Dirty Laundry: A Tucker Springs Novel #3

Jesus, he looked pale and sweaty. But no blood. He was weirdly quiet, eyes unfocused as he whimpered. He seemed to calm slightly when he saw Denver.
    “Please stay back from the stretcher, sir,” one of the paramedics said.
    “I’m the one who called you,” Denver barked back, and took Adam’s hand. “Baby. Baby, tell me you’re okay.”
    “I’m sorry,” Adam whispered as a tear ran down his cheek. “I don’t want to die. I love you.”
    “You’re not dying, Mr. Ellery,” a female paramedic said in the tone of one who had said as much several times now. “Please remain calm. We’ll get you something to help you calm down in the ambulance.”
    Denver gripped Adam’s hand as tight as he could without breaking bones. “You’re going to be okay. You hear me?” He leaned closer, wanting to kiss him, but it was hard enough keeping up with the paramedics on the stairs. “I love you too, baby. And I’m not going anywhere.”
    That promise was temporarily in jeopardy as they arrived at the ambulance and the paramedics tried to tell Denver he couldn’t ride along.
    “I’m getting in that ambulance,” Denver said flatly. He would have been a bit more colorful, but he could see a police car rounding the corner.
    The paramedics looked at each other in exasperation, but in the end the female one shrugged. “Let him ride. Look how much calmer the patient is already.”
    Adam did seem to have evened out a little. He was still breathing way too fast, and still looked like shit, but he clung to Denver’s hand. He wouldn’t let go long enough for the paramedics to load him into the ambulance; Denver had to climb in as they hefted him up, and since he was there, he gave them a little boost on the way.
    They gave Adam an intravenous drug of some kind as the ambulance rolled on, and he calmed within minutes, though not all the way. He slurred when he spoke too, which was mostly to tell Denver over and over that he loved him.
    The confession jarred Denver, making him want to melt down a little too, but he took a deep breath instead and stroked Adam’s sweaty forehead, smoothing his hair away. “I love you too, hon. What happened? What did Brad do?”
    “He found the pictures. On my phone.” Adam shut his eyes. “He said I was sick.”
    Brad was a dead man. “Baby, you aren’t sick.”
    “He just wouldn’t stop. I knew he was wrong, but he wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t figure out what to do, and I panicked.”
    Denver kept stroking, but his other hand tightened into a hard fist at his side. “You’re okay now, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
    “I know.” Adam turned his face into Denver’s wrist, and Denver lowered his hand to stroke his cheek.
    “I’ll stay right here,” he promised. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    He had to break that promise for a minute at the hospital, stuck filling out forms and answering questions he didn’t know the answer to while the doctors examined Adam. Several of them first had to promise Denver there was no imminent danger to his lover, that Adam was to their knowledge only having an attack and nothing more. They’d also had to promise Adam they’d let Denver back in as soon as they finished examining him, which made them both feel better.
    Denver had palmed Adam’s phone, and from it he called Louisa and then, after some coaching from her, Adam’s parents.
    Adam’s mother answered the phone, and it was weird how muted her response was to Denver’s news that her son was in the hospital. At first he thought she didn’t care, but as her voice began to waver, he realized she was simply holding onto herself as best she could.
    “They keep telling me he’s going to be okay,” Denver told her when he figured this out. “They’re with him now, but nobody seems to be on any kind of alert. And he calmed down as soon as he saw me, which I’m hoping is a good sign.”
    “How long have the two of you been dating?” Mrs. Ellery asked him. Politely, as if they were having tea, not discussing her son’s hospitalization.
    “About three months.” Denver cleared his throat. “I just want you to know, Mrs. Ellery, that I care for your son a great deal, and I won’t let anything happen to him, as much as I can manage that.”
    He could almost hear her smile, soft and sad, when she replied. “I’m glad Adam has a friend like you. It’s hard for him, sometimes.”
    Denver didn’t know what to say to that. She might as well have thanked him