“You’re right. You can sit with her at night. From midnight until six a.m. The rest of the time, I’ll be with her, I’ll take care of her. You do whatever you have to do around here, you handle the fucking media, the phone calls, all the bullshit. I will take care of her, and you will take care of any and everything else. Do I make myself clear?”
Tyler nodded, unable to bear the weight of his angry glare.
“Don’t go stressing her out. Don’t go blubbering all over her. For now we’ll pretend everything’s fine between you and me so she doesn’t worry. You and I will deal with the rest of this shit after she’s home and healed up though.”
He jabbed his finger at Tyler. “You and your fucking plans. I will not lose her. Do you understand me? Not for you, or anyone else on this fucking planet. She might not want to choose, but if it means not losing her, I damn sure will.”
Tyler offered no resistance. Thomas was a man usually slow to anger, but when enraged he hated with a passion and was slow to forgive—if ever. Once he formed a grudge it became as solid and durable as the Great Wall of China.
Tyler left the bedroom and found a notepad, started playing the answering machine messages. The Tampa Trib, St. Pete Times. All the local TV stations. CNN. Many leaving more than one message. His agent, his editor, and his publicist. Eddie and Pete and a few other friends.
His mother. Damn, that meant it had reached the UK tabloids. He’d have to get their home number changed.
He wrote them all down and cleared the machine, knowing at this rate it would be full again by the next evening.
When Tyler finally emerged from his shower, Thomas was tightly curled on his side at the far edge of the bed. Tyler didn’t speak to him. He lay down on his side of the bed and tried to sleep, feeling the vast gulf between them through his very core. He desperately wanted to reach out to him, apologize and comfort him, but was afraid it would only make things worse.
Tyler switched pillows, taking one of Nevvie’s. The smell of her shampoo on the pillowcase made his heart ache.
The men arrived early the next morning to speak to the doctors during rounds, but the doctor intercepted them at the SICU desk. “Fifteen minutes. She spiked a fever overnight and we’re worried about infection.”
Tyler’s heart fell. “Will she be all right?”
“We’ve upped her antibiotics and put her on a morphine pump for pain. She’s pretty out of it. Her blood pressure’s good, but if we can’t knock out the infection with drugs we might have to go in and find the problem.”
Nevvie’s color didn’t look good either. Ashen, her eyes sunken and dull, she managed a weak smile. She squeezed their hands and held on the entire visit. She still had the tube in her nose, as well as an oxygen cannula. Tyler suspected the morphine helped not only her pain but her nerves. She fell asleep after ten minutes and they both kissed her on the forehead before filing out of the SICU.
Tyler called to check on her every hour while dodging calls from news outlets and his mother. Nevvie’s fever steadily rose. At noon the nurse called and informed him they were prepping Nevvie for surgery, afraid she had an abscess. The men raced to the hospital, but Nevvie was already in the OR.
Two hours later the surgeon appeared in the waiting room. “I think we found the source of infection, but needless to say she’s not leaving the SICU until we know for sure. You won’t be able to talk to her until tomorrow morning at the earliest, so you might as well go home.”
“Please, can we just see her?” Thomas asked.
The doctor nodded. She was in the same bed as before, unconscious and back on the respirator. Both men cried, whispering their love before kissing her goodbye.
A television crew had parked across the street from the house and when they pulled in, Thomas went inside, leaving Tyler to deal with them. This was his mess. He’d have to clean it up.
Tyler took a deep breath and waited while the reporter jogged up, followed by a cameraman. “Mr. Paulson? Tyler Paulson?”
“Yes.”
“Can we interview you, get a statement?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, no statement. Please respect our privacy.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Ms. Barton?”
“Our focus right now is making sure she gets the care she needs to recover. We’ll release a statement at a more appropriate time, but for now I will make no other comments. Thank you.” He retreated to the house. There were fifteen messages on the answering machine.
His first call was to Bob Campbell, their attorney.
“I wondered when I’d hear from you.”
Tyler closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me what to do, Bob.”
“What do you want me to say? You can’t exactly give a statement to the media saying she’s your common-law wife, or label her your domestic partner.”
“How do I protect her and Thomas from this?”
“You can’t. When the three of you opted for this ‘alternative lifestyle’ of yours you opened a can of worms. It’s not like you’re Joe Mechanic working at the Jiffy Lube. You aren’t flying under the radar anymore. The 911 tape doesn’t help, either.”
“What?”
“Pull up Channel 8’s website. I’m sure they’ve got the clip online by now. That came out around noon today.”
“Shit.” Tyler sat at his computer and found the site. Sure enough. “I’ll call you back, Bob.” He hung up and clicked on the link to play the video from their noon news. The anchor recapped the story and then they played the audio with—how helpful of them—captioning.
Operator: 911, what is your emergency?
Thomas Kinsey: I need a deputy, now, 270 Sailfish Court!
Operator: Sir, what is your emergency?
Kinsey: We’ve got an intruder at our home, just got home, someone’s inside.
Operator: Sir, are they armed? Do you know how many there are?… Sir?… Are you there?
Kinsey: (unintelligible)…Nevvie! Oh God, he stabbed her! Please, send an ambulance! Oh, God, she’s bleeding everywhere!
Operator: Who was stabbed, sir?
Kinsey: He stabbed my wife!
Operator: Sir, please calm down—
Kinsey: God ****ing dammit, send a ****ing ambulance! She’s dying! He hit Tyler, he’s out cold, but she’s dying, you’ve got to save her!
Operator: Who is Tyler? Is he okay?
Kinsey: He’s my partner—I don’t know, he’s on the floor unconscious, he got hit with a chair when he tried to help Nevvie, please, you’ve got to send an ambulance…
The agony in Thomas’ voice crushed Tyler’s soul. He shut down the browser. Just when he thought he’d grown accustomed to their current pit of hell they exposed yet another fresher, deeper layer.
He called Bob back. “I played it.”
“I suppose the only saving grace is that he called Nevvie his wife and you his partner. Partner can mean a lot of things. People will assume it means boyfriend, but you can spin it to make it look like you’re the odd man out and sharing a house.”
“I’ll call Elliot Paterno. The two of you work something out and get it to me to look at before it goes to the media. I want Nevvie and Thomas to look good.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t care what I look like. Say they’re engaged but living together and in the stress he said wife, whatever. Get the heat off of them. If you need to spin it so people come after me, fine.”