Chapter 37 #2
The truth is, the second that I opened that email, the only person I wanted to talk to was Nash.
Not Dad, not Rowan or Davis, not Mariah.
I wanted Nash. Somehow, he would understand.
He wouldn’t have judged me for the hurt that sank deep into my bones.
He would have sat me down at his piano and played some classical music that I’ve never heard before and wouldn’t even like if it weren’t for him playing it, and he would tell me all of the ways that I could make it alright.
When I called him and it went to voicemail for what felt like the seven hundredth time in three months, the world crumbled around me just a little bit more. No piano, no comforting words. Just anger, hurt and emptiness left in its wake.
“I’ve had sex with other people,” I tell him.
“I know,” he breathes. “I haven’t. I’ve tried to.”
I pull his sweater over his head and toss it to the ground behind him as I meet his lips again and move to work the buttons on the dress shirt he’s wearing beneath it.
The sound of the privacy curtain being throw open fills the room, followed by the sound of my dad’s voice.
“Your nurse told me your husband had come to visit you,” he says.
I separate from Nash and jump from the bed, quickly wiping my lips as if that will make this go away.
Dad stands with his back turned to us and his arms crossed over his chest. “Are you decent?”
I look to Nash and silently plead with him not to egg my dad on as he slowly climbs out of the bed, wearing a smirk on his face. “Yeah,” I answer.
Turning to face us, he brings his attention to Nash. “Get out,” he orders, his tone dripping with nothing short of abhorrence.
I’ve never seen my dad so angry in my life.
I’ve seen him pissed, I’ve heard him yell at people before.
This is different; this is like when something is so hot that it feels cold at first, and you don’t even realize for the first few seconds that you’re being burned.
A part of me thinks he might actually find something in this room to use to kill Nash – and maybe even me – on the spot.
Suddenly, my hoodie feels like an oven and the neckline of it feels like a noose tightening around my neck. My hands go clammy, it’s hard to pull in a breath, and I could swear that the walls are starting to creep closer to one another.
Against Dad’s orders, Nash circles the bed and heads toward me. “Call me when you’re home,” he tells me just before pressing a kiss to my temple.
In half a breath, my dad has him by the back of the neck.
“Stay away from my son,” he growls as he shoves Nash out of the room, following after him.
He’s gone for several minutes, and it isn’t hard for me to figure out that he’s talking to the hospital staff; a conversation that I’m happy not to be witness to.
Before coming back into the room, Dad pulls in a long, full breath and releases it as he smoothes his hands down the front of his shirt.
I think a part of me hopes that he’ll just lose it and swing on me, because that would be so much easier than having a conversation or knowing that he’s disappointed in me.
I’d so much rather have him just knock my teeth out.
“Just get it over with,” I tell him, slapping my hands against my knees as I sit perched on the bed. “Please. Let me have it.”
A tense, heavy silence hangs in the air around us for several minutes too long before either of us make a move to speak. It’s so quiet in here that I can hear the sounds of everyone else outside, the machines in neighboring rooms, and the vent for the HVAC unit.
Dad moves to stand, reaching toward the chair that has become his home over the past few days to grab his keys. When I throw a questioning look in his direction, he tells me, “This is a conversation that requires greasy burgers and milkshakes.”
“The heart guy’s gonna yell at you.”
He stares at me for a long moment with an arched brow. “I think a little bit of red meat will be alright.”
He clamps his hand down on my shoulder and offers a firm squeeze before heading out of the room, off on a mission to bring us the meal that we only share on either a particularly good day or a particularly crappy one.
Less than twenty minutes later, we’re seated next to each other, each with a double cheeseburger in hand and a chocolate milkshake next to us, silently taking bites of our meals.
With a slurp of his milkshake, Dad finally turns to me. “Nash Montgomery,” he gripes. “Four billion men in the world, and it’s Nash Montgomery?”
“Yeah,” I nod, “it’s Nash.”
“He’s fourteen years older than you.”
“You’re nineteen years older than your wife,” I counter.
“Davis wants to kill him – and frankly, so do I,” he says, reaching for his milkshake. “Between what he’s done to Sophia and now to you…you showed up at my door bruised, bloody and crying because of him. He’s a bad guy.”
“No,” I insist with a shake of my head. “I don’t know how to explain it so you get it, but…do you trust my judgment?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then trust that I’ve listened to everything you’ve taught me,” I ask of him. “He told you that he’s a bad guy, but he showed me otherwise.”
“I’m going to need a lot more than that with this one, Emmett.”
“I know.”
I hold my breath through the thick silence that follows, only filled by the sound of Dad drinking his shake while he thinks. Enough tense moments pass between us that I think he might be dropping the conversation entirely before he finally speaks again.
“I will have a conversation with him,” he offers. “That’s all I can promise you.”
I nod and look around the room that we’ve shared over the past few days, at the notebook he’s been using to get work done while I’ve slept, at the exhaustion carved into every corner of his face, and I sigh.
I didn’t want this; to see what the after would look like.
To watch them wonder why or how or when all of this happened.
I didn’t want to see what it looked like when my dad finally saw the one thing that I’ve hidden from him all my life.
“Can you also promise that things can go back to normal with us after I leave here?”
“No, bud,” he tells me with a shake of his head and a squeeze to my knee. “I don’t think I can.”
I was afraid of that.