44. Tabitha
CHAPTER 44
TABITHA
The TV cuts to a commercial break—one that lasts far too long—and I’m left staring at the screen, slack-jawed. An invisible fist clenches around my throat and won’t let go. To the average viewer, this is your average commercial break.
But the way Will rolled to his knees over Rhys and dropped his head low to talk to him was… not for show.
I reach for my phone and pull up our messages. His I love you too hits me like a ton of bricks, and I force myself to suck in a deep breath. He’s fine. Probably concussed or something. I feel myself slipping into a familiar mode—survival mode—where I convince myself that everything is not as bad as it seems.
A call from Erika in the middle of the night? Most likely a butt dial. But I’d still get out of bed and search for her around town.
That eerie sense of calm settles over me. It’s a defense mechanism, but it hasn’t failed me yet. Except to make me a completely unemotional automaton who gets shit done.
I fire off a text.
Tabby:
Checking on you.
Then I wait. Ten minutes pass, and I stare at my phone the entire time. I tell myself it hasn’t been that long. He could be showering. One of their medical staff could be checking him out. Then I give in to the brewing panic.
Tabby:
Can you drop me a line when you get a sec? I would settle for an eye roll emoji.
Ten minutes turn into twenty, and I stand. Twenty turns into thirty, and I pace. And then the forty-minute mark hits, and a growing sense of nausea takes over. I clutch my phone in one hand and keep the other slapped over my mouth.
Finally, the phone rings, and a photo I snapped of him wearing only a towel lights up the screen. His head is tilted, and he looks irritated, but the subtle tilt of his lips tells another story.
I answer in a heavy rush of breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”
The line is silent, and I pull it away from my ear to check that there’s still a connection.
“Rhys?”
Then I hear a voice. But it isn’t Rhys.
“Tabitha? This is Will.”
Everything in me goes cold. I know in my bones that something is wrong, but I ask anyway. “Will? Why?”
“Rhys—” His voice breaks, and all the cocky surety I see in the ring isn’t here right now. He sounds young and terrified. “I think you should get to Anaheim. He’s on his way to the hospital. I’m going to follow. I’ll keep his phone on me.”
Everything feels numb, but I move anyway.
“What’s wrong?” I ask simply, as I march up the stairs.
“I…” He sighs, and his voice shakes. “I don’t know. He… he said he couldn’t move his legs.”
I freeze on the steps and feel as though I’ve been sucker punched in the stomach. Winded. “So I don’t know. They strapped him down right away. All he kept saying to me was Call Tabby .”
Fuck me . This poor guy sounds like he’s crying. I spring into action, hustling up the stairs and rifling through my closet.
“Okay, Will. You did good.” I toss clothes into a backpack, wondering if I should pack for Milo and then wake him up too. “I will be there. Can you please text me which hospital?”
“Yeah. Okay…” He trails off, sounding distraught.
“Hey! Will!” I snap at him. “Zone in. Okay? I can’t be there right away, so I need you to be. Rhys likes you?—”
“It doesn’t seem like he?—”
“Will, shut up. I’m telling you that he likes you. He trusts you.” I continue shoving random clothes into a bag. “For a man who has no friends, you might be the closest thing to it. So get there, and do not leave. Be annoying. Ask for updates. I don’t know if Will is your real name, but throw that cocky, obnoxious Million Dollar energy around, ’kay?”
“But I’m not family.”
“Then lie!” My voice comes out shrill.
“Okay. Okay.”
“Okay, text me. Bye.” I hang up on a clearly spiraling Will and pull up a browser to check for flights, cursing as I scroll through them. They are all tomorrow, and I’ll need to drive three plus hours to get to the Calgary airport—which is right now since there’s no way I’m sleeping. It’s all just… too fucking slow. I want to be there now .
I groan, but it edges on a sob. Living in a small town is all fine and dandy until you need to be somewhere fast. What I really need is— Rosie .
I dial her, and she picks up with a singsong, “Hellooo,” on the third ring.
“Rosie, I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Rhys is seriously injured, and I need to get back to California. You’re the only person I know who is married to?—”
“A billionaire with a private jet? Say less. Ford!” she shouts, and I hear her footsteps rushing through their house. Murmurs filter through the phone, and I can hear her relaying the story.
“I’ll call my guy. It’s not that late. Tell Tabitha I’ll come pick her up.” I let out the breath I’d been holding when I hear Ford’s voice. He’s so matter-of-fact, and that authoritative vibe he has does nothing but bring me comfort in this moment.
“Okay, Tabby. Ford is on it. What can I do? Tell me what you need.”
I look around and let out a whimper when I think of Milo sleeping peacefully down the hall. It all seems so unfair. Have we not been through enough?
But I shake the sentiment and put even more energy into the belief that everything will be okay.
“Milo is here. And our cat, Cleo. Is there any?—”
“I’ll be right over.”
Then she hangs up on me, and I finish getting ready, doing my best to ignore the tears in my eyes.
I blast into the hospital with Ford hot on my heels. He might be the least annoying moral support I’ve ever received. He’s just there . Getting shit done. Not asking me about my feelings. He got us a retired pilot he uses who lives in Rose Hill. He booked us a car on the landing side. He called ahead to the hospital to make sure Rhys was in the best room money could buy.
One day, I’ll weep over his steady, supportive brand of kindness. But right now, I just feed off of his big-swinging-dick energy and cool, collected demeanor.
