Chapter 15
Elliot
There are a lot of things I expected to come from Grayson’s surgery, but him acting like a big ass baby was not one of them.
When he first injured his knee, he was quiet, as if mourning the loss of the career he could have had. He was angry most of the time, but even then, he would yell at everyone to stop asking how he was.
I somewhat expected that anger to come through this time around as well, but that is not how things are going. He’s chipper, bubbly, and asking for grilled cheese and tomato soup from Henry.
“And can you use white cheddar on the grilled cheese? And cut the curst off? And then toast the crust and add it to the tomato soup?” Grayson looks up at Henry from his wheelchair as we make our way up to my penthouse in downtown Chicago.
Henry, the British military man who is the closest thing my siblings and I have to a grandfather, looks down at my brother with a half-smile. “Of course, Mr. Grayson.”
I snort. Gray has Henry wrapped around his pinkie and has since he was five.
“Do I get some of that, or am I subjected to take out?” I grunt when the elevator doors open to the second-floor foyer of the apartment.
I get flipped off by what am I assuming is a very drugged Grayson. The nurses gave him a morphine drip before leaving recovery, and it must just be hitting him.
“Stay away from my tomato soup.” He slurs his words before turning to look up at Henry. “Henry, tell him to stay away from my soup.”
Henry, the stoic man he is, actually cracks a small smile. “I will make Mr. Elliot his own pot of soup so he doesn’t touch yours.”
Drugged up Grayson looks like he’s about to lose his battle with the drugs running through his system. “Make sure my pot is bigger than his.” Then, his head bobs to his chest.
When a snore fills the elevator, Henry and I both know he’s asleep.
“I don’t think I’ve heard him talk that much since we were kids,” I say, looking down at my brother as he slobbers all over his t-shirt.
“Mr. Grayson is a talker when he wants to be. Put yourself to good use, will you, and make sure his leg is out of harm’s way.”
I follow orders and make sure Grayson’s extended leg doesn’t hit anything as we make it down the hallway into one of my guest bedrooms.
When we reach the bedroom, Henry and I spend a good two minutes trying to figure out how we are going to transfer Grayson from the wheelchair to the bed. Drugged up and sleeping, he’s going to be all dead weight.
“We should have told them to wait on giving him drugs,” I grumble.
It may have been years since Grayson played hockey, but he’s still very much still built like a hockey player.
“Simply use your legs, not your back, when picking up his lower body. It’s not a big deal.”
“Says the man who was once a member of the British armed forces.” Henry is in his sixties, but he works out and is able out-lift anyone my age.
A smack lands on the back of my head. “What did I say about complaining? Get into position and lift when I say lift.”
I rub the back of my head as I close the distance between me and Grayson’s lower limbs. “That hurt, you know.”
“Not enough if you’re still complaining,” I get an eye roll from my pseudo-grandfather. “Now, lift.”
Henry has Grayson under his armpits, and I place my hands under his thighs, making sure I don’t hit his leg as we lift him enough to slide the wheelchair back.
I might have been wrong about Henry being able to out-lift guys my age, because as we hold my brother up for a few seconds, I can hear his labored breathing.
“What happened to not being a big deal?” I say as we close the small distance to the bed.
It may be a small distance, but it feels like it takes us forever to get there.
“I will tell you the same thing I tell your uncle. Just because you are in your thirties and no longer under my roof doesn’t mean I can’t still ground you.” Henry grunts just as we heave Grayson onto the bed.
Once his upper body is settled, I lift his leg as gently as possible onto the mattress. Henry places a few pillows under the injured knee, and once Gray is comfortable, we let out a sigh of relief.
“Fingers crossed the nurses he hired can hold their own, this fucker is heavy.”
A grunt from Henry tells me he’s in agreement.
Leaving the room, the two of us head downstairs. Henry gets started with Grayson’s food request while I send the other family members a message confirming that everything is good.
Bennett and Ella drove with Gray to the hospital and stayed with him until the doctor said he was okay to head home.
Since we knew he was drugged, we decided it was best for them to go about their day while Henry and I brought him to my place.
Bennett owns a penthouse a block over, so there is no doubt they will be here in a few hours.
As for Drake and Samantha, they couldn’t fly in for the surgery.
Well, Drake couldn’t—couldn’t get the time off from his internship.
Sam…Sam is a different story. She could have come.
She had the capability of flying in and out once the surgery was done, but apparently, being in Croatia was more important.
I know why she didn’t come. She might not have voiced it, but I know, and it has everything to do with the fact that Ethan Bettencourt is officially a Dark Knight.
She doesn’t want to be in the same city as him, so she is avoiding it at all costs.
I get it, fuck, do I get it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed at her for it.
I send the message to my family, and within seconds all respond.
All except Sam.
She calls instead. As soon as I see my sister’s name on the screen, I answer.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal princess,” I say in lieu of a greeting, walking away from the kitchen to the living room. Henry doesn’t need to hear me bicker with her.
“If there is a prodigal anything, it’s you.”
I let out a chuckle. “I’m not the one in Croatia right now.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t in Chicago when you had to be either, and if I remember correctly, you were gone far more often than I am. Still are.”
