Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JONAH
As much as I wanted to focus on whatever this new thing I was building between me and Alexio, I didn’t have time. Killian managed to get me an expedited court date so I could handle my dad’s medical care, and it meant blowing off one more afternoon practice to stand in front of a judge.
Ford had driven me, and my dad had come along as further proof that the power of attorney was necessary, but there was still a chance that the man on the bench would tell me no.
My stomach was in knots over it. I had no idea if the judge was going to be an ableist dick and decide that a blind man couldn’t take care of his dad, but Killian had assured me the man was a good one.
And he was. He asked a few cursory questions about my dad’s mental state and ability to make decisions for himself.
I said exactly what Killian had coached me to say—just the bare minimum about the current situation.
My dad spoke after me. He had trouble following the judge’s orders.
He remembered his name, but not who I was, and forgot where he was about three minutes into the conversation.
Within twenty minutes of that, papers were signed, and it was over.
He told me everything would be filed with the state, and I could pick the forms up as soon as they were done processing. And then we were dismissed.
That was that.
It was over, and I no longer had to stress about that part of it. The moment I could find a facility willing to accept my dad that wasn’t a complete shithole, I could begin the process.
Walking out of court felt strange though.
It was both lighter and heavier than I expected.
I didn’t know how to thank Killian for pulling the strings he did.
And the moment we were outside, my phone began to buzz, letting me know I had three callbacks from facilities within an hour of Boston that had room for my dad.
“I need to start packing his shit,” I told Ford as he shut the back door to his car with my dad inside.
“It’s going to take me a hundred years to go through everything, but he can’t take all that crap with him.
” I felt more weight settle on my shoulders, and I groaned.
“Tucker is going to kill me if I miss any more practices though.”
He sighed and took my hand. “I’m saying this with all the love in the world, babe, but you need to go talk to Micah.”
I fought back a sigh. “I don’t want to.”
“I know, but it’s time. You have all this shit handled, so it’s not like you’re asking him for much. And he needs to know, okay?”
I hesitated. It had been a long several days with the Glaciers on the road.
Long nights of talking to Alexio and then jerking myself raw the moment we hung up.
We had plans for when he got back. Dates and…
and more. Fuck, I wanted to kiss him so badly, and I was officially not above begging for it if that’s what he truly wanted.
I hadn’t wanted to bother him about all this on his roadie though. I put every game on that I could, my ear practically glued to the speaker as I listened to blades hitting the ice, sticks whipping the puck, and every time the commentators said Zeki, my heart did flips in my chest.
They only won two of the six games, and with their current stats, it was enough to ensure they weren’t going to secure their wildcard spot in the playoffs.
Luckily, I also knew Alexio wasn’t too upset about it.
He’d been prepared for the inevitable. They were using this season to perfect their team’s plays and to see where their weak spots were.
I might have been able to help too, but I was distracted, and I felt a bit like shit about it. I wanted to be there for him in ways he’d been there for me, but up until today, I’d been too overwhelmed to even think about it.
“Earth to Jonah.”
“Radio control to Major Tom—or however it goes.”
“Fuck off,” Ford said with a small laugh. “I’m being serious. Call your brother.”
I groaned, rolling my head up toward the sun, but I still dug my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my favorites until I hit Micah’s name. Pressing the phone to my ear, I paced a small path with one hand on the car so I didn’t get lost as it rang.
And rang.
And rang.
“This is Micah. If you’re not calling about food or money, fuck off.”
I ended the call. “He’s not—”
My phone began to buzz in my hand. “Micah calling.”
Fuck.
I grimaced as I answered. “Hey, bud.”
“If this is about Dad—”
“It kind of is. I need to see you. Can you come by my place this afternoon? Ford’s with me.”
He sighed, and I knew I had him. Ford and Micah were closer than anyone except maybe Hugo, but Hugo had been so busy with leaving his career and starting a charity organization he and Boden were running.
“Is it just Ford?”
“Yeah. Dad won’t be there. Ford’s taking Dad back to his apartment.”
Micah was quiet for a long beat. “You want Caleb to come over too?”
“Let’s talk first,” I told him.
“Fine. I’ll be there in an hour.”
That was enough time for me to get all the paperwork put in the little bump-dot-coded files I’d set up on my kitchen table. “He’s gonna meet me,” I told Ford as I climbed in the car. I waited for him to get in and turn the engine on.