He makes it easy to hold it together.
I jam my finger against the button in the elevator and tap my foot as it ascends. My eyes stay locked on the numbers above the door.
“You don’t need to be here, you know.” I don’t look at Ford as I say it to him, but from the corner of my eye, I can see him shrug.
“I know.”
“You can go back home.”
A nod. “I can.”
I turn to face him. “Honestly, Ford. You’ve done enough.”
He regards me carefully. “You know what you and I have in common, Tabitha?”
My head tilts. “Aside from our good looks?”
Ford rolls his eyes.
“Sorry, I fall back on dumb humor when I’m stressed.”
He breezes past the discomfort. “We’re both willing to do anything for the people we love. For family.”
I swallow roughly. “You love Rhys?”
He chuckles now, one hand tugging at the ends of his hair as he messes it up. “I mean, we’re on the same bowling team.” He says it like Duh, obviously . “Bonded by humiliation of having to wear those shirts West designed and a mutual hatred for that fucker, Stretch.”
A watery laugh leaps from my throat.
“And you. Rosie loves you, and I love Rosie.”
“So you love me by one degree of separation? I guess that means I love you back.”
We both chuckle, because what the fuck else do we do in this situation? And when those elevator doors open, we spring into action. I stride out into the ICU waiting room, bolstered by the feeling of Ford at my side.
Will is sitting in a green vinyl chair that is just a darker shade of the mint color on the walls. The walls are just a more concentrated shade of the color on Will’s face.
He’s slumped over, hands on his chin, elbows propped on his knees. Watery, red-rimmed eyes land on mine. “Oh good, you’re here.” The words spill from Will’s mouth on a relieved sigh.
But the middle-aged man beside him stands up. He’s wearing a lanyard that says training staff , and he starts talking to me like I’m some sort of interloper or trespassing fan. I see his lips moving, but the words don’t register until he tries to tell me the WPW isn’t allowing any visitors.
I cut him off before he can go any further.
“I’m not asking permission! Where the hell is my husband?”
The trainer stops and draws back, looking offended by my biting tone, but Will pulls my attention away. He speaks as he pushes to stand. “I’m so sorry, Tabby. This is all my fault. I misjudged?—”
“Will, I don’t care about that right now. Where is he? Just tell me where he is.”
“Getting a scan. They’ll come get me when he’s back. They think I’m his brother.”
I walk forward, effectively blocking out the man who thinks he’s going to keep me from Rhys, and squeeze Will’s shoulder. He looks so fucking stricken, I can barely handle it. “You did good.”
He turns his head down, the heels of his hands pressed against his forehead. “I didn’t. I did this. If I had been more accurate, he wouldn’t have adjusted his position to make it work, and… and I?—”
I crouch down, squeezing his forearms. “Hey, hey. Stop.” I give him a shake. “Fucking stop it. Don’t do that.” His big baby blues, swimming in tears, leap up to mine. “Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about blaming yourself for someone else’s health. And guess what? It will eat you alive and not change a thing. A million little things happened last night that could have had a million different outcomes. Maybe if he hadn’t moved, he’d have hit his head. Maybe if you had landed differently, it would have been your back.”
I shake him once again for emphasis. “Do not, under any circumstance, do this to yourself. It solves nothing. Now pull yourself up by the bootstraps. He’ll need his friend. Go and get some sleep. I’ll stay now.”
He gives me a nod on a shaky exhale. “Okay. But I’m not leaving.”
It’s then that a door opens, and a nurse pops her head in. “For Dupris?”
Will wipes at his face, nods in my direction, and does me a solid when he announces, “Yeah, his wife is here now.”
The woman smiles kindly at me. “Okay, Mrs. Dupris, you can come with me.”
I turn and give Ford a pointed look. He’s not an emotional person, but I want him to stick with Will and keep the WPW police off my ass. He picks up on my intention immediately and moves to sit one chair down from the other wrestler.
Then I turn and follow the woman back into the eerily silent ward. The only sound aside from my footsteps is the insistent beeping of monitors.
When she turns, I quicken my pace, that invisible pull I’ve always felt toward Rhys stronger than ever. I may not have all the answers, but I’m certain of one thing—if I can be with him, we’ll be okay. Together, we can get through anything. This much I know about us.
If everything life has thrown at us hasn’t been able to pull us apart, this won’t either.
I let out a whimper when I see him and rush toward the bed. His tan skin looks pale against the sterile white hospital sheets. His tall frame overwhelms the bed, and he belongs in something bigger, something plusher—something where I can bring him home-cooked food.
“Gentle, hon.” The woman’s warning has me drawing up. “We need to keep him still. Doctor will be right in.”
Rhys avoids making eye contact with me as the nurse heads out. His lips are pressed together tightly.
I take the last couple of steps slowly and wrap both my shaky hands around his large one. “Hi, baby.” I turn the term of endearment back on him, his eyes flitting to the side to see me. “I got here as fast as I could.”
I fold at the waist and press a kiss to his upturned wrist. “God, it’s so good to see you.” I look him over. Jaw clenched, throat working.
“How—” He sounds choked up and covers the emotion with a cough. “How did you get here so fast?”
I lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Ford and his toys.”
His lips twitch, but I’d never call his expression a smile.
With that, the door opens, and the doctor breezes in, nose to the clipboard in her hands as she announces, “Well, Mr. Dupris, we’ve got good news, and we’ve got bad news.”