Nash (4 page)

me had taught me a valuable lesson, one I still held close today. People could only hurt you and disappoint

you if you let them. They only had the power to hurt you if you thought they were special and above that. I

didn’t let anyone close enough, didn’t let anyone touch my heart or emotions enough to risk that happening

again … ever. I think that made dealing with my cheating boyfriend in college and handling the knowledge

that my own father was a philanderer easier. Across the board, men in my life had disappointed me, and

Nash was just the first in a long line.

Which made this need, this urgency to check on him, my nemesis, and my teenage nightmare even

harder to process. Still, even though I was full of apprehension and doubt, I wheeled my new Jetta into a

spot on the street in front of the Victorian that had obviously been converted into some apartments and got

out. I gazed at the building for a second, trying to convince myself to mind my own business and just go

home. I was still in scrubs, had my ugly work shoes on and my hair coiled into a tight, fire-colored braid

that reached the middle of my back. I only had the barest hint of makeup left after a ten-hour shift and I

didn’t know why I thought he would answer the door for me if he was ignoring his friends and the people

closest to him.

I shivered because I hadn’t grabbed a coat and decided I either needed to go home or just go in. My

gaze slid over a sweet Charger that was parked in front of the building and I sighed. I dealt with death and

horrific injury on a daily basis. I could handle a brief encounter with a ghost from my memories and

survive the encounter. I was made of stronger stuff now. Besides, seeing Phil so sick and sad and the

traumatic way Nash had responded to the news on Thanksgiving had me concerned for both of them. And

despite knowing better, I knew that my concern wasn’t going away.

I entered the lovely old building and looked around for the numbers on the door. It looked like the

bottom floor had two apartments and Nash’s was on the left. I was just getting ready to knock when the

opposite door across the hall swung open and a girl stuck her head out. Her gaze skittered over me and then

landed on my startled face.

“You his girlfriend?”

Her tone was friendly, almost overly so, and she looked like she should be on the cover of a
Sports

Illustrated
magazine. I wasn’t overweight anymore, now I was just normal, healthy, but this girl had abs for

days and boobs that deserved an award. Hell, if I was her I would be walking around in yoga pants and a

sports bra in the freezing December weather, too.

“Uh … no.”

“I just moved in. There’s been someone pounding on that door every five minutes for the last week. It’s

driving me nuts. I saw the guy that lives there. He’s a total babe. I keep waiting for a girl to show up and

claim him. I thought it might be you. I’m Royal, by the way.”

I nodded at her and cocked my head to the side. All single men should find themselves so lucky in the

new-neighbor department. I bet Nash would just love her … well, once he got out of his funk.

“I’m just a friend. I thought I would check on him. I’m Saint.”

She laughed a little and shook her head, sending her dark auburn hair sliding across her shoulder like

only models in shampoo commercials did.

“Our parents were obviously smoking the same thing when they picked our names out.” She inclined

her head toward the closed door and her dark brown eyes flashed in amusement while I struggled to try and

act like this scene didn’t totally intimidate me. Really pretty girls like her always made it harder for me to act

normal and unaffected. “Seems to be the theme of the week checking on the sexy guy next door. That and

superhot men. I swear all his friends are gorgeous. I wouldn’t toss a single one of them I’ve seen out of

bed. Even the really big guy with all the attitude and the scar. He was scary as hell but dead sexy.”

I was getting uncomfortable. I did great with strangers when they were bleeding and needed my help,

but this kind of interaction was out of my wheelhouse even if I did agree with her on the hotness levels of

Nash’s crew of friends.

The guy with the scar was Nash’s old roommate, Rome Archer. He was dead sexy in a warrior, take-

care-of-business kind of way. I knew firsthand because he had been a patient of mine not too long ago. At

the hospital the other night I caught a glimpse of Rule Archer, he was Nash’s best friend and he was still

gorgeous and dangerous-looking in his own unique way. Later on in the night Jet Keller had shown up with

a blond guy who looked like he had escaped from the 1950s and another guy that was so undeniably

handsome that it was necessary to look twice at him just to make sure your eyes weren’t playing tricks on

you. All three, hot and oozing sex appeal and trouble in different ways. I just didn’t know this woman well

enough to divulge any of those insights to her, not that I would be comfortable doing that even if she

wasn’t a stranger.

I knocked on the door more out of desperation to get away from her and her curious gaze than to see if

Nash would answer.

Of course he didn’t and I felt like an idiot. I shifted uneasily from foot to foot and tried to knock again.

“Good luck. He hasn’t opened it for anyone else.” She sounded amused and I flushed bright red. I

would never get over feeling like I was always the butt of someone’s joke. It made me feel kind of sick to

my stomach, more so because she looked the way she did.

I was lifting my hand to knock one last time when the door suddenly yanked open and I was face to

chest with a mostly naked, furiously scowling, obviously inebriated Nash Donovan. Those amazing eyes

that were trapped somewhere between purple and blue blinked sluggishly at me and I let out a startled gasp

as he grasped the hand I still had lifted up to knock and pulled me toward him.

“You must have the lucky touch, Red. Good for you.” The neighbor’s laughing voice followed me into

the apartment as Nash stumbled unsteadily backward, taking me with him.

He slammed the door closed behind me with a thud and tried to focus on me out of bloodshot eyes. He

smelled like booze, cigarette smoke, and I couldn’t help but wrinkle my nose up in distaste. I could

physically handle myself. It was a job requirement in the ER, but at the moment he looked kind of feral and

I had to admit his glowering, grumbling presence was slightly menacing.

