious.”
My phone dropped to the floor, and I moved. I pulled my shirt on while I bent over and grabbed my pants. “Is he okay?”
“Hero didn’t say. He just said you needed to get to the hospital right away.” She pulled a shirt out of her dresser and drug it over her head.
King was like my uncle. He had been in my life since the day I was born. He had been there the first time I drove a motorcycle. He had been the one to give me my first stiff drink.
King was my uncle. He was my family.
He was my prez.
“I have to go.” My body went into autopilot while my mind raced with every possible thing that could have happened to King. Bristol assisted in finding my clothes and helped pull my cut over my shoulders.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
I didn’t care about myself right now. I just wanted to know how King was. I pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”
She shook her head. “Just go make sure King is okay.”
I nodded and grabbed my keys off the dresser. “Later.”
Not even thirty seconds later, I was on my bike and down the driveway.
I needed to get to the hospital. Nothing else mattered right now except for King.
*
Bristol
“You okay?”
I screeched and dropped to my knees to hide my naked legs from Murphy. “I’m fine,” I gasped.
“Why the hell did Pie go running out of here like his ass was on fire?” Apollo called. He appeared in the doorway behind Murphy.
“What? How did you know that?” I asked. I spotted my pants in a rumbled pile by Murphy’s feet. “Uh, can you kick those over to me?” I nodded to my jeans.
Murphy picked them up and tossed them to me. “We have cameras everywhere, Bristol.”
“And he went running past us while we were in the kitchen,” Apollo laughed.
Ugh. Of course. “Um, he got a phone call that King was taken to the hospital by ambulance.” I managed to pull up my pants and stood. “And it’s creepy that you guys watch me on camera.” It was, but that didn’t really matter right now.
“Oh, fuck,” Apollo gasped.
“Do you know that happened?” Murphy asked.
I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair. “Uh, the phone rang a couple of times, and I answered it. It was Hero. All he told me was King collapsed, and they were rushing him to the hospital.”
“What’s the deal?” Princeton asked. “Did Pie take off because he realized he isn’t worthy of Bristol?” he laughed.
My cheeks heated, and I wanted to sink into the floor.
Apollo elbowed him in the gut. “King is in the fucking hospital.”
“Oh, shit.” Princeton rubbed his stomach. “What happened?”
“We don’t know.” Murphy looked at me. “What hospital did they take him to?”
I shrugged. “I’m assuming Rockton Med. I hope he’s okay.” I didn’t really know King, but I knew he was the glue that kept the Devil’s Knights together. If anything happened to him, the club would be devastated. And Meg.
Oh, God…Meg.
King and Meg’s relationship was one for the books. If you lived in Rockton, you knew who King and Meg were.
Without King, there wasn’t Meg.
“I bet Meg is a wreck,” I sighed. I was closest to Royal, but I had become pretty fond of Meg. Even before Royal had hooked up with Marco, I knew the legend that was Meg, and she was even better in person. “Oh, god,” I gasped. “We should probably tell Marco.”
Just like Pie, Marco had grown up with Meg. His mom, Fayth, was one of the ol’ ladies of the club.
Apollo nodded. “I’ll tell him. I’m assuming he’s going to want to go to the hospital. I’ll go with him, and you two can stay here.”
Apollo headed toward the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” Murphy asked,
I nodded. As worried I was about King, I wasn’t connected to him like Pie and the rest of the club was. “I’m okay, just worried about King.”
“We all are,” Murphy replied. “Get some rest, doll. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.”
Princeton nodded at me and pulled my door shut.
I turned and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Oh, God,” I whispered. I rested my elbows on my knees and buried my fingers in my hair.
Pie’s grief-stricken face flashed in front of me.
There I was, crying and being foolish about Pie looking at me when King was being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
It was crazy how two seconds could bring your world to a screeching halt.
I hoped to God King was okay because I knew Pie wouldn’t be if he weren't.
*
Chapter Fourteen
Waiting…
Pie
There were thirty-seven tiles the length of the waiting room and thirty-four chairs.
The Devil’s Knights were taking up twenty of them.
Marco and Royal had appeared half an hour after I got there and now we were all just waiting.
“It’s been two hours,” Easy whispered.
I dropped my head in my hands and sighed. “Meg said that it may take three hours depending on what they find when they get in there.” I had felt every minute of those three hours. It was pure agony not knowing what was going to happen to one of the most important people in my life.
“This is fucking crazy, man.” Easy sat back and stretched his legs out in front of him. “We were all just standing around talking, and then King just hit the fucking floor like a ton of bricks.” Easy sobbed. “I tried to catch him, but he was halfway on the floor by the time I got an arm around him. I couldn’t catch him, man.”
I sat back and felt the tears stream down my cheeks. At least Easy had been there. I didn’t know anything had happened until King was on the way to the hospital. I felt like such an idiot looking back at me telling Bristol to not answer the phone.
“He’s always there to catch everyone, and the one fucking time he needs me, I’m not there.” Easy wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
I put my arm around Easy and squeezed.. “It’s okay, Easy. You were there for him, brother. You held him up, so his head didn’t hit the ground.”
Meg paced back and forth in front of us. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she was wearing neon purple pajamas. Her slippers slapped against her heels with each step she took.