Her dig stings. She’s right. There were more than a handful of times when I wasn’t in Chicago when I should have been, but I was, I am here for when it matters. When she or our brothers called, I was there. When Henry called, I was there. When Bennett called…I tried.
“I was never gone when one of my siblings was in the hospital.” She hit me where it hurt, so I’ll hit her right back twice over.
I know my comment angered her by the way she huffs, dragon like, but she doesn’t call me out on it. Instead, she changes the topic back to our brother.
“Is he awake?” she asks, her voice not as harsh as it was a few seconds ago.
I love my sister, I do, but she can be a bitch sometimes. Out of all of us, she is probably the coldest one. In a way, she’s like our mother.
I let out a sigh as I settle on the couch. “No. He’s out cold, but as soon as he’s awake, I’ll let him know you called so he can call you back.”
She lets out a sigh of her own. “Okay. I would appreciate that.”
I half-expected for the line to go dead as soon as her last word leaves her mouth, but she hangs on. Never being one to not take an opportunity, I move the conversation to something else.
“Sammie,” I say her name like I used to when we were kids.
“You know you can be in Chicago, right? It’s a big city, and there is a slim to nothing chance you will see Ethan.
Hell, I will make sure you won’t.” I have friends in dark places.
I can make it happen. “So if you want to come home, you can. You don’t have to stay in Croatia. ”
My sister is silent for a few seconds before she responds. “I’m not in Croatia because of Ethan.”
That grabs my attention. “So why didn’t you come home for Grayson’s surgery?”
She is silent again, but this time for a longer beat.
“For,” she starts but then stops again before picking up a minute later, “for reasons I will tell you when I get home, but just know I didn’t go visit Gray because I was partying on a yacht somewhere.
I had a legitimate reason for not going home. ”
I want to force her to tell me now, to not wait until she comes home, because who the fuck knows when that will be? But a simple question could turn into an argument, and right now, I don’t have the energy to fight with my sister, not when other things are on my mind.
“Okay.” I pinch the bridge of my nose to calm myself. “Your reason—” I stop when a notification rings through the call. I quickly check and see it’s the building security calling me. “Sammie, I’ll talk to you later. Security is calling me.”
“That’s fine. Remind our brother to call me back.”
“I will.”
I hang up with my sister and answer the other call. “Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Lane, but I have a Sophia Martinez and an Aria Hernandez down here asking to be let up. They stated they are nurses here to see Mr. Grayson Lane.”
I hear what the security guard says, I do. I understand every damn word, but the name stuns me.
Aria Hernandez.
She’s here.
When I looked over the information Drake had sent, I saw she had taken a nursing position at Chicago Memorial.
I knew she was a nurse three years ago, but I didn’t know if she had kept up with it when she moved here.
But that didn’t stop me from planting the seed in Grayson’s head that he should probably hire a nurse to help with his recovery.
Surprisingly, he agreed.
I was going to have him call Chicago Memorial directly to ask for Aira, but the bastard went in a different direction. One of his players is dating a nurse, and he told me two days ago that he offered her the position.
At the time, I figured I would have to somehow land myself in the hospital to be able to get within talking distance of Aria, but I guess something is working in my favor, because she’s here.
Aria is here.
A fucking miracle. Now, I won’t look like a complete creep if I were to ask Drake to track her cellphone so I could show up wherever she was.
“Mr. Lane, are you there?” the security guard says when I take too long to answer.
I clear my throat. “Yes, I’m here. They are cleared to come up. Please add both of them to the approved list.”
“Of course, sir.”
The call ends, and I spend a good thirty seconds looking at my phone, trying to digest what just landed on my doorstep. Literally.
The other nurse here with Aria must work with her. That’s the only logical explanation.
Unless…
Unless Aria knows Grayson is my brother, and she wanted to come see if there was a chance of us running into each other. Leo did marry her best friend, after all. For all I know, she asked him or Santos about me and got my last name from them.
It’s a possibility, but I feel if that had happened, I would have heard about it. At least, I think I would have. Maybe I should ask Drake to see if he can access Aria’s search history.
No. That may be too much.
Collecting myself, I leave the living room and head back to the kitchen to wait for the elevator to ding.
“Henry, you might want to make a bigger batch of that tomato soup,” I voice, tapping my knuckles against the marble counter.
The man in question looks over at me with a bemused expression. I would question his sanity for cooking tomato soup in a crisp white button, but I’m used to it.
“And why is that?”
The elevator dings, and I smile at him.
“Because Grayson’s nurses are here, and they have to eat too.”
He narrows his eyes at me, but I ignore him and turn toward the elevator.
As I close the distance, it’s as if my body starts to wake up, like it knows who is stepping out of the elevator, and it wants to relive every single hour Aria and I spent together in Vegas.
It was short-lived, but the simple memory of her scent, of her eyes and hands on me, has my hands itching to feel her.
That itch intensifies as soon as my eyes land on her.
Her hair is no longer the blonde it was all those years ago, but she is still the same beautiful woman I remember.
And she’s here.
I want nothing more than to lose myself in her like I did that night.
But that may have to wait, because the woman standing in front of me looks at me as if she’s seen a ghost.