Page 106 of West Bound

I get two feet outside of the sliding doors and pull my phone out. My fingers slide across the screen and I bring it to my ear with a shaky hand.

“Vivian? What time is it? Are you okay?” His voice is raspy with sleep and I look at my watch to see it’s one-thirty in the morning.

“Phoenix,” I barely choke out. “I’m sorry.”

“Baby, you’re scaring me. What happened? Are you hurt?”

I take the next twenty minutes to tell him what happened tonight–to Vaughan and my realization–and when I’m done he says, “what do you need, Peaches? Anything, just ask.”

“I-I need you.” My body slumps down and I very unladylike sit on the curb and cry into my hands. “I just want your arms around me and I want to feel safe. You’re the only one who makes me feel safe and loved and I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. Phoenix, I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I…”

Sobs wrack my body, loud and uncontrollable. There’s a pain so deep, so visceral, that it threatens to destroy my very being. There’s only one person who can keep me from dissolving into nothingness.

“I’ll be there soon, Peaches. It’s all going to be okay. I’ve got you.” I sniffle an okay and sit there on the curb of the hospital emergency entrance, waiting for my lifeline to rescue me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PHOENIX

“West, I am going to rip you nose to toes if you don’t get your ass back in that hotel room right now!” coach yells at me and I hold the phone away from my ear as I stand at the end of the sidewalk that leads up to Vivian’s front door.

After I got off the phone with her this morning, I immediately began looking for flights to get back to Houston. Unfortunately, the earliest I could catch one was five-thirty this morning. But with the time difference, it’s just coming up on seven a.m. and the sun has yet to fully rise.

I also did not tell coach what was going on until this very moment. To say he isn’t happy about it is quite the understatement of the year.

“Coach, I’m really sorry. But my friend was in a horrible accident and the doctors aren’t sure if he’s going to recover. I don’t pitch until tomorrow, and today is my rest day. I promise to be back by the time you wake up tomorrow. You’ll never even know I was gone,” I tell him.

He lets out a string of curse words and has a few choice names for me. I stand there and take it because honestly, nothing he can say will make me turn around and go back to Tennessee. Nothing.

When Vivian told me what happened to Vaughan, I could hear the pain in her voice. Her friends are her extended family and I just know that they were all in indescribable pain. I texted Bishop and he said it was hard to breathe. That right there told me everything I needed to know. There was no way I wasn’t going to get my ass back to Houston as soon as possible.

So if that means I miss out on the rest of the season because I get benched for this, then that’s the way it’ll be. I need to be here for my friends who have taken me in so quickly and completely. And most of all, I need to be here for my girl.

After the words ‘I need you’ left her mouth, there was nothing more she needed to say or do. All was forgiven and forgotten and the only thought I had was getting home to her.

Coach yells some more, tells me he hopes my friend pulls through and to get my ass back before he digests his morning coffee, then hangs up. I pocket my phone and take the last few steps to her door. My fist barely connects with the large wooden door when it flies open.

In the doorway stands my beauty. Her red hair like a ball of fire piled on top of her head, and she’s wearing a shirt of mine that is so large I can’t tell if she’s wearing anything underneath it. Her green eyes are swollen and red rimmed from all of the crying she’s been doing and she hiccups, “y-you’re h-he-here.”

I step across the threshold and she jumps into my arms, wrapping her tiny body all around mine. She clings to me like a koala hugging a tree in a hurricane. I don’t think there is anything that could pry her away with how tight her grip is on me.

I walk inside and kick the door shut behind me and drop my bag on the entry floor. I let her cry into the crook of my neck, soaking my sweatshirt, and walk us straight towards the bedroom.

Her soft cries turn to soft kisses on my neck and my cock immediately jolts to life thinking he’s about to get lucky.

“I want you to get some sleep, Peaches. Then we can talk later,” I tell her as I close the bedroom door and try placing her on the bed.

She refuses to let go, so I pull back the sheets and try to lay down with her.

“I don’t need sleep. I need you,” she murmurs against my neck.

I close my eyes and drop my head back, breathing deep and attempting to get myself under control. “You’ve got me, baby. But you also need rest. Let’s–”

“No,” she clips. “I need you to fuck me, Phoenix. I need to feel you and know that you’re alive and safe and mine. And I need you to know that I’m yours and there is nothing that will tear me away from you, again.”

“Vivian. There will be plenty of time for that later,” I try to soothe.

“No, Phoenix. That’s just it. We don’t know if there’s plenty of time. I’m sure Cami thought she and Vaughan would have plenty of time to make up for what they lost, and now she may never know what their future holds. Don’t you get it? We’re only guaranteed right here, right now, and I don’t want to waste one more moment without you in it. So please, Nix…make love to me, fuck me, hurt me, worship me, make me beg or make me cry. I don’t care how you do it so long as you do.”

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