“I miss my bestie,” Ford said quietly. “And you.”
“I’m right here,” I reminded him. “I’ve seen you, like, literally every day for two months.”
“Yeah, but you’re not really here, Jo. You haven’t been for a while.”
I swallowed heavily as he pulled into traffic. He wasn’t wrong. I was shutting down anytime things felt overwhelming. I left space for sleep, hockey, and Alexio. Biting my lip, I leaned my head against the window. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“I’m bisexual.”
He coughed.
“Killian told you, didn’t he?”
“In his defense, he lasted a while. But yeah, he did. Tucker and Boden both owe me a hundred bucks, by the way.”
“You should have bet more. I think it was pretty obvious, even if I was in denial forever,” I said with a small grin.
The rest of my secret danced on the tip of my tongue, but I was afraid to say it.
I was afraid to bring Alexio’s name into it and ruin what we had, especially considering I didn’t know what we were to each other.
“Is it Vanya?”
I frowned. “Is what Vanya?”
“Your bi awakening.”
I almost choked on my own tongue. “Oh, dude. No. I mean, he’s hot, but no. I think my bi awakening was probably Alan Rickman in that weird-as-fuck movie about the Romanov family where he was Rasputin.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked me.
I laughed, but I couldn’t help it. “What can I say. I like them…” Gruff? Different? Unique? Slightly terrifying on a good day?
“I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Says the guy who gets his rocks off to ghosts and named his leg after a dead child in a horror movie.”
“She can hear you!” Ford said. “You’ll offend her.”
“Sorry, Carol-Ann,” I murmured quietly. Things were starting to feel a bit more normal. Not entirely, but it was something.
We fell into a comfortable silence until he pulled up in front of my building, and I gathered my cane and my bag before twisting around. “Is my dad awake?” He hadn’t said anything since he got in the car, and all I could hear from him in that moment was quiet, even breathing.
“No,” Ford said from behind a sigh. “He’s been sleeping a lot, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I said with a small breath. My stomach fell down toward my feet, knowing what that meant.
“That’s not a great sign, is it?”
“The neurologist’s nurse told me he might improve with treatment, so long as we can get him going on his medications soon.
” We had an appointment, but it was six weeks away, and the neurologist didn’t want us to go back on the old medication.
He wanted to reassess my dad before making that kind of decision.
And I had to accept that the reality was this was terminal. Treatment would delay it, and it would provide maybe some measure of comfort.
But it wasn’t going to fix anything.
It wouldn’t make him a better person.
And it wouldn’t stop the inevitable.
“Come by after he’s settled and Nikos gets there.”
“I will.” Ford hummed and yanked my sleeve, pulling me close to kiss my temple. “I love you.”
I softened. “I love you too.” And fuck, I really did love the shit out of my friends. It felt foolish now that I’d tried to handle all of this alone at the start. I could have been relying on them so much sooner.
And saved me so much pain.
But I was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, and hell, maybe that was part of my charm.
I was just settling into the couch with some hot cocoa when the buzzer rang, and I didn’t bother getting up because I knew Micah would let himself in. The sound of his metal cane tip filled the hallway, then the scrape of him hanging it up before he moved into the living room.
“You here?”
“On the couch, left corner.”
He made his way over, knocking his shin against the coffee table the way he always did, cursing as he sat. “Burn that fucking thing.”
“You’re the only one who knocks into it. And I like it.” I swung my feet up to prove my point, letting them fall with a loud thud. “I made hot cocoa, by the way.”
“What the fuck, dude? Why the fuck are you drinking hot cocoa?”
“Today hurt my feelings, so I’m having cocoa.”
There was a heavy pulse of silence before he spoke again. “How bad is it?”
“The situation or Dad?” I couldn’t help but ask.
It took him a moment to answer. “Both, I guess.”
Shifting to face him, I sipped my drink, then set it beside my foot and dug my toes into the wood to distract myself from how much this all was. “Do you really want to know? Because the last time we came close to talking about this mess, you and Caleb walked out.”
“Yeah, but that was Mom’s bullshit.” He went quiet for a second. “Mom’s really gone, right? She actually left the country?”
I sighed. “Mm. She’s really gone. She disconnected her phone line, and she’s in the fucking wind.”
“And what she said about Dad?”