Chapter 22
Avery
“You look sweaty,” Carrie commented the second I flopped down into one of the chairs across from Eva’s bed. “You okay?”
I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror after cleaning up, but I could feel how flushed my face still was and knew it showed as clear as day. Which no doubt wasn’t helping my case in looking innocent after taking that phone call.
I was still buzzing from it—my skin still tingling from the aftereffects.
Under any other normal circumstances, Carrie wouldn’t give two shits about who the hell I was getting involved with romantically. At this point, she’d probably encourage it and tell me it was about damn time.
Being at the hospital while her daughter was undergoing breathing treatments and getting pumped full of antibiotics, however, wasn’t exactly the best place to be admitting to having phone sex and getting myself off in the damn bathroom while she’d needed my emotional support.
In fact, she’d probably call me a pervert and ban me from ever seeing her or Eva again.
So, lying it was.
Rubbing my hands over my thighs a few times, drying them of the excess water from the tap in the bathroom, I forced a quick smile. “All good. Hear anything yet?”
She gave me another cursory glance before nodding. “One of the nurses swung by and checked her vitals. Said she should be waking up anytime now. I wanted to run down to the gift shop and grab her something. A stuffed animal to have with her while she’s got all these wires on her.”
The poor thing looked so tiny in her bed, wrapped in a thin sheet while there was a mask over her face, feeding her humidified oxygen, and an IV tapped at the crook of her arm that was pumping her system full of antivirals.
She had a heart monitor patch on her chest that was tucked under her hospital gown, and another set of wires that I really couldn’t tell what they were for laid out on the opposite side of her body, two of which were clamped around her small fingers.
Eva’s long, sandy blonde hair was tucked back away from her face, the front fringes tangled between Carrie’s fingers while she stroked through the strands every so often. She’d been out of it since arriving, her fever finally breaking a little under an hour ago after another round of drugs.
This entire situation was scary beyond belief. I didn’t know how Carrie was holding it together so well because if it were me sitting in that chair, holding onto my daughter while she struggled to breathe, I’d be a mess begging for any medical staff walking by to do something.
Rolling to my feet, I nodded. “Let me. You stay here.”
Carrie hesitated, looking back and forth between Eva and me.
I knew how torn she was over this, wanting to stay by Eva’s side in case she woke up but also not wanting to put me out by asking me to do things that her fiancé should be here doing instead.
While I was plenty grateful for her including me, I wasn’t a fool to not know that all of this had been done out of desperation.
Ryan being a seven hour flight away had made it impossible for him to get back to the city quickly, leaving Carrie to do all of the heavy lifting when it came to medical decisions for their daughter.
He’d been upset after hearing I’d come to keep Carrie company while she waited on answers, only really calming down after I’d snatched the phone from her and told him to get a grip—now was not the time to let the raging jealousy take hold of any rational decision making.
None of that would help how stressful any of this was.
I wasn’t interested in trying to step into his shoes anyway.
I’d had that with Carrie years before he ever came into the picture and had decided pretty early on that it wasn’t for me.
Hell, it would’ve been easier on both of us if we’d sucked it up and popped out a few kids to please both of our family’s expectations.
The thing was that people changed. What I thought I’d wanted with Carrie—an easy life with a beautiful and successful wife, a few kids and maybe a dog that we crammed together into a penthouse in one of the upper east high rises a few blocks from my office building—wasn’t the future that I ended up being the happiest living.
My happiest was driving to that damn body shop and sneaking into the back and surprising my best friend with a hot meal and reveling in the warm smile that crept across his face, and the slight color the rose to his cheeks.
“I’ll get her something cute,” I promised. “Stay, Carrie. She’ll want you first thing when she wakes up.”
She sighed softly, her shoulders slowly relaxing while she nodded. “Okay. Hurry back.”
Turning on my heel, I headed out in the hallway and down to the main floor of the hospital.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Brandon that this place was packed, patients and doctors all moving at a breakneck speed that was hard to keep up with when I exited the elevator and nearly collided with two medical staff pushing their way in with a stretcher.
