51. Chapter 51
“Now who the hell is that?”
She skittered into the foyer with Helen. It took her a tick to recognize her brother too.
“Luke?” Lindsey exclaimed.
“Help me,” Graham grunted.
Lindsey lifted Luke’s left arm and helped Graham hoist him to his feet.
“Linds?” Luke squinted through a swollen left eye.
“Yeah, Luke, it’s me. What happened to you? Were you in an accident?”
“Rachel…”
“Was she with you? Is she hurt?”
“Rachel’s…boyfriend,” he slurred through a split lip.
“Did he do this to you?” she demanded.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Helen asked, backing toward the kitchen.
“No ambulance,” Luke said.
“Are you concussed or are you…are you drunk?” Lindsey asked.
He whistled and the air coming out of his mouth was pure whiskey. “Since when are you a doctor?”
“What’s going on?” Jase asked in the arch between the kitchen and the entryway. “Holy fuck.”
“I’m going to kick his ass,” Luke said.
Jase put up his hands. “Whoa, hey, take it easy.”
“He doesn’t mean you,” Lindsey said. “I don’t think.”
“We need to clean him up,” Helen said.
Blood dripped from the wound on his left eyebrow in a steady stream that stained his white shirt and spattered on the wood floor. Mrs. Aldridge would’ve had a fit and ran for the mop and bucket if she was here to see it.
“Bring him in the kitchen,” Lindsey said.
“He weighs a ton,” Graham gritted out.
“Hey, I remember you.” Luke gave Jase a bloody, toothy grin as they passed him. “You’re Lindsey’s boyfriend, right?”
“Get him to the sink,” Lindsey directed. “And he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Is he okay?” Chloe asked. She was clutching the back of a chair and Charlie, the hopeless idiot, was clutching her.
“Not your boyfriend?” Graham asked Lindsey across Luke’s chest. “Or not your boyfriend anymore because of the baby?”
“How does he know?” Luke asked Lindsey. “You told your boyfriend?”
“Told who what?” Lindsey asked.
Jase took Luke’s arm, freeing Lindsey to accept the damp dishcloth from Helen and begin blotting Luke’s injured eyebrow.
“You told your boyfriend about Rachel’s baby?” Luke asked.
“We weren’t talking about her baby,” Lindsey said.
“We were talking about my baby,” Chloe said.
“Jase’s baby,” Graham added. The knot in his chest pinched, biting back his breath.
“Lucky son of a bitch,” Luke muttered. With a groan he hefted his arm over Graham’s head and steadied himself on the counter. “Congrats, man.”
Graham caught the look that passed between his brother and Lindsey. She was resolved, building a mighty tall wall around herself Graham was very familiar with and never tried to scale himself. She’d go through the motions and take care of whatever was in front of her and save emotions for later.
It was how they’d spent the last few months of their relationship. By the end, sex was the only thing left, and it was entirely at his instigation.
She went through the motions, took care of what was in front of her, and saved her emotions for later.
Graham thought he was going to be sick. A rush of heat and nausea bloomed beneath his skin. When did it get so hot in here? He massaged a fist into the knot tightening in his sternum. There were too many people in the kitchen, too many unwanted mouths sucking up all the air.
Graham knew he’d been a bastard. No one expected to watch their father slowly die. He hadn’t known what to do with it. Still didn’t. So he’d used whatever was in front of him to feel something other than soul-shattering grief.
More often than not, it was Lindsey.
She hadn’t been surprised or pissed when he left her for Helen. She was probably relieved he finally let her go.
Jase, for whatever it was worth, looked sorry while he watched Lindsey mop up her brother’s blood. Sometimes he actually seemed to give a shit about her. He would still fuck her over though, because Jase didn’t know any other way.
“Tell me you aren’t still surprised?” Graham asked her.
He wasn’t supposed to care if Jase hurt her.
Breaking up meant he didn’t have to care about Lindsey at all anymore—which might’ve been possible if she wasn’t always around to remind him of how he’d mistreated the second best thing that had ever happened to him.
The injustice tightened the vise around his heart.
“Graham!” Helen snapped. “Why? Just—why?”
