Chapter 54
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Gaines
Astrid rests her head against her husband’s shoulder as they sit in a private waiting area I directed them to.
“I don’t understand.” Tears stream down her cheeks. “You’re saying that she went into cardiac arrest? Is that a heart attack?”
“No,” I explain. “They’re different.”
I add more to offer her the hope my colleagues offered me. “She’s receiving the best care possible.”
“She’s not,” Astrid argues. “You should be in there. Why aren’t you in there?”
Berk pops a brow, silently asking the same question.
“I want to be,” I tell them both as I sit across from them. “It’s hospital policy not to treat someone you know. Someone you love.”
Berk gets it first. His eyes widen. “Gaines.”
Astrid gaze volleys between us. “What? She’s part of the family. He loves her just like he loves all of us.”
“No,” I say in a deep tone. “It’s not that kind of love, Astrid. I’m in love with her.”
“What?” Her voice rises. “Since when?”
“For years,” I answer honestly. “It’s a lot to explain, and I will, but suffice it to say I am head over heels in love with your cousin.”
She leans forward to wrap her arms around my neck. “How can I feel so much joy and be so scared at the same time?”
I pat the center of her back. “She’ll get through this.”
Clinging to me, she sobs. “We need her to.”
I agree with a silent nod of my head.
“Her parents and brother are on their way,” Berks fills me in. “I called them. I told them she was stable because that’s what the woman at the reception desk in the ED said before you found us.”
I pull back from my embrace with Astrid to address both of them. “She is stable.”
“I texted Pen to tell her,” she whispers. “I think she’s coming with Dax. She’s become important to Eloise.”
I nod.
“I’m going back in to check on her status.”
That loosely translates to I’m going in to hold her hand and kiss her cheek.
I stand, but before I do, I point at the purse I set down next to Astrid. “That’s Eloise’s. She had it with her when she collapsed.”
She drags it closer to her, but it tumbles off the chair, spilling the contents on the floor.
A hairbrush, lipstick tubes, her wallet, and phone fly out, along with one knitting needle. I rush to pick it all up, stopping when I spot something barely hanging on inside of it.
I scoop that into my palm and hold it against my chest. Tears well in my eyes.
“What is it, Gaines?” Berk asks as he takes over picking up Eloise’s belongings.
“It’s our book,” I whisper. “She must have taken it back tonight.”
I open it to page forty-two and spot the stain in the middle of the page that wasn’t there this morning.
It has to be from her tears.
She snuck into my apartment to take back what was hers, but she left behind my heart. I need her to wake up now and reclaim it.
Logan storms into the doctor’s lounge. “Give us the room. I need the room.”
I don’t move from where I’m standing next to Evan. That’s because I know that whatever Logan has to say is directed at me.
All I can do is pray that it doesn’t involve Eloise.
“I’ll go,” Evan says. “If you need me to fight him, I’ll do it.”
I know he’s trying to leverage the situation with humor, so I give him an appreciative tap on the shoulder.
As soon as he’s gone, Logan shuts the glass door.
“Gaines.”
“Don’t tell me she’s gone.” My voice cracks. “You can shut the fuck up if you’re going to say that.”
“She’s going to pull through this.” He walks toward me.
“Her stats are better. The fall did a hell of a number on her ankle, but we’ll get that set.
From what we can determine, the bracelet she was wearing caused her head wound.
She’s got a pretty substantial gash across her forehead, but it’s being stitched up as we speak by Dr. Sufford. She came in just for it.”
Noelle Sufford is the best plastic surgeon in the city.
“You called in that favor.”
“My wife did.”
“Your wife?” I question him. “You’re married? To who?”
He laughs. “To a woman you work with every day. I married Julissa a few months ago.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I take a step closer to him. “How is that not hot gossip around here? Everyone, literally everyone, thinks you’re single.”
“Her folks don’t know yet.” He shakes his head. “They’re on a cruise with limited access, so we’re waiting until they’re back in Florida to break that news and our other news.”
“Which is?”
He holds the palm of his left hand to the center of his forehead. “I’m going to have a son, Gaines. My little boy is arriving in six months.”
I tear up. “Jesus, Logan. That’s fucking amazing.”
“The guilt.” Tears stream down his cheeks. “It’s been suffocating. I wanted to save him, Gaines. I wanted to save Rudy.”
I drop the armor that’s protected me from our shared past for almost two decades. I wrap my arms around him. He clings tightly to me.
“I know the guilt,” I confess. “We let him down.”
He takes a step back to rub a hand over his cheek. “His folks have reached out to me. They told me to forgive myself.”
They’ve done the same to me.
Mr. and Mrs. Taake lost their only child when he was seventeen – when we were seventeen.
“Is it time?” he asks me. “Is it time to let him rest in peace?”
I tap the tattoo covering my bicep. Logan does the same to the one wrapped around his.
It’s always hidden under his white coat or a button-down shirt.
I only saw it once. That was the night of Rudy’s funeral when we convinced a guy who owned a tattoo shop on the Lower East Side to ink our late friend’s name on our bodies.
I rake a hand through my hair. “I know you blamed me for letting him near that river.”
“I blamed myself more for bringing the beer and weed.”
It was a recipe for disaster. Three teenagers on summer break with a penchant for pushing the limits. We took Logan’s dad’s car and headed to a river that our friends used to cliff dive from.
It wasn’t even a cliff. It was more of a hill, but you had to aim just right because the rocky shoreline wasn’t forgiving.
I went first and nailed my landing. Logan followed with a double summersault before he hit the water. Rudy Taake tripped and dropped headfirst straight to the shoreline.
By the time we got to him, his head was bleeding profusely, and his heart had stopped. I performed CPR since my dad taught me months before. Logan ripped off his T-shirt to hold it against the wound on Rudy’s head, but it wasn’t enough.
Our best friend died that day,
Our friendship died the night we got the tattoos when we argued about who was more to blame.
We never worked that out. Instead, we walked away from each other.
“It’s time to let him sleep well.” I wrap a hand around the back of Logan’s neck. “Let the guilt go before your son gets here.”
“Rudy Sexton.” He smiles. “It has a nice ring to it, right?”
“The best.” I take a deep breath. “I’ll keep your secrets until you’re ready to share with the staff, but just know, I’m happy for you, Logan.”
“I’m happy for you, too.” He bows his head. “Eloise is strong as hell, and one day, you’re going to have it all with her.”
“I already do,” I tell him. “She’s alive, and I think she loves me. What more could I ask for?”