Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Mia stared at her father in his hospital bed, praying she could hold it together in front of him. He’d already barked at her about sniffling, insisting “I ain’t dead yet.” The words—so normal for Pete—would have comforted her except that they sounded weak. His voice was scratchy and thin.
The machines around him even sounded as if they were taking their last breaths, with lengthy pauses between the beep…beep…beep. The IV drip, drip, dripping some kind of heavy duty pain med into his emaciated body.
His complexion had gone from yellow to gray this week.
And something about the better lighting in the hospital made Mia realize how paper-thin his skin had become.
She could see it in the glare of the bedside lamp when the nurse came to check his vitals.
For the moment, though, the light was off and Pete’s eyes were closed.
The door to the room was open, and the nurses’sstation was busy just outside in the hall.
Behind her, Davis sat in a fat recliner chair pretending to be engrossed in a video game on his phone.
She’d be willing to bet he’d never played the candy game even once in his life, his score so abysmally low that Mia’s little foster sister Nicole had beaten it before she was eight years old.
Davis only played so that her father wouldn’t notice him and he could stay by her side.
Funny how they’d been fake-dating for less than a week and she knew that about him.
She’d gotten to learn a ton about him over the last few days together.
All of which she liked. It broke her heart to think she might get booted into a foster home halfway across the state next month and never see Davis Reed, the Crestwood head drummer, again.
He glanced up at her now from where he slumped in the recliner, still dressed in the clothes he’d worn at the reunion event for serving drinks and pizza—black pants and a white long-sleeved shirt.
The older guests had mostly eaten barbecue, but the twelve and under crowd had all flocked to the pizza tent, keeping him busy right up until his shift ended at six.
Then they’d played with some of the little kids at the playground to help out parents who wanted to dance, finally squeezing in a few dances of their own. It’d been nice.
So nice, she’d almost forgotten about Connor’s text for long minutes at a time.
With Pete in the hospital, she couldn’t ask him to change her cell number, so she’d left the phone off except for a couple of times to make outgoing calls.
Connor had found her number before, but he’d never found her.
Still, it left her in a constant state of agitation not to have the cell phone on while Pete was fighting for his life.
She’d been calling the nurses’ station hourly for days, probably driving them all crazy.
Davis set down his phone. “You want me to grab you a water or anything?”
“No, thanks.” She felt guilty he was here. He should be doing fun, normal teenage things on a Saturday night. Like parking in hayfields to kiss without getting kneed in the crotch.
Or like sitting in a movie theater and holding hands with a girl who wasn’t the joke of her high school.
“You want to sit? You can use my cell.” He scrambled to his feet, extended his hand to give her his smartphone, the most recent model.
He knew hers was off-limits. She had to fess up to him about a crappy boy from the past trying to text her since Davis deserved an explanation for why she powered down her phone.
He had wanted her to tell Mia and Clay, but backed off when she’d gotten upset about it.
She hadn’t wanted to disrupt the peace in her house—a little slice of normal that she feared was going to end all too soon.
Of course, she hadn’t shared the full extent of how awful Connor had been to her. Davis already knew more than enough about her—most of it bad.
“I’m okay. Clay will be here soon. You don’t need to stay.”
No sooner had she said it than her half brother strode into the room, his long hair a little rumpled.
Clay was actually sort of cool, and in the moments when Mia wasn’t miserable this week, she’d been happy for Gabriella that Clay seemed totally into her.
Mia wouldn’t have pictured the head of her support group with someone kinda rock n’ roll like Clay.
Between his motorcycle and his guitar playing—not to mention his PI job that had let him travel all over the US—Mia’s brother was definitely not your average joe.
“How are you doing?” Clay asked her, glancing toward the bed before returning his focus to her. “Rough night?” He clapped Davis on the shoulder, seemingly okay with Mia’s sort-of boyfriend after a quick exchange in the driveway before school one morning.
In fact, Clay seemed more at ease around Davis than with their father, making no move to stand next to their dad.
It did not take a psych degree to see the tension there.
“I’m okay. It just kind of spooked me when he suddenly sat up and started asking for you.” She scooted out of Clay’s way. “He really wanted to talk to you.”