“Honey,” Cyn called. “Come sit down. You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor with all of that pacing.”
Meg clamped her lips between her teeth and shook her head. “If I sit down, all I’m going to do is think about Lo. He keeps me safe, Cyn, but now it’s my turn to keep him safe, and I can’t be there.” A sob ripped from her lips. “I can’t lose him,” she gasped.
None of us could lose him. King was intricately woven into each of our lives and if he were to die, our lives would be shattered.
Cyn jumped up from her chair and wrapped Meg in her arms. “You’re not gonna lose him, honey.”
Cyn didn’t know that. None of us knew what was going to happen.
King had a carotid dissection. One of his arteries in his neck had a tear in it, and the blood had seeped in between the walls and separated them. He passed out because he didn’t have enough blood flow going to his brain.
The only good thing that was going for King right now was he was taken to the hospital immediately and in surgery within half an hour of being brought in. Time was on his side, at least for now.
The longer King went without blood flow to the brain, the worse things would be. The doctor had been optimistic that he could repair the artery, but it would be a high-risk surgery. He had been in surgery for close to two hours, and we had yet to get an update on how things were going.
Cyn managed to get Meg in a chair and was trying to calm her down.
The backbone of the club and Meg’s life was in life-threatening surgery right now. We were all powerless, and the only thing we could do was hope and pray he pulled through.
Apollo came over and sat down in the seat next to me. “How are you two holding up?” he asked Easy and me.
“Like one of the most important people in my life is dying,” I whispered. It was insane how you didn’t know how much you loved and needed someone until you were losing them.
“He’s strong,” Apollo replied.
“We’re all strong,” Easy muttered. “That doesn’t mean shit if God says your time is up.”
Apollo nodded to the other side of the room where Marco and Royal were sitting. “Well, that may be true, but I can tell you King has the best surgeon in three states taking care of him. Whatever needs to be done will be done. Leo and Marco have made sure of it.”
Money solved a lot of problems, but I didn’t know if Marco throwing his wealth around was going to fix this problem.
“I’ll be celibate for the rest of my fucking life if King walks out of this hospital,” Easy bargained. “Fuck, I’ll give everything I have to have King rag on me for not cleaning the clubhouse.” Easy dropped his head into his hands. “Anything.”
“I’d love to hear him grumble about Zig and Zag toilet papering his house or even shouting at us to shut the hell up during church.” I would give everything, too.
“Meg Birch?”
Meg jumped up from her chair and dashed over to the nurse who had walked through the swinging doors.
“That’s me,” she gasped. “Lo. How is Lo?” Meg grabbed the nurse’s arm and let out a strangled sob. “How is my husband?”
The nurse put her hand on Meg’s. “He’s out of surgery. He’s been moved into recovery and stable. The doctor will be out in a couple of minutes to go over everything with you,” she advised.
“How is he?” Meg pleaded. “Is he going to be okay?”
The nurse squeezed her hand. “I can’t say much other than he is out of surgery and stable. The doctor will be able to give you more information.” The nurse smiled sadly and walked back through the swinging doors.
“Mom.” Remy burst through the sliding doors into the waiting room with his wife, Harlyn, on his heels.
He wrapped Meg in his arms, and she sobbed uncontrollably. Snapper walked up to Harlyn and gave her a big hug.
King and Meg had adopted Jonas when Remy was twenty-seven, and they had bonded instantly. You could never tell that they weren’t related by blood.
Meg leaned back and looked from Remy to Harlyn. “You didn’t bring John?” Meg asked. Meg was in the middle of a crisis, but she was still Meg. She always complained about not seeing Remy enough, and now she did the same with John.
Harlyn shook her head. “We left him with Roc and Mav. They’re going to bring him out in the morning.”
Meg cradled Remy’s cheek in her hand. “I know I nag you all the time that I don’t see you guys and my grandson enough, but this isn’t how I wanted to see you,” she sobbed.
Remy rested his forehead against Meg’s. “He’s a tough bastard, Mom. You know he’s going to be okay. He loves you too much to leave you.”
Meg reached for Snapper and pulled him into the hug with Remy. “He loves all of us too much to leave us,” she corrected him.
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
God damn, this was fucking hard.
King had to pull through this because none of us would ever be the same if he didn't.
*
Chapter Fifteen
Meals on wheels for bikers…
Bristol
“Whoa.” Murphy stepped into the kitchen and whistled low. “Did you even sleep?”
I flipped the last pancake onto the platter and turned off the griddle. “Uh, a little.” I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and sighed. I had made pancakes, waffles, cinnamon muffins, bacon roses, and coffee cake, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. I really hadn’t slept at all.
Everything was laid out on platters, and it looked like we were expecting fifteen people for breakfast.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked. I moved the platter of pancakes by the rest of the food and wiped my hands on my apron.
Murphy nodded. “He’s out of surgery and in intensive care. He’s going to be on a vent for a couple of days until they are sure he is stable enough to breathe on his own.”
Oh, God. The thought of being on a ventilator was terrifying. To be so sick that you needed a machine to breathe for you did not seem good. “Do they have any idea if he’ll fully recover?”
Murphy grabbed a plate and laid a waffle on it. “They really can’t say for sure. He’s going to have a lot of therapy in front of him. They don’t know what was all affected by the stroke.”
