Chapter 36
His knees bounced up and down, quick enough he could have pumped up several balloons by now. I rested my hand on his thigh, hoping that it might help calm him down, but it didn’t.
I’d left Roxy at Mum’s and sped to the hospital when Oliver finally told me which one they were in. The sight of George hunched over the chair, head in his palms, had spliced my heart in two.
He collected my hand in his, holding on tightly.
All I wanted to do was tell him the terrifying, wonderful, insane realisation I’d had.
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that I loved him.
That I wanted him. And if after everything we’d been through, he still wanted me in all my broken, fucked up glory, then I was his.
For once, that feeling of being attached didn’t fill me with fear. It didn’t make me want to head to the nearest exit. Because that would take me further away from him. And anywhere away from this man was somewhere I didn’t want to be. But I couldn’t tell him when his dad was still in surgery.
We were all sitting in tense silence in the waiting room.
Fallon’s head rested on Oliver’s shoulder, her eyes closed. He draped his coat over her, snuggling her into his body. The same shadows that fell over George’s face ghosted over Oliver’s as he stared off into the distance.
Feeling me watching him, he looked up. Our eyes connected, and for the first time, he let me see all the pain and grief pouring out of him.
He glanced down to where George’s fingers were interlaced with mine.
Instead of the anger or sadness he’d previously shown, the corners of his mouth curled in a half smile. His chin dipped in a nod.
He tugged Fallon closer, dropped his head to hers, and shut his eyes.
I’d stopped asking George what he needed a while ago, because it became obvious that what he needed was me.
Near him, touching him, simply there. After spending a while tucked into his lap, he’d had a lot of nervous energy he needed to release, so we went in search of good coffee in the cafeteria.
An oxymoron, it turned out. It still tasted like sludge, but it wasn’t the point.
The point was to keep him moving and stop him from spiraling.
The artificial light of the hospital flickered above us. My eyelids grew heavy, but I forced them open. Seeing my struggle, George opened up his arm, and I shifted so my head was resting on his shoulder.
‘You can have a nap, sweetheart,’ he murmured, stroking a hand down my hair that had long since fallen out of its bun.
‘Need to be here,’ I babbled as my eyes slipped shut, exhaustion taking over.
He pressed a kiss to my temple. ‘You are here, gorgeous.’
I liked hearing him call me that. Hearing George call me gorgeous, or sweetheart.
As if those honorifics were the only acceptable ones to use.
He’d never once called me baby, without even knowing I hated being called that.
He’d always called me sweetheart. It made all the tension in my muscles relax.
I fell asleep with his palm rubbing soothing circles on my back.
Time, as it often does in hospitals, became meaningless.
The hours slipped by and sometime during the night, George shifted me and laid me out on several seats, resting my head on his lap. I woke up for a few seconds, but he whispered something in my ear that had me drifting right back off.
When I finally did wake up, it wasn’t George’s hard body I was pressed up against. The smell of coconut told me whose lap my head was currently resting on. A soft hand toyed with the strands of my hair, twirling it around her finger as she scrolled on her phone.
Sleep quickly vanished. I sat bolt upright, all the blood rushing to my head as I scanned the waiting room, not finding the brooding, gruff man who had become my heartbeat.
‘Where is he? Did they hear anything?’
Fallon put her phone down and rolled her neck like she’d been stuck in that position for a while.
‘The doctor came out about fifteen minutes ago. Peter’s okay.’ She looked as exhausted as I felt.
I sank back down onto the chair. ‘He’s really okay?
’ I needed the reassurance that the man I’d only met once, but who had raised one of the most incredible people I’d ever met, was going to be around for a while longer.
Fallon collected my hands in her. ‘He’s gonna be okay.
He had a blockage in his heart, but they were able to fix the problem.
It’s family only, so the guys went to see him. ’
‘Why didn’t anyone wake me?’
A knowing smile pulled at her lips. ‘George told us not to. I wanted to wake you up, but he said to let you sleep.’
Her head listed, looking at me like she could see through to the very centre of me. Years of knowing her every facial expression had my shoulders tensing.
One brow quirked as she fought a smile. ‘You gonna tell me about it?’
Shifting into a sitting position, folding one leg over the other, I shook my head. ‘Nope.’
‘It’s that serious.’ I was being less than forthcoming, but she wasn’t offended.
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Rosie,’ she said my name like I was missing something incredibly obvious. ‘You've told me everything about the people you date. Often in far too much detail. There was one story about a hot fudge sundae that I’m honestly still grossed out by.’ Her shoulders shook with a shudder.
‘Oh, that was a good night,’ I said wistfully. Honestly, I barely remembered it, but the eye roll it earned me was worth it.
‘My point is, this is different. You seem different.’
I had no desire to tell her she was mistaken. That it wasn’t true that my entire world had been shifted from the inside out. My head bobbed. I wanted to tell her, but I needed to tell him first.
‘I will tell you,’ I promised. ‘But not yet.’
That same beautiful smile graced her delicate face. She collected my hand in hers and squeezed. ‘Love you.’
I squeezed them back. ‘Love you too.’