And she tried not to let that sting. While she and Pete didn’t have some great father-daughter thing, she had tried hard to show him how much she appreciated having a home with him by cooking and cleaning and just helping him out with stuff.
But Pete didn’t seem to have any need for a bedside heart-to-heart with her.
Her brother ground his teeth, his jaw flexing a few times.
“And here I am.” Clay shrugged and headed toward the bed with as much enthusiasm as a kid walking into the principal’s office. “Davis, I can take Mia home after I finish up. No need to stick around.”
Davis tugged an earbud out of his ear and looked up from the game. “I’d like to keep Mia company, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s cool. Just didn’t want you stuck at the hospital if you needed to get home.”
“My mom knows I’m here. She’s fine with it,” Davis assured him just as the hospital bed behind them squeaked.
“Clay?” her father called in that weak but cranky voice that made Mia sad. “That you?”
Mia glanced around Clay to see Pete struggling to sit up. She wanted to help, but knew that would only make him crankier. Her chest hurt from worrying about him. And herself.
“Come on.” Davis dropped an arm around her shoulder, and that helped ease some of the ache. “Let’s go to the waiting room and see if they made new coffee or if the old pot exploded from sitting empty on the hot plate.”
Of course, she didn’t care about coffee or hot plates. But she liked that Davis wanted to distract her. Wanted to stay with her. If she hadn’t been scared her dad wasn’t going to make it through the night, she would have been the happiest girl ever.
Even with no cell phone. She stared down at the device she shouldn’t turn on. Not even for a minute.
As long as Connor couldn’t track her down, she’d be fine.
“Have a seat, boy. Your pacing makes an old man dizzy,” Pete complained while the heavy hospital room door closed behind Mia and her boyfriend.
Clayton slowed his step near the antibacterial soap dispenser, taking an extra second to wash his hands. He hadn’t realized he’d been stalking around the small room like a tiger ready for a meal, but he definitely needed to relax. Get this over with.
No matter what his father wanted now, would it really do anything to mitigate the fact that he’d beaten his kids, lost custody and refused to give them a shred of guidance in a world that left them with no bearings? No home?
It damn well couldn’t bring back the baby who didn’t make it past infancy. And it could never ease the pain of losing Eddy.
Still, Clay strode toward the hospital bed and dragged a big chair closer. Gabriella had urged him to hear his father out. To make what peace he could with the past before it was too late.
For her sake, and for Mia’s, Clay planned to at least listen.
“Took you long enough,” Pete groused, stabbing at the remote attached to a cord that raised and lowered his bed. His head lifted so he was sitting up, staring at Clay over a rolling table that held a water pitcher and some extra cups.
“You had a seizure the last time we tried to talk,” Clay reminded him, scuffing his boot across the terrazzo floor. “I wasn’t sure I should try a second time.”
“So it’s your fault I’m stuck in here?” Pete reached for the water pitcher, grabbing it with a shaky grip before spilling a little out into a cup.
“I was trying to stay `round home long as I could for the girl’s sake.
She’s scared to go back to foster care. Damned if I know why, though.
” Pete cackled drily between sips of water.
“For you, that foster care was like a lottery ticket! You couldn’t run out fast enough.
But Mia…” He swiped an impatient hand through his hair.
“Something bad musta happened. Different for the girls.”
It was more than his father had ever spoken to him at one time. Well, unless you counted screaming rants. But since those were rarely coherent, Clay didn’t include them.
He tapped his thumb against his knee, wishing Gabriella was here to hear this. It confirmed her fears about Mia.
Maybe Clay needed to take them more seriously.
“I’m looking into her social worker.” Clay hadn’t forgotten the woman’s name. He had plenty of friends in child protective services given his line of work. “I’ll make sure she lands somewhere she’s happy.”
“That’d be with you.” His old man pointed a thin finger at him, his skin a frightening shade of greenish-gray. “That’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you. The girl’s mother is an addict, but before Amanda got out of control, she gave me some money toward Mia’s future.”
That surprised Clay. The door opened and a gray-haired nurse in turquoise scrubs peeked into the room.