This is Love (Travis & Viola, #2) (Checkmate Duet Series)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

VIOLA

PRESENT DAY

Mia f*****g Montgomery.

What the hell was Travis doing with her? Why the hell were they together? And why was she naked?

All questions I probably won’t get answers to, at least for a while. I want to trust Travis. I want to believe nothing happened between him and Mia, but the circumstances aren’t looking good right now.

Courtney offers to drive me once she sees how badly my knees are shaking. I call Drew as we walk to the Jeep to find out which hospital they were sent to.

“Placerville?” I gasp. “Why the hell did they transfer them up there?”

“Closest hospital to the scene of the accident,” he informs me. He’s already up there, in full cop mode, but they haven’t allowed him to see them yet.

“What was he doing up there?” And with her?

“I don’t know, Vi. You know everything I do.” I hear the concern in his voice and try to stay calm for both of our sakes.

“Okay, sorry. I’m just worried is all.”

Courtney gives me a look, knowing I’m full of s**t. As we climb into the Jeep, she quietly suggests I just tell Drew and get it over with, but until there’s something to tell, I’m keeping my lips sealed. If he was hanging out with Mia and something happened between the two of them, there’d be no secret to keep. There’d be no us. But I have to try to give him the benefit of the doubt before jumping to conclusions, regardless of how easy that is.

I can’t deny how the thought of it makes my throat dry. I’m not naïve enough to think that sleeping with Travis changes things. It doesn’t change who he is or who I am. In fact, until I know what happened between us this past week meant something, and where we stand, it may be better to pretend it never happened. But even I know that’s easier said than done.

I’m losing myself in my thoughts when I hear Drew yelling my name through the phone. “Viola!”

“Sorry, I’m here.”

“You don’t have to come up here, you know? I can keep you updated on Mia.”

I roll my eyes. “What about Travis?”

“I figured you probably didn’t care.”

“Drew!” I scold. “I’m not a robot. Of course I care.”

“Well, you two are at each other’s throats most days.”

“That doesn’t mean I want him to be hurt...or worse.” I rest my head against the headrest of the Jeep and inhale, trying to focus on the white line on the side of the road. Maybe I should just tell him... “Listen, Drew. There’s something—”

“Oh hey, the doctor is coming out. I’ll call you right back.” He hangs up before I can respond.

“Well, that has to be a sign,” I mutter to myself.

“What?” Courtney asks, driving onto the highway. It’s about an hour drive, which means my mind has fifty-nine minutes to overthink everything.

“I was going to tell him, and he cut me off as soon as he saw the doctor.”

“What exactly were you going to say?”

I shrug, knowing I hadn’t thought it through. “I don’t know. That Travis and I hate-f****d all over the house, so I have a reason to be worried, although now I’m wondering if he screwed Mia and if I should go back to hating his f*****g guts again.”

She widens her eyes and grips the steering wheel tighter. “Perhaps it’s a good thing he hung up then. No matter what, everything is going to be okay. Got it?” She gives me a hopeful smile, and we ride in silence the rest of the way.

When we finally arrive at the hospital, anxious butterflies swarm my belly, and I have no idea what to expect. Courtney grabs my hand as we walk through the entrance and find Drew waiting for us.

She leans in and whispers, “Would this be a bad time to mention how hot your brother looks right now?”

I look at her and scowl.

“You guys made it,” Drew says as he walks toward us. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. He notices Courtney and flashes her a small smile. Of course, she melts, and I nudge her.

“The nurse said we could go in and see them soon,” Drew continues.

“Do you know what happened yet? Or how bad they’re hurt?” I search his face for a reaction, but he’s calm and calculated with his words and movements. Drew is worried shitless right now.

“Mia didn’t have her seat belt on, so she’s banged up pretty badly. Her lung collapsed, and she slammed her head pretty hard. They’re keeping her overnight for observation, so I’m not sure when she’ll be released.”

“Glad to hear she’ll survive,” I say dryly between gritted teeth, but it’s lost on him.

“What about Travis?” Courtney fills the silence, and I’m so grateful she asks.

“The airbags deployed, causing some burns, and he smacked his head on the driver’s side window during impact. He had his seat belt on, but the force of the impact broke a few ribs. He’s bruised, but he’ll survive.”