He was taller than average, but so was I, meaning he wasn’t really looming so much as he was

threatening, because he was so unfamiliar and unhinged in his current state. It would be a flat-out lie if I

tried to pretend like I didn’t notice that even in his disheveled and drunken state he was in good shape. He

obviously took pretty good care of himself aside from pickling his liver and that awful habit of smoking.

He had always been a darkly handsome guy, his dark brows slashing and dramatic on a face that was full of

character holding a hint of unknown ethnicity behind it. Those purplish eyes of his were out of this world

and unforgettable. They were really too pretty and delicate-looking to be on such a masculine face.

I think it was the fact that all he had on was a pair of black boxer shorts revealing there wasn’t an

exposed part of his olive-toned skin that didn’t have some kind of design inked on it that was making me a

little bit overwhelmed. I liked tattoos, had a couple myself, but Nash’s dedication to decorating his body

was on an entirely different level. I mean I wasn’t surprised at the amount of artwork he was sporting

considering he had those brilliant flames tattooed on his head and a curved ring in the center of his nose.

That was all designed to make a statement, to proclaim that he didn’t have to live by anyone’s rules but his

own, which I guess was fine and worked for him, but it was a lot to take in for me when I already

considered him a danger and kind of a douche bag.

I refused to admit I was openly checking him out. I couldn’t help it. He was missing clothes, built and

gorgeous, even if all that was under miles of ink.

“I ordered pizza.”

I looked up at him and asked like a moron:

“What?”

“I thought you were the pizza guy, but you’re not.”

He stumbled back a few steps, grabbed the back of the couch, and sort of just slithered down until he

was sitting on the floor across from me. He stuck his long legs out in front of him and rubbed his watery

eyes with the knuckles of his hands. What in the hell was happening right now? It was like he had just

folded in on himself right in front of my eyes. He was disappearing inside of himself.

“Are you okay, Nash? A lot of people are worried about you.”

He gave a laugh that sounded so broken, so jagged, I felt it scrape across my skin, leaving goose bumps

in its wake.

“No.”

I wasn’t following his slurred or broken side of the conversation, maybe because I was totally distracted

by his naked torso. I had seen a few good-looking guys in their underwear in my time, some at work, some

not. None of them in memory held a candle to Nash. Someone should tell him what he did for a pair of

black boxers should be considered a lethal weapon to a woman’s sanity.

“No, what?” I had to make a real effort to try and follow his scattered additions to our choppy

conversation.

He tilted his head back so that he could look up at me. The flames over his ears were attached to more

tattooed flames that curled up over his massive shoulders and onto the front of his chest. I guiltily wanted

to see what they attached to on the backside of him. He also had what appeared to be some kind of

intricately inked wings that draped all the way across his rib cage, down both sides of his corrugated abs,

and disappeared into the front of his boxers on either side of his belly button. I couldn’t even imagine how

bad something like that had to hurt, but the tattoo work was impressive in its enormity and detail and so

was the rock-hard body that it lived on.

“No, I’m not okay.”

I blew out a breath and crouched down so that I was more on his level. His gaze followed me as I

lowered myself to my haunches. People told me all the time how pretty my eyes were and it made me blush

and stammer. They were all right, gray and clear, and my patients seemed to find them soothing. But I

thought, as I gazed somberly into the sad depths of his, that clearly no one who thought I had pretty eyes

had ever looked into Nash’s. I had never seen a more striking or unique color than the columbine blue of

his. Sitting under those raven-black eyebrows, they were just magnetic.

“You need to talk to someone, family, your friends, or maybe a girlfriend. This isn’t a good situation for

anyone, Nash, and drinking and smoking a carton a day isn’t going to make it any better. You need to be

strong for your dad, but you also need to be strong for you. It seems like you have a lot of people you can

lean on, they’ve been in and out of that hospital room all week. Trust me, this is not a fight you want to

battle on your own.”

He threw his head back until it thumped on the dark leather of the couch. He squeezed his eyes shut. He

pulled his long legs up and clenched fists up on the top of each knee. He even had scrolling artwork inked

on his skin from beneath the hem of his boxer shorts to his knee on one leg and to the top of his foot on the

other. There was simply too much of it for me to pick apart all the separate images and designs, all I knew

was that it was all bold, dynamic, and full of color and had obviously been put on him by someone with an

incredible amount of skill.

“Until a few days ago I thought my father walked out on me when I was just a baby. My mom told me

he was a deadbeat, that he didn’t have any interest in being a husband or a father, so every time that asshole

Loften talked shit to me, told me I was garbage, tried to put me under his thumb, I told myself it was cool

because my mom deserved nice things, a guy to take care of her since my dad was an asshole. Only Loften

is a judgmental, superficial prick and basically forced her to pick me or him. She picked him even though

my dad was in the same fucking state all along and never walked out on anyone.”

He gave that laugh that made me hurt for him again, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out a

hand and putting it on one of his balled-up fists. I could feel the tension and dissonance creeping all over

him.

“Turns out the only adult I ever looked up to, that ever showed me I was worth anything just the way I

was, fucking lied to me my entire fucking life. Phil took me in when my mom kicked me out. He pretty

much raised me, taught me how to tattoo, gave me a future, and showed me how to be a man. I walked into

that hospital room, took one look at him, and wondered how I had missed what was right in front of me all