Switchy

  She felt badly she had to lean on Jarred and Garrison and couldn’t just suck it up and deal, but fear had set in.

  “Mitchell, get me one of those living will forms from them, please?”

  “You’re not dying, sugarplum.”

  “I want to make sure the guys are listed on there.”

  He went out in search of a nurse, returning with her in a few minutes. She had other forms for Em to sign, too, for the surgery, the anesthesiologist, and more. Em glanced at the living will forms and signed them. No matter what, she wanted Jarred and Garrison calling the shots, not her mother.

  The anesthesiologist came in and Em let Jarred handle the discussion.

  Then it came time to wheel her into the OR.

  They paused so she could talk to Mitchell, Jarred, and Garrison. “Love you guys. Well, Mitchell, not like that, but—”

  “Stop talking like you’re dying, kiddo,” Mitchell gently scolded before he kissed her forehead. “You’ll be fine.” He stepped out of the way for Jarred and Garrison.

  Garrison leaned in first and kissed her. “Love you, too, baby. Just think, now you have to let us take care of you for a while.” He smiled.

  “Hell of a way to do it,” she said.

  Jarred kissed her next. “Relax, stay calm. You’ll go to sleep and wake up and it’ll be okay. Love you.”

  When she finally let them wheel her into the OR, she took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

  I get through this, I’m going to spend the rest of my life with those two. I’m done being scared over a relationship.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Em opened her eyes coughing to the sound of a nurse trying to reassure her.

  Then Jarred appeared in her field of vision, his voice punching through the haze, his hand around hers. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You did great. It’s all over.”

  Her mind felt fuzzy, foggy. She remembered counting backward from one hundred in the OR, and then nothing, until now.

  She heard a beep and then Jarred pressed something into her hand. “That’s a pain button for morphine. I just hit it. It won’t let you hit it too much, so punch it when you need to.”

  They put a plastic tube around her head, up into her nose, feeding her oxygen.

  “Take deep breaths, sweetie,” he coaxed.

  “How bad was it?”

  “Not bad. The disk had torn and was pressing on a nerve. He took the piece out. The fracture in the vertebra isn’t all the way through it, so it’ll heal on its own. It’s all good. He didn’t even have to fuse anything. The numbness was probably from the disk and some swelling. He’s going to have you wear a back brace for a few weeks once you’re discharged.”

  She tried wiggling her toes and realized with more than a little relief that while there was still a little tingling, she could completely feel them again.

  “The nurse is right here,” he said. “I need to go get Garrison and Mitchell, okay?”

  “Okay.” He left and quickly returned with them.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Close to four o’clock,” Jarred said.

  She winced as she tried to shift position a little and realized how badly that hurt.

  “Don’t move right now, baby,” Jarred warned. “They have you on your side so they can watch the incision. They’ll let you roll onto your back in a while, but you let us help you. Do not try moving on your own yet.”

  “How’d the sale go? Did we make what we thought?”

  Mitchell laughed. “Girl, now I know you’re going to be okay if you’re asking me that. It went great. Brent and the others took up the slack. The guy’s going to be arraigned Monday morning.”

  “You didn’t call my parents, right?”

  “No one called your parents.” Mitchell eyed Jarred and Garrison. “But don’t you think you should call your dad and let him know what’s going on? He’s going to be hurt you didn’t tell him. The surgery’s over and you’re going to be fine. Probably be discharged Monday.”

  Em didn’t know how long she was in recovery, but she’d started dozing off when she felt the bed moving and realized they were taking her to a room. Once they got her settled, she started to doze again when she heard Jared and Garrison discussing who was going to spend the night with her.

  “No, go home, guys.” She punched the button for the pain pump. “I’m going to stay right here.”

  “We’re not leaving you alone,” Jarred said.

  “I’m going to go to sleep. I hope. You missed all day of work because of me. Please, go home. It’s okay.”

  “Honey, I’m already going to be here,” Jarred said. “The guy who came in early for me to cover the rest of my shift, he was supposed to work tonight. I’m picking up his shift. I can take a nap here in your room.”

  She knew from his tone he wasn’t going to argue about this with her.

  “Okay,” she said “But Garrison can sleep at home. I don’t need both of you here. And someone has to take Mitchell back to his car.”

  “I have to run home to grab some stuff anyway,” Jarred said. “And food. But I’ll be back in about two hours, okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.” She was already feeling the effects of the morphine pulling at her. “Go.”

  Jarred kissed her. “Love you, baby.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Garrison leaned in for a kiss. “You sure you won’t let me sleep here tonight?”

  “Where will Jarred sleep if you do?”

  “Fair point. Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Mitchell kissed her cheek. “You are working on earning a raise the hard way. Stepping between that big bully and that woman are not part of your job description.”

  She smiled up at him. “Remember that next time I beg you to buy the good flavored coffee for the break room.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Little shit. I love you. You are not allowed to scare me like that again, hear?”

  “I’ll try not to. Love you, too. Not like I love them, though.”