I’m finally able to exhale the breath I’ve been holding since I received the call. To say I’m relieved to hear he’s going to be okay is an understatement.

“He’ll stay in ICU for observation to make sure there’s no swelling in his brain, but knowing Travis, his head was already swelled up as big as his ego,” he cracks, getting a small smile out of me.

“So, what happened exactly? Do they know?” I’m impatient as I ask, but I try to stay calm.

“The sheriff told me bits and pieces, but until they do a full accident reconstruction, they only know from what the witnesses told them. Basically, he was driving down the ramp and a semi in the right lane wasn’t moving over, so he slowed down to get behind it. However, the car behind them wasn’t paying attention and rammed right into the back of them at full speed, pushing them forward into traffic. Luckily, there weren’t many cars on the highway at two in the morning.”

Jesus.

My heart hammers in my chest as I picture Travis going through something like that. He could’ve been hurt a lot worse had there been more traffic or the semi driver suddenly slowed down or the car that hit him was going faster or...

“Viola,” Drew’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts that were pulling me away. “He’ll be okay.”

“What about his precious Challenger?” Courtney asks with a mock smile.

“It’s in bad shape.”

“Priorities, Courtney!” I scold.

Drew looks at her, holding back a smile. It’s the most attention he’s paid to any girl since his breakup. Courtney instantly lights up.

“What? It’s not like I asked about the car first!”

He glances over at her again, and I wonder what he’s thinking because his face isn’t giving him away.

I roll my eyes at her comment and follow Drew as he finds us a spot in the waiting area, but I’m glad she took the attention away from me.

We sit and stare at the TV, knowing damn well none of us can focus on whatever courtroom reality show is on. I hate this.

I hate waiting.

I hate not knowing.

I hate being left in the dark.

It’s eating me up inside, so I have to speak up. “Any idea why Travis would be with Mia in the first place?”

Courtney’s eyes widen as she looks at Drew for a reaction, but he doesn’t give one.

“None that makes any sense.” He shrugs, keeping his eyes locked on the screen and paying us no attention at all. It’s such a dude reaction.

“You don’t seem too concerned that your friend was in a car with your girlfriend or that she was naked in his back seat.”

He cracks a weak smile. “Well, I know he wasn’t fooling around with her, so I’m not that concerned.” He pauses a moment. “And technically, she’s my ex-girlfriend now, unless she magically changed her mind again.” The sadness in his tone doesn’t go unnoticed.

I ignore the ex-girlfriend comment, but Courtney perks up at the mention of it.

“Travis may be a lot of things, but he’d never betray me like that,” he states with certainty.

“Bro code,” Courtney adds, and I glare at her without Drew noticing.

“There are just certain people you don’t fool around with, and he’d never do something like that behind my back.”

Certain people like an ex-girlfriend or little sister…?

A dagger shoots right into my chest as I hear Drew talking about the strong friendship and bond he has with Travis.

Courtney flashes me a look, and I know we’re both thinking it. If we weren’t all sitting together, Courtney would be swooning over Drew a lot harder. He’s clueless as to how he affects girls, especially Courtney. Even though she was with Toby, and Drew’s been on and off with Mia, she’s always had a little thing for him. And she takes every opportunity to remind me.

Even before Toby and she were on the path to breakup city, Courtney had crushed hard on him. Shortly after we first met, she came with me to his house and nearly walked into a beam the first time she saw him.

“Are you all right?” he asked her, genuinely concerned.

She blinked a few times, and Drew took a step toward her.

“Fine,” she finally said. “Just wasn’t looking where I was going.”

He nodded and flashed one of his infamous charming smiles. Drew doesn’t have to do much to get a girl’s attention with his dark, shaggy hair and tattoos lining his arms and chest. He’s built like a rock and was the reason guys wouldn’t come to the house back in high school. He looked terrifying, but I knew he had a soft side, too.

“Stop looking at my brother like you want to rip off his clothes!” I groaned once Drew was out of hearing distance. My friends swooning over him was something I had gotten used to in high school, and somehow, it continued to happen in college.

Her eyes remained locked on him as he walked down the hall to his bedroom. “I want to do a lot more than that…” Her lips tilted up. “And those handcuffs—”

“All right, I get it,” I said, cutting her off. “You want to go all Fifty Shades on his ass.”