“Remember what I said?” he asked Helen. “We were at the hotel in Santa Barbara, and I told you—I told you this would happen. I said if she was messing around with him—”
The vise locked around his windpipe and squeezed.
“You were talking about me in Santa Barbara?” Lindsey cut in.
“Yes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Helen retorted. “Graham, do you think this is the best time to tell her I told you so? Graham?”
Pressure in his chest spread up his neck, wrapping around his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain wringing sweat from his pores.
“What’s the matter?” Lindsey asked.
“Graham?” Jase called out.
“I…can’t…” he forced through taut lips. He opened his eyes to dots dancing in front of his vision, and he was vaguely aware of his ass hitting something hard. The cabinets? The floor?
“Help!” Helen was hollering. The love of his life sounded miles away. Too far to reach. “We need help.”
Ambulance. Someone was calling an ambulance.
“Come on, man, breathe,” Jase told him. Scolded him. As if Graham could help it. As if he’d rather suffocate in the kitchen than fill his lungs with the air he was aching for.
“Give him some space,” Graham heard Luke say through the ringing in his ears. The doctor didn’t sound drunk anymore.
There were fingers on his neck, around his chin.
“Are you having chest pain?” Luke asked.
Lindsey’s brother’s face was fuzzy in the center of the dots swarming Graham’s vision. Fuzzy, bloody, bruised up, and concerned.
Chest pain? The knot he’d been ignoring? The one that absolutely couldn’t mean he was having a heart attack? People didn’t have heart attacks in their thirties.
“What about your arm? Your jaw?” Luke pressed.
Graham tried pushing Luke away. His hands felt two sizes too big and numb, and his heart punched an angry beat behind his ribs.
“What do I tell them?” Lindsey was yelling. Graham thought he could make out her form with a phone to her ear. “They want to know what’s wrong.”
“How long has this been happening?” Luke asked.
“What even is this?” Helen cried.
“Has he ever gotten dizzy and passed out?”
“No—”
“He’s always rubbing his chest like it hurts,” Lindsey said.
“He is,” Helen confirmed. “I thought it was stress. I didn’t think—”
“How long?” Luke demanded.
There was a pause, then Lindsey said, “A while. Months.” Another pause. “Since his dad got sick.”
Luke dropped his head. “Call off the ambulance.”
“What? Why?” Helen shrieked.
“It’s not a heart attack.” Luke leveled his eyes with Graham. “You can’t breathe and it feels like you’re dying, right?”
Graham nodded. Or, tried to.
“Will someone please tell me what’s happening?” Lindsey shouted.
A grin widened the gap of Luke’s split lip. “He’s having a panic attack.”
A what? Graham thought it. Someone else, possibly Jase, asked it aloud. Graham fell forward on his too-big hands.
“Whoa, hey, everybody back off and give him some space in case he throws up,” Luke said.
“Are you sure it’s a panic attack?” Helen asked.
Luke chuckled. “I’m sure. It’s textbook.”
Jase took Luke’s collar in his fist and demanded, “Why’s it funny?”
“It’s not, it’s not,” Luke said. “Sorry, I’m fucking trashed right now.”
“Then how can you be sure it’s just a panic attack?” Lindsey asked.
“I’m a doctor, Linds,” Luke shot back. “Call off the ambulance.”
They argued. Graham clawed for scraps of air.
Lindsey dropped down beside her brother and they argued some more.
Blood from Luke’s eye splattered everywhere—on her face, on the floor, on Graham’s hands.
Luke covered the wound with the heel of his hand and finally stopped laughing, and Lindsey walked away with the phone.
“What do we do?” Helen asked.
“Nothing. He needs to ride it out,” Luke said. He zeroed in on Graham’s face. The dots were receding. “You hear me? You’re going to be okay, you just have to relax. Deep, slow breaths.”
“I…can’t…” Graham forced out.
“You can. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”
”I…can’t—”
He screamed and air filled his burning lungs. Black dots exploded away from his eyes and the faces surrounding him came into view.
“There you go. As slowly and as evenly as you can,” Luke said.