  He laughed. “Honey, the girl ship sailed out of my harbor before you were ever born.”

  They finally left together after Jarred had one more conference with the nurse and told her he’d be coming back soon.

  Em dozed. When she awoke, someone had turned on the TV in the room to a nearly painfully loud level, since the speaker was on the remote control, which was lying next to her head on the bed.

  First thing she did was hit her pain pump button. Then she reached up and managed to find the remote and turn the volume down.

  “Oh, good! You’re awake!”

  If Em hadn’t been in so much pain, she would have sat straight up in bed as her mother walked around the end of it.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “The workman’s comp agent called. Well, they thought they had your home phone number, apparently. Asking to speak to someone about your injury, and if you were still in the hospital or had been discharged yet.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “I don’t know. He was out shopping when I left. How could you not tell us you’d gotten hurt?”

  “Because I didn’t want you here, Mom.” Em knew she should try to be a little more diplomatic, except she was in pain and the last thing she wanted to deal with right then was her mom.

  Her mom frowned. “Why not?”

  “Why not? Because Jarred and Garrison were here and if I had to choose, sorry, they win.”

  “How can you possibly choose those…those—”

  “I love them. If you don’t like it, you can get the hell out of here.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say to me.”

  Before the men had left, they’d positioned Em on her back. She’d been warned, though, that if she wanted to roll to either side, she needed to either get help, or log-roll in one motion so she didn’t twist.

  Now she felt like she was going to be sick, her stress and a
nger and the morphine making her nauseated. “Get the nurse,” Em said.

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Get the nurse!” The last thing she wanted to do was puke all over herself. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Oh, there’s a tub right here.” Her mom walked around the bed again and picked up a yellow, plastic basin from the table on the other side of the bed. “Here, I’ll help you sit up.” She started to pull on Em’s right arm, the one without the IV in it.

  “No! Stop!” Pain shot through her. While trying to reach the remote, she accidentally knocked it off the bed where it clattered to the floor somewhere behind her.

  “Well, you don’t have to yell at me!”

  “Nurse!” Em yelled. Then she spotted the call button on her bedrail on her left side. She started punching that.

  Somewhere behind her, she heard an intercom come to life. “Nursing station.”

  “I’m going to be sick, please!”

  “Be right there.”

  Her mom had already dropped the bedrail on her right side. “Don’t be so stubborn. Here, let me help you up.” She grabbed Em’s arm again and started yanking on her, trying to pull her into an upright position.

  “No! Stop!” She tried shoving her mom away with her left arm, which sent both of them off balance. Em shrieked, pain exploding through her back, and through her left arm, where the IV was ripped out by her falling over and off the far side of the bed.

  And that’s when she puked, all over herself and the floor.

  She lay there on the floor, sobbing, as a nurse came in, then started screaming for help over the intercom as she rounded the bed and practically shoved her mom out of the way.

  “I was just trying to help her sit up!” her mom protested. “She said she was going to be sick, then she acted all crazy.”

  Em closed her eyes, freaked out by all the blood on her arm. The nurse was trying to get her bleeding stopped when Em heard more people run into the room.

  And then the enraged sound of Jarred’s voice, yelling for someone to call security.

  It hurt. Everything hurt.

  So. Fucking. Bad.

  But then his voice was in her ear, soft, gentle. “Breathe, babe. Breathe and don’t move. We got this.” Then his tone turned murderous as he spoke to someone else. “Get that woman out of here and ban her from the damn hospital!”

  Em didn’t dare open her eyes as they worked on her left arm to get the bleeding stopped and clean her up, got her up off the floor and back into bed, and repositioned on her left side. Her right arm now had the IV and they’d draped a clean gown over her.

  Then she heard another man’s voice, the surgeon. “Need to get her down to radiology right now and have that looked at. I want a CT scan, make sure she didn’t do more damage. I’ll call down there.”

  “What about the incision?” another nurse asked.

  “Put some Steri-Strips over it. If I need to take her back into surgery, I don’t want to do more trauma by putting new staples in right now.”

  It wasn’t long before she felt someone swabbing something cool around the incision area, then the feel of them applying what she assumed was whatever the doctor had said.

  “Jarred,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her right hand. “I’m right here, baby. I’m so fucking sorry. I shouldn’t have left you.”

  She felt them unhooking her monitor leads and getting her bed ready to move. “What’s going to happen?”

  “You pulled two staples in your incision. He wants to see what it looks like on film. It’s okay.”

  “He said surgery.”

  “He said maybe. I’m here. I am going to kill whoever called her.”

  The bed was moving, but he wasn’t letting go of her hand. “She said the workman’s comp claims people called. Mom and Dad have my old home phone number as their landline. It was an accident.”

  “Shit. Okay, just relax and breathe.” She heard her pain pump beep so apparently he’d hit the button for her.

  And at some point, as things got fuzzy, she heard them talking about another surgery…

  * * * *

  She opened her eyes in a darkened hospital room. She found the pain pump button in her right hand and squeezed it, making it beep.