She chuckled. “Hot cop fantasy.” She shrugged unapologetically.

I smile, remembering the moment. She’d been completely devoted to Toby and would never act on anything outside of their relationship, but now that there was no relationship, I hope she’d finally allow herself to go out and have some fun. She needs to meet people and see what life is like without a relationship status determining her every move. With Drew being available, it might take her mind off the dirty breakup.

“Are you the friends of Mia Montgomery?” A doctor walks up to us, and we all look up.

“Yes,” Drew says, standing. Courtney and I both stand next to him.

“She’s pretty drowsy from the pain medication we gave her, but you can see her one at a time for a few minutes.”

“What about the driver, Travis King?” I ask before he can walk away.

“He’s on some pretty heavy painkillers as well, but a few minutes should be okay.”

“Just enough time for you to put a pillow over his head,” Drew teases. The doctor gives a disapproving look but doesn’t comment.

“That’s pretty harsh,” I say, following him.

He chuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t know you two became best friends since I left.”

Courtney snorts behind me, and I turn around, flashing her a glare.

“Um, definitely not. Doesn’t mean I’d want him dead.”

“All right, go check on him while I check on Mia.”

“Okay.”

“Mia Montgomery is in 707, and Travis King is in 713, just down that hall.” The doctor directs us. We both thank him. “Just a few minutes,” he reminds us.

Courtney walks with me to Travis’s room but doesn’t follow me inside.

“I’ll wait out here so you two can be alone.”

I purse my lips and exhale. “Okay.”

I knock softly on the door before slowly opening it. I’m not sure what to expect, but I just need to visually confirm that he’s okay.

“Travis?” I walk quietly up to his bed, taking in his closed eyes and the bandage over his forehead. “Can you hear me?” I take his hand, feeling his warmth against mine, and wait for a response.

He has an IV in his other hand, his left knee is propped up on pillows under the sheets, and his face is bruised and swollen. I’ve never seen him like this before, and for the first time, he looks vulnerable. My chest aches, seeing his body lying almost lifeless, his chest slowly rising and falling, and I can’t help but want to kiss every bruised part of him.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, I keep his hand in mine and hope he can hear what I’m about to say.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s V.” I choke down tears and laughter. “I can’t believe I just called myself that.”

I wait, hoping he’ll respond and join in on our inside joke, but he doesn’t flinch. I watch his chest move up and down as the sounds of the machines fill the room.

“You look pretty awful, but the doctor says you should be back to your normal self in no time. Truthfully, seeing you like this is tearing me apart.”

I swallow and catch my breath, and then I begin to ramble. “I don’t know why you and Mia were together, and I honestly don’t think I want to know. I’m going to try to trust you, Travis. It’ll be hard because of our past, but I’m going to try to be more like Drew. It doesn’t faze him at all that you were with Mia, and it reminded me that although you’re an asshole most of the time, you wouldn’t do anything like that to Drew. Apparently, there’s some sort of bro code.” I shake my head at the thought.

“To be honest, I hope you wouldn’t do that to me either, but I don’t know where we stand and what we’re doing. When you get out of here, and you’re not hooked to machines like Darth Vader, we’re going to have to talk—like a real talk—about us. I need to know that we’re on the same page and where we should go from here. I want to trust you, Travis, and I’m going to try really hard. Please don’t make me regret wearing my heart on my sleeve.”

I sit next to him for a few more minutes, watching him sleep. Realizing I’ve been in his room way too long, I squeeze his hand, wishing he’d squeeze it back, but he never does. I stand and lean over him, careful not to touch or put weight on his chest and press my lips to his.

“Bye, Travis,” I whisper.

I walk toward the door, wiping my face as tears begin falling down my cheeks. I can’t stand to see him so vulnerable and broken; it’s tearing me apart. Before I can open the door, a nurse walks in and immediately studies my face.

“Oh, it’s okay, sweetie.” She flashes me a genuine smile. “Mr. King will have a full recovery in a few weeks. He’s pretty drugged up on painkillers right now, but I’ll let him know you were here.”

All I can do is nod and reach for the door.

I really hope this isn’t game over.