Graham fought for every lungful, dragging it in through a swollen throat.
Someone was rubbing his back. Helen. Two people came into focus across the room. Charlie and Chloe. Fuck, his brother was an idiot—
Graham squeezed his eyes shut against the vise tightening in his chest again.
“Everyone out, now,” Luke announced. “Give him some space.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Helen said.
Luke stood, swaying on his feet, and said, “Trust me.”
“I got this,” Jase said. He dropped a heavy, too-hot hand on Graham’s shoulder. Bodies shifted around them as they left the kitchen.
“Jase,” Helen pleaded.
“I’ll take care of him,” Jase insisted. “Go.”
More shuffling. Jase squeezed his shoulder.
“You got this, Graham. Breathe,” Jase said.
“So…fucking…stupid.”
“What’s that?”
Tears leaked down his face.
“We’re both…” Graham sucked in a breath “…so fucking stupid.”
His head was too heavy to hold up. Instead of the floor, his forehead landed on his brother’s shoulder.
“I don’t…want to do this,” he wheezed.
“I’ve got you, all right? We’ll get through it.”
Graham broke in his brother’s arms. He hadn’t cried to Jase since they were kids, when Graham finally understood his Mom wasn’t coming home from the hospital with the baby sister he’d been promised.
He was a helpless child again waiting for someone to save him and tell him it was going to be okay.
He reached to his side for Helen, and she wasn’t there.
The only thing anchoring him to this earth was his brother’s hard block of a body, holding him up.
“I don’t…want to do this,” Graham repeated, gulping down air. “Without Dad.”
“Me either,” Jase said. “What other choice do we have?”
“Fuck,” Graham spat. His eyes were stinging, bulging in his head, and a line of spit hung off his lip.
“You’re going to calm down and you’re going to breathe, damn it.”
Graham managed to grab a fistful of Jase’s T-shirt and lifted his head to level their eyes. “We’re too…fucking stupid…to do this…without him.”
Jase nodded and lowered his voice. “Just breathe.”
“Fuck.” A ragged exhale left Graham’s lungs, and he released his brother’s shirt.
One breath. Two. Each was work, his chest heaving until the vise loosened its grip on his windpipe.
After he’d sucked in enough air to chase the black dots fully from his vision, he sat back against the cabinets.
Jase waited, watching, his whole face stretched and turned down as if someone dragged their hands down his cheeks and still clung to his chin.
“Has that ever happened to you?” Jase finally asked.
Graham shook his head. “Not this bad.”
“Lindsey said you’ve been having chest pain for a while.”
“It’s nothing,” Graham said. With his chest still hitching it wasn’t the most convincing lie he’d ever told.
“I thought you really were dying,” Jase said.
“Yeah, well, I guess you’re not that lucky.”
Jase’s mouth opened. Okay, it was a bad time for a worse joke, but what else could Graham say?
He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, all right?”
Another lie just as transparent when he was coated in sweat gone cold.
“You’re going to talk to Luke tomorrow and follow whatever medical advice he gives you,” Jase said.
“Sure, I’ll follow the drunk doctor’s orders.”
“I’m serious. I can’t—” Jase cut himself off and turned away. He pressed his knuckles into one of his eyes and admitted, “Goddamn it, I can’t lose you too.”
Graham was surprised by the worried wrinkle in the middle of Jase’s forehead and lifted a tingling hand for his brother to take.
“You won’t,” he said.
Jase didn’t just shake Graham’s hand, he pulled him back into his chest and hugged him in what was probably their first hug as adult men.
“Don’t scare me like that, you son of a bitch,” Jase said, slapping Graham’s back.
“Then stop stressing me out, asshole,” Graham said.
Helen appeared in the kitchen doorway and pointed behind her at the stairs.
Graham nodded and she disappeared again.
He hoped her stony expression meant she didn’t want to talk any more tonight.
Between pending conversations about her “dream job” back in Austin and the complications of three new houseguests, Graham’s heart might actually explode.
His brother sat back from the rare show of affection with a grunt. Graham didn’t have to ask for help standing. Jase offered his hand and hauled Graham to his feet.