Page 84 of Blood Sport

I open my mouth, but again, nothing comes out.

“Evie!”

My eyes snap open at the sound of my brother’s voice. I find him standing over me, his eyes wild and frantic like they were that day. They search my face, but I don’t understand why he’s so worried. The last thing I remember before my vision went dark was leaving the soccer game, getting on the back of Jaylen’s bike, and then it started raining, we turned at an intersection, and—oh. I understand why he’s worried. It’s all coming back to me.

The rain, the motorcycle, the car, the wet gravel, and Jaylen calling my name before I passed out.

Shit.

My eyes glance around the room, realizing I’m in a hospital bed when I spot the IV drip beside me and smell the disinfectant wafting throughout the room. The walls are white and the incessant beeping of machines behind me makes the pounding in my head worse.

Using both of my hands, I push into the thin mattress to try and get into an upright position, but the searing pain in my shoulder makes it difficult. Glancing to both sides, I notice that there are no other patients. I’m grateful for the private room.

“Evie, relax,” Miles says with his hand on my shoulder. “Your right side is all cut up and bruised, so just take it easy, okay? The nurse has put you on an IV drip to get your fluids up after you passed out, and they are giving you morphine for the pain. ”

I nod and turn to him. As I do, I spot Jaylen standing in the corner of the room with his arms folded over his chest and his intense eyes locked on me. His features are hard, but I catch the glimpse of worry that passes through his eyes before he looks away to stare at the floor. There isn’t a scratch on him.

Swallowing hard, I return my attention back to my brother. “What happened?” My voice is croaky and my throat is tight, so I clear it in the hope it’ll help relieve the pain. “How long have I been out for?”

“A couple of hours. You had an accident. I don’t know how you walked away with only minor injuries,” he says, his voice a little hard, unlike his usual carefree tone. “Jaylen called to tell me what happened.” Before I can say anything, Miles turns to Jaylen. “I don’t know what the fuck you were doing with my sister, but now would be a good time to explain yourself.”

Oh, shit. With my fuzzy brain, I hadn’t considered the fact that Jaylen would’ve had to tell Miles that we were together since he was the one to bring me to the hospital, I'm assuming. That means I’m going to be in deep fucking shit, I just know it. Miles is overprotective, I know, but after his warning to stay away from Jaylen, I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well.

“I gave her a lift home,” Jaylen says quietly, staring at the ground, unable to meet Miles’s eyes.

“Why?” Miles demands. I can feel the anger flowing off him in waves as he stares down his best friend from across the room.

I try to catch Jaylen’s eye from around Miles’s body, but my shoulder is in too much pain to do anything but sit up straight. A hospital gown covers my body, my soaked clothes from earlier no longer in sight. Looking out the window beside my bed tells me that it’s still dark with the rain pouring just as hard outside, slamming into the window.

“I ran into her after the game and asked if she wanted a lift since she was heading home. Her friends were going out but she just wanted to go home, so I offered to be nice.”

A lie, but it’s one that lines up with what I told my friends, so I’m going to roll with it. Miles doesn’t need to know the truth. It’ll only make this situation worse.

“You should’ve asked me to take her home instead of letting her get on that death trap,” he said through clenched teeth. “That bike is fucking dangerous.”

“It was an honest mistake,” Jaylen says, tearing his eyes away from the reflective floor. “It was raining, the ground was wet, and some asshole ran the stop sign. It was an accident. I was being careful, I promise. I would never willingly put Evie in danger.”

“I don’t fucking care,” Miles snapped, his voice dripping with venom.

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I interject, tired of feeling invisible while my brother goes into asshole mode. “It was my choice to accept the ride, so I have to deal with the consequences. Besides, as Jaylen said, it was an accident, so just relax, okay? Neither of us is seriously hurt.”

Miles doesn’t turn to face me, instead continuing to stare down Jaylen who continues to stand against the wall, his shoulders tensed and a guilty expression on his face as he looks between the floor and my brother, but never at me.

“You don’t have a scratch on you,” Miles points out and my heart stutters in my chest. Shit. I know for a fact Jaylen heard that because his eyes quickly glanced in my direction before returning to my brother.

“My leather jacket and long pants protected me. Evie was wearing my helmet.”

I can’t see Miles’s reaction to that but his shoulders are still tense, meaning he’s not done with this conversation. The tension in the room is palpable and almost suffocating. This is exactly how I thought he would react if he were to ever learn of me and Jaylen spending time together alone. While I love that he wants to protect me, he can’t do it for the rest of his life, especially since I’m an adult.

While I appreciate his efforts to look after me, it’s also frustrating that he doesn’t listen to me when I say I can look after myself. I’m no longer that little girl who he found broken on the front porch ten years ago on that fateful day. I’m stronger than that, and he knows it, but he’s just too afraid to admit it because admitting it means he has to loosen his reigns on me. And I don’t think he’s capable of doing that. Or ready.

“Just let it go, Miles,” I plead, and reach out to tug on the sleeve of his jacket.

He turns to face me, his brows set into a deep frown. “You’re hurt because of him, Ev. What did I tell you about staying away from him?”

“I know what I’m doing,” I say, looking into his eyes. “All I did was accept a ride home, that’s it. There is nothing else going on.” I can feel Jaylen’s eyes on me as I say the words, but I stay focused on Miles. I don’t blame Jaylen for what happened. He’s made it clear that he would go to the ends of the earth to protect me, and I believe him. What happened tonight was simply an accident.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He’s dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black bomber jacket. There are dirt marks on the front of his shirt, but they’re mostly hidden by his jacket. I wonder what he was doing before he raced to the hospital.

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