I can’t pretend I’d have done the same in her shoes.
I peer up as another group of EMTs start to load me up onto a stretcher of my own. ‘Tallahassee Emergency Medical Response’ is says on the their jackets. I realize I’ve never been to Florida before, and the thought that this is my first trip here has me almost laughing and mumbling something about “beating the lines at Disneyworld” before I realize I might be in way worse shape than I even think I am. The world starts to fade a little at the corners as I trying to cling to consciousness, and suddenly I’m glancing wildly around, trying to look for her.
Quinn.
“Hey, hey. Keep still, pal, don’t move aroun-”
“Quinn!” I’m pushing their hands away from me and struggling to sit up before my head swims and I drop back down to the stretcher with a grimace. Quinn.
But then she’s just there, leaning over me as as they wheel me out of the concrete room and into the steaming heat of the night as we wheel towards an ambulance. Her face is tight and there are tears in her eyes as she clutches at my hands.
“I thought we said no hospitals?” I mumble out, trying to grin and hoping it doesn’t look too horrible with the state I’m sure my face is in right then.
But she’s choking out a laugh. “You used up all my band-aids, dummy.” She says, the tears starting to run down her cheeks.
“Hey, hey, I’m gonna be fine you know.” I wince as the stretcher hits the side of the ambulance and the EMT guys lift me up and into the back.
Quinn starts to jump up after me, but one of them stops her. “Ma’am, I’m sorry bu-”
“I’m his Doctor, and I’m coming with him.” Her voice is bold, firm, and demonstrably confident in a way I realize I’ve never actually heard from her before, and the thought makes me smile.
The EMT nods curtly. “Of course, Doctor,” he says, stepping aside and letting her into the ambulance.
“You’re completely nuts, you know that, right Doc?” I mumble out, grimacing as I try to smile at her through my bruised up face as she slides next to me and takes my hand.
“I love you. You know know that, right Marine?”
The words hit me harder than any punch ever has, and the lasting glow exploding through my body better than any win, better than any adrenaline high I’ve ever had. Her hand squeezes mine and it feels like the whole world is just dropping away into the background, leaving just me and her, and nothing else matters.
“I love you too, darlin.”
She sniffs back a tear, and then she’s cupping my face gently in her hand as she kisses me. And I know it should hurt, and I know I should be in pain right now.
But then again, it seems I’m not very good at doing what I should when it comes to her.
Chapter Thirty
Quinn
The aftermath of Florida was actually less messy than you would’ve thought. Especially so when you considering the implications of a plane from Cuba landing without authorization outside Tallahassee, of Logan refusing to tell anyone in the hospital his name, and with me almost killing someone. And the cleanup from all of that was thanks to someone I’d have thought as possibly the most unlikely candidate in the world.
If anyone could’ve taken a picture of my face when Peyton walked into that E.R. room in Florida, it probably would’ve broken the camera. I remember glaring at her, my jealousy bubbling to the surface even with everything that’d just happened, including the “I love you” part.
But she didn’t seem to bat an eye, and suddenly cold-shoulder, schedule-stickler, frosty Peyton was marching right up to me in the waiting room and throwing her arms around me in a big hug.
Uh, what?
“He hasn’t told you about us, has he.”
It’s a statement more than a question, and part of me wants to smack that little smile she’s only half holding back off of her smug little twenty-year old mouth. I purse my lips, my jaw tensing and my eyes narrowing at her. “No, he hasn’t.” I say evenly, arching a brow at her. “And look, I really don’t actually need to know-”
“Quinn,” she cuts me off as she cocks her head at me. “He’s my brother.”
Whatever scathing retort I’m about to let loose on Peyton freeze in my throat as her words hit me full-force. “Excuse me?”
Peyton’s usually stiff face breaks into a grin, and it’s an expression I actually recognize because it’s the same one pretty much permanently plastered on Logan. “Well, half-brother,” she says with a shrug. “Our mom- well, that part I might let him tell you.”
“I had to find her a few years ago for- I just had to go home for this thing.”