Chapter 15
Eb
She’s not answering.
Again.
I glance down at my phone.
That’s three calls and two texts in the last hour—zero response.
All I’m getting is her voicemail, that sweet voice I was dying to hear last night now taunting me with a sterile “Leave a message” while I sit here stewing in the world’s most uncomfortable chair.
I scrub a hand over my face, sighing hard.
The fluorescent lights overhead are giving me a headache, and the antiseptic scent clinging to my clothes is doing nothing to help my already foul mood.
I know she’s busy.
I know.
She’s got cookies to box, an entire order to prep for Uncle Uzzi’s gala, a business to run—and Emery just got back after being sick. She’s probably elbows-deep in frosting and chaos. I get it.
Still, I promised I’d help today.
Promised I’d be there.
That I’d show her she could count on me. That I wasn’t some rich prick who was all talk and no follow through.
And instead?
Here I am. Sitting in the damn Emergency Department at Macconwood Memorial while my idiot brother gets his foot wrapped and his ego stroked by a nurse who looks like she moonlights as a linebacker.
All because he thought it would be fun to take his motorcycle out in the snow.
In December.
In New Jersey.
Fucking moron.
I grit my teeth, jaw clenching as I stare at the double doors leading back to the trauma bays. I was ready to murder him when I got the text, but still I came.
Then, when I arrived, I’d been told he was rushed into surgery due to an unforeseen complication.
I panicked so hard that my Badger almost made an appearance.
Bobby might be a turd, but he’s my turd of a brother, and if anyone is making roadkill out of him it will be me, for fuck’s sake!
Thankfully, Dr. David Evangelos—member of the local Pack’ and head of Emergency Medicine—met me at the entrance and assured me Bobby’s shifter healing had already started kicking in.
“Bruised ribs, some swelling, and a fractured ankle that required some metal screws,” he said like he was ordering a damn smoothie.
“Nothing life-threatening. Give it two days and he’ll be ready for his next ride.”
So yeah, Bobby’s fine.
Which is great news, because now I won’t feel bad when I punch him in his stupid face.
My phone buzzes again, but it’s just a damn weather alert.
I sigh and lean back, staring up at the ceiling tiles.
What if she thinks I ghosted her?
What if she thinks I woke up this morning and pulled some smug playboy asshole disappearing act?
No way, right?
Marigold has to know I wouldn’t do that.
I wouldn’t leave after last night. After us.
But what if I already broke her trust?
What if she thinks I just said all those things to get into her bed?
I clench my fists, pulse thudding hard.
“Come on, Honey,” I mutter under my breath. “Pick up the damn phone.”
Because Bobby might be my brother, but Marigold?
She’s my mate. My present. My future.
And I might have just fucked it all up.