Being back in the city after spending the past two weeks away felt strange in a way, like I’d distanced myself from the very place I’d called home for the past decade.
I never thought I’d somehow grow unaccustomed to life here, reverting back to liking the placid lifestyle of Edgewood and Ellington Heights over all of this in such a short amount of time away.
I wondered what that said about me. How much I’d changed after finding myself back in Ellington Heights and how much of the ‘real’ me was slowly starting to unthaw from the frigid bitterness I’d held onto all of these years.
Coming back to the States two degrees heavier and with a determination to make something out of myself that surpassed the McAllister name I’d been born into, I’d settled on sinking my roots down in an unfamiliar city an hour and a half away from my hometown and never once thought about looking back.
Why would I when all that awaited me back there were painful memories?
Until seeing Brandon again had ended up completely rewiring my brain entirely.
Now I was second-guessing everything.
The gift shop was stationed right as the lobby to the hospital opened up past the security desk, with a spinning rack of overpriced cards right outside of the glass doors as the first thing to welcome me inside.
Stepping through the doorway, I felt my shoulders slowly relax, no longer tense from the heavy atmosphere of a very active hospital.
I wasn’t afraid of coming to places like this where miracles and death were commonplace—I’d spent enough time as it was when I was a kid with a strangely sick mother that never seemed to get better no matter what treatment the doctors put her on.
But I never quite could ever get over the stress that seeing such things put on me, more than a boardroom full of angry investors ever could.
Thankfully, stepping inside of the gift shop was a nice break from all of that, allowing me to breathe a bit better while the tranquil elevator music seeped in from the speakers overhead.
The place was small, jam-packed with stuff that ranged from hospital branded sweatshirts and sweatpants, to small knick-knack trinkets that looked at least a few years old given how faded the coating of paint on them were.
Finding my way toward the back of the store, I spotted a shelf full of stuffed animals easily enough.
Eva was the type of little girl to like the unconventional stuff, not the run-of-the-mill horses and cats that any typical three year old would gravitate toward, giving most people a run for their money when gifting her things.
But to me, I found it too charming not to encourage.
After all, who could resist her begging for a pet pigeon when most kids wanted a dog or cat?
Rummaging through the plushies until I reached the back of the shelf, I grazed my hand over a plump one in the back that felt too soft to the touch not to drag out from the dusty and dark corner it’d been pushed back into.
Grabbing a hold of it, I scooted it out until I could get a better look at it and then ended up laughing softly to myself when I realized it was actually perfect.
It was a chubby-looking pill bug sewn in a blue fabric that shimmered on the underside of the stitched thorax.
Squeezing it a few times in my hands, I decided it definitely felt soft enough for Eva to cuddle with when she eventually needed to sleep again.
Hopefully, on the way home once she was finally discharged.
As much as it pained me to see her hooked up to all of those machines, she was in the best place she could be at the moment. Having a sick kid wasn’t for the faint of heart, and that I didn’t envy Carrie over at all.
How in the world would I ever be able to handle any of this shit if, or when, hopefully, I ever had one of my own... Actually, I didn’t even want to dwell on the absolute fucking wreck I’d be.
Tucking the stuffed bug under my arm, I grabbed a few snacks for Carrie on the way up to the register and set everything down on the counter, flashing a polite smile at the older woman working the counter.
As much as I appreciated being involved in all of this, I had it in me to be wary of growing closer to Carrie, and subsequently, Eva, through a tough situation like this one.
It hurt the first time I’d been forced to distance myself in order to help her save her relationship, and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel the second time around when it inevitably came once Ryan was back in the state.
Truthfully, I had every right to be annoyed with the guy for assuming things but at the same time, how would it feel if we were in the reverse roles?
If this was Brandon and I was coming back from a long flight to find his ex-spouse comforting and taking care of him and our child together?
Fuck, I’d lose it.
“Here you go, dear.” The cashier handed me a paper bag with my purchases in it. “Have a nice day.”
Shaking myself out of the thoughts, I took the bag and thanked her before heading out of the shop and back over to the elevators.