  Jarred’s voice spoke on her right side. “Baby, you okay?”

  He was there.

  “It hurts.”

  He sat up and came into view. Then she heard Garrison’s voice. “She awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time is it?”

  “After midnight. He took you back into surgery. He had to take out another little piece of the disk. You’re okay.”

  “I’m not going home Monday, am I?”

  “No, sweetie. You’ll be in here several days, at least. They’re worried about possible infection. Just a precaution. And they want to keep you immobile for a couple of days so you don’t do any more damage.”

  “What happened to my mom?”

  “Security kicked her out. I called your dad and told him what happened. I haven’t talked to him since then. Frankly, I don’t care what happens to her.”

  “Guys?”

  “Yeah, babe?” Garrison asked.

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  “Fuckin’ A, we’re not leaving you alone,” Jarred said. “Not after this bullshit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t be sorry,” Jarred said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “What happened?” Garrison asked.

  “I woke up and she was here. Then I felt sick and she tried to pull me into sitting up, and when I shoved her away, I fell.”

  “Well, not a problem now,” Jarred said. “She’s banned from the hospital. One of us, or Brent or Mitchell, will be here with you.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. “I’m so sorry I didn’t stay with you. I feel fucking horrible about that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay. My job is to take care of you and I didn’t.”

  “Take care of me now. You guys take charge. Please?”

  “Bet yer ass we are,” Garrison said.

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes, the morphine calling to her again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Em was so glad to be home she couldn’t believe it. Over a week in the hospital with no privacy had taken a toll on her, even though one or both men had slept in the room with her every night.

  They weren’t looking for their Ma’am to step back into her role. They’d followed her request and totally took charge. During the day, either Mitchell or Brent had stayed with her, and Jarred frequently popped his head in to check on her.

  They were going to take care of her, like it or not.

  Problem was, now that she was home and starting to feel like herself again, she was ready to try to take control of her life. She’d felt somewhat helpless with her mom living under her roof. Em had just started to get the feel for her new relationship with Garrison and Jarred when she was injured.

  Dealing with her mom in the hospital had been the final straw. Her father had come to visit her—alone—the next morning. Her mom apparently hadn’t taken her meds that day.

  Or for the past several days.

  She was now back in the psychiatric center, and would be for several more days, at least. While she expressed remorse for what she’d done, Em wasn’t ready to forgive and forget just yet.

  Her men damn sure weren’t, and hadn’t seemed able to downshift from uber-protective mode since the incident with her mom.

  Except…she was home. Their home, the new house. The kitchen had been installed and the men had taken plenty of pictures of the whole process to show her while she was still in the hospital.

  It was almost like starting over from scratch, in a way.

  Again.

  This time, however, she’d had Tilly’s assistance. While Tilly had visited her one night in the ho
spital while Jarred went home to collapse and Garrison hadn’t yet arrived, Em had told Tilly what she wanted to do. With her friend’s help, Tilly guided her through Amazon on her laptop, and Tilly let Em use her address for the delivery so it’d be a surprise. That morning, while Garrison had run home to do some things in preparation for her homecoming and Tilly was there to watch over her, Tilly had given Em the surprise to tuck away in her purse.

  When the men got her home Monday afternoon and she got undressed and settled in bed, she patted the other side of it. “Come up here. Kneeling.”

  The men exchanged a glance. “Um, sweetie, you shouldn’t be doing a lot of moving around,” Garrison said. “And while we don’t mind putting on a show for you, I don’t want to accidentally jostle you.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Did I stutter? Bed. Now.”

  No, she wasn’t submissive. The past week notwithstanding, normally she was more comfortable in their usual roles for day-to-day stuff. Otherwise, it’d chafe at her. In fact, a couple of times the past three days she’d nearly snapped at the guys when they’d been hovering, overprotective.

  The men carefully climbed up onto the bed.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out the two satin pouches the matching necklaces had come in. Exactly the same, the stainless steel chains weren’t heavy or thick, but the serpentine pattern was more than just a basic chain.

  “We’ll do something different once I’m up and about and completely back to normal,” she said. “Tilly said we could probably do a collaring at the club. But I’m not about to waste any more time. We can discuss marriage later, once I’m healed up. I was terrified and sort of sprung that on you guys because of the circumstances. But I do love you. And I wish I could marry both of you, but I can’t. We’ll figure it out.”

  She crooked a finger at Garrison, coaxing him closer. She would never make him take off the necklace which held Janis’ engagement and wedding rings. But he could wear this with it. Also, Jarred could wear his at work, under his scrub top, without any trouble.

  “Consider these your collars,” she said as she hooked one around Garrison’s neck, then the other around Jarred’s neck. “I’m formally collaring you two before you can get away from me. I love you both, and I’m glad you’re not about to make me choose between you, because I never could. We can work out the official labels later. I don’t care if you want to be my subs or my slaves or my pets, or whatever, as long as you’re mine, and I’m yours.”