41. Chapter 38
Chance
S unny avoided the topic of her dad for the rest of the drive into Colling Creek.
Though she did ramble on, rather nervously, with old stories of her and JJ when they were growing up.
She bounced those glorious legs of hers up and down in anticipation of what was to come.
It took every ounce of my concentration to focus on her words instead of reaching over and palming her thigh to settle her.
I caved not fifteen minutes onto the highway, and my hand hadn’t left her since.
“Is this it?” I asked, side-eyeing the GPS as I turned into the carpark in front of a large white wooden building with a matching picket fence. The building was exactly how Marilyn had described it, though it was still startling to see.
It was of the same concept of perhaps a storage locker—breezy and casual on the outside but contained a goddamn diamond on the inside.
“Sure is.” She sighed.
I parked the car under a frangipani tree in the far corner of the lot — she would want to delay the entrance for as long as possible.
I jumped down from the car and strode over to her side, opening the door for her. She hadn’t even taken off her seatbelt.
“Hey,” I said softly.
Her brown eyes met mine, but she was slow and slid that mask over her face a second too late. I saw it. The fear and anxiety in those chocolate eyes.
“You don’t have to come in with me,” she mumbled, staring out the front windscreen. “It’s not exactly a fun way to spend your day.”
Taking a leap of faith, I reached over her and unbuckled her seatbelt.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured. I picked up the hand that was closest and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Her eyes flared and met mine. The mask on her face shattered. “Y-you … what?”
“I’ve got you,” I repeated. “I’m with you. I’ll be right next to you or out here. I’ll be wherever you need me to be—just say the words, Sunny.”
“H-he …” She swallowed the stammer in her breath. “He may not be … happy to see me.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t exactly been a frequent visitor of this place.” Her eyes refused to meet mine, darting around her uncomfortably.
I swallowed the burning question inside of me— why —and took a breath in to respond.
She beat me to it.
“Come with me.”
~
The home was quite inconspicuous. It could have passed for a regular aged care home that no one would spare a second glance at, but a man who had changed the entire sport of MMA was within these walls.
I picked up Mari’s hand in mine before we walked through the doors and laced my fingers through hers.
“Good morning—” The short, dark-skinned receptionist beamed when she heard the bell go off that signalled our entry. “Oh! Mari! What a treat to see you!” She smiled, wide and toothy. Her curly hair, much shorter and with tighter curls than Mari’s, bounced as she stood from behind the desk.
“Hi, Rhiannon,” Mari said, though her fingers tensed over the back of my hand.
“It’s so good to see you!” The woman’s joy and brightness would have been contagious if I hadn’t felt the rigidity of Mari’s body all the way down to her hand. “Oh, Elijah will be so happy! He’s been talking about you a lot recently.”
A smile made its way across Mari’s lips but never reached her eyes. They lacked that honey brown I so desperately wanted to see. The colour she wore when she was happy. “This is Chance. He’s here to visit him with me today.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Chance! The more the merrier!” Rhiannon clapped her hands together. “Hold tight. I’ll just grab your sign-in forms.”
“She’s … jubilant,” I mumbled.
“She was here when my dad was first admitted,” Mari whispered back. “She … helped me a lot when it all first happened.”
The tightening of Mari’s mouth told me not to push the subject, so I nodded as Rhiannon plonked down two clipboards in front of us.
We filled out the visitors forms and were given a pass to get us into the wing Mari’s dad was in.
“It’s a … privacy feature of his package,” she said quietly as we slipped through a set of double doors. “He’s considered a code VIP. Same nursing staff and doctors each week—all have signed an NDA. Other than reception staff, no one else knows he’s in here.”
My gaze snapped to hers.
“No one else knows?”
She shook her head. “His nurses, doctors, Rhiannon, Nan, Al, Rocco, JJ …” She counted off of her fingers. “And now you.”
Sunny stopped in front of a door and took a deep breath. I took the opportunity to pick her hand up again. I gave it a gentle squeeze and she, to my surprise, returned it.
She huffed out a breath quickly and pushed the door open.
There, in the corner of the room, sitting in a black velvet armchair, was Elijah Trevino.