After thanking Schulman and Carson for their help, Ronan headed back to Teal's room, opening the door to the sight he’d been longing to see.
Sorcha and Jax sat on the far side of the bed, Sorcha clasping Teal’s hand to his chest. The young omega had tears in his eyes.
As Ronan walked into the room, Teal turned toward the door, stretching out his arm slowly.
“Hello, my love.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jax
“You’re sure he’s okay?” Jax asked Niall anxiously.
“Yes. I think the hardest part will be keeping the boys from crawling all over him, but other than that, he looks much better than when we left the hospital.”
Jax sunk into the McGinns’ living room couch with relief. He’d been up with the sun this morning, itching to go over to the other side of the duplex. The single wall between the units felt like a mountain sometimes.
When they finally came over after seven a.m. so Niall could help get the boys up, Jax had stayed downstairs, not wanting to crowd into the bedroom with everyone else.
“You should go see him,” Niall said. He asked about you before he fell asleep again. I told him you were here yesterday when we brought him home, but he wants to see you for himself.”
“In a sec,” Jax replied. “I just need to send off a few emails.”
Jax had drafted the rough copy of a letter to his company, letting them know he wouldn’t be returning to the project.He offered to come out to Hampson Towers in a few weeks, assuming Teal was on the mend, until they could find a replacement. But after that, he was done. The combined events of the past few weeks had taught him that life was short, and he needed to stop playing everything so safe. His heart was with interior home design. Somehow, he was going to transition his career in that direction.
But those details were best left to another day. The household was still in flux after Teal’s poisoning. The omega had stayed in the hospital for three more days, steadily improving. Much as they’d suspected, when Ronan posed the idea of using suppressants to aid in his recovery, Teal adamantly declared he didn’t want them.
“I haven’t won a monumental victory for the people and faced a near-death experience only to give up on my dearest dream,” Teal told them on his last day in the hospital, during one of his more lucid moments. “If my body gives out on me during heat, I know you’ll be there to take care of me.” Jax assumed Teal meant Ronan and Sorcha when he said it. He didn’t let himself think about the fact that Teal’s gaze had been fixed on him.
Because Teal didn’t want the suppressants, Dr. Kinzinger felt he should go home as soon as possible. When his heat came, it would be better for it to happen in the privacy of his familiar environment. After twenty-four hours with consistent progress and no new seizures, the hospital released Teal with the caveat that a home health nurse would visit twice daily for a few days.
Ronan had let his co-workers know that he’d need a leave of absence soon for Teal’s heat and that he would only be at the job site intermittently until then. Since his speech to the hospital crowd, his co-workers had become much more accommodating and solicitous of his situation.
Jax imagined that once Ronan returned to work full-time, he’d find the pro-alpha members of his team a lot less vocalin their dislike of both Ronan and the crew’s omegas. They’d already received assurances from Garin and Kino’s school that the administration would do a better job of making sure the boys were safe from kids taunting them about their daddy. The twins were taking the rest of this week off from school but would return on Monday.
Jax sent his emails off and went upstairs to sit with Teal, who slept the whole time.
Later that morning, Jax read to Zayne for an hour until the little boy fell asleep. When he came downstairs, he saw that Ronan and Niall had set up a mini chess tournament with the twins, which Kino was winning.
Jax found Sorcha in the garage, working on something that looked like either a coffee table or a nightstand. Ronan had ordered new materials for him, and they’d been delivered that morning.
“It looks beautiful,” Jax told Sorcha, running his hand along the raw wood.
“Thanks. I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet, but I’m really enjoying the process. It was so hard to work while Teal was in court, and then the hospital.”
“Understandable.”
“But now that he’s upstairs, getting better, it’s like my creative mind has exploded with ideas and… I don’t know… I just feel so free, or something.”
Jax chortled. “I think they call that happiness, my friend. And you wear it well. Like you’re glowing.”
Sorcha’s eyes flashed. He put down the tool he’d been holding. “So we’re friends, huh?” he asked, running a finger across Jax’s arm.
Jax felt his blood rush south. He recognized his attraction to Sorcha for what it was. And who could blame him when the young man in front of him peered up with such soft eyes? Jaxrecalled the way Sorcha felt in his arms when he'd held him during Ronan's speech.
Sorcha’s tongue darted out to lick his top lip, and Jax’s breath caught.
He took a step back. “Of course we’re friends. What else would we be?”
