Hard to Hold on To Read Free

him of everything he’d lost and therefore hurt like a motherfuck.
    Easy wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the door to his room opened, and Shane, Sara, and Becca came out. Glancing over Shane’s shoulder, Easy caught a quick glimpse of Jenna lying on her back under the covers before the door cut off his view.
    Shane put an arm around Sara’s shoulders and met Easy’s gaze. “She’ll be okay. Woke up enough to recognize Sara, then was back out again. Probably feel like shit for the next twenty-four, but there’s no evidence of broken bones or internal injuries from what we can tell. We cleaned up the lip and butterflied the cut by her eye.” Shane’s gray eyes flashed with the same anger eating through Easy’s gut. She’d been struck in the face more than once if the busted lip and black eye were any indication. “Now we wait,” Shane said with a sigh.
    “Yeah,” Sara whispered. And then she burst into tears.
    “Aw, sweetness,” Shane said as he folded her into his arms.
    Sara cried like her soul had been ripped open. Shock, relief, four years of living hell being grieved, no doubt. The sound was filled with such mourning and agony that it made Easy a little dizzy—because it was a damn good aural representation of the way he felt inside. But Easy had never had the balls to give voice to it. Not once.
    His instinct was to get away from all that raw emotion—and he could see on their faces that the other guys felt the same—but Shane and Sara were blocking their escape out of the narrow hallway. So there was a whole lot of looking down going on.
    “I’m sorry. I’m okay,” she said a few minutes later.
    “I know, but you don’t have to be,” Shane whispered.
    The urgent need to be alone suddenly hit Easy over the head.
    “Why don’t you all go downstairs and relax,” Becca said, rubbing Sara’s back. “I’ll hang here in case Jenna needs someone.”
    “No,” Easy said more gruffly than he intended. He just really needed them all to go. Now. “I’ll stay. You’ve been sitting up with Charlie every night. I’ll hang.”
    “I should stay in case she wakes up,” Sara said in a weak, exhausted voice.
    Cupping her face in his hand, Shane leaned down to look in her eyes. “You haven’t slept much in days. Jenna’s home and safe. Easy can text us if she needs us. Right, E?”
    “Absolutely,” he said, trying to breathe through his growing anxiety. Were the walls closing in?
    The debate was clear on her expression. “I don’t know . . .”
    “How ’bout this? Sleep while she’s sleeping. We’ll only be one floor down and can come up anytime you want,” Shane said. Easy’s jaw clenched while they waited for her answer. He had no right at all to want to be alone with Jenna, but that didn’t stop him from wanting it all the same.
    Rubbing her eyes, Sara let out a long sigh. “I guess . . . okay.”
    Shane nodded and threw Easy an appreciative glance. “Thanks. Text if you or Jenna needs anything.”
    “Yeah. Of course.” Go. Now. There’s not enough air for all of us. Easy’s heartbeat tripped into a sprint.
    “Jeremy, do you have a little lamp we can bring up here?” Shane asked him. “She’s gonna be disoriented when she wakes up, and a little less wattage than the overhead might be nice to leave on for her.”
    “Done,” Jeremy said, pushing off the wall. He and Charlie took off like they were only too glad to leave. It got incrementally easier to breathe.
    “I won’t leave her,” Easy said, meeting Sara’s searching gaze.
    “Thanks,” she said with a quick nod.
    And then, fucking finally, they were all walking away from him until they disappeared out the far door to the loft. The aloneness and stillness was like the barometric pressure rising after a storm, making it even easier to breathe and stand upright and push back the panic.
    Except, how the hell was he going to be of any use to Jenna if the sound and sight of her sister crying fucked him up like