26. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jaylen
I can feel my knees wanting to buckle beneath my weight, but I grit my teeth and push myself to take another few steps, holding onto Dominic's arms with an intense grip, not wanting to fall on my arse and embarrass myself in front of the rest of my family members in the room.
"Come on, you can do a couple more," he says, lightly squeezing my arms.
I glare at him through the sweat that's dripping into my eyes.
"Maybe we should give him a break," Sophia says from where she's seated on Kaleb's lap across the room.
"No, he can do it," Michael adds.
"As much as I appreciate the confidence you seem to have in me, I feel like I'm about to fall over if I take one more step," I bark back at my uncle who's standing by the door to my room, watching my wobbling legs.
"I know you can do it, son. You've just got to believe in yourself."
"Maybe we should go and get his nurse in here. I'm sure that'd light a fire up his arse."
"You're a dickhead," I snap, turning my fierce glare to Kaleb. "And put that fucking phone down. I don't want videos of me like this. "
"Jericho wanted updates on you," he replies with a smirk.
"Come on, Jay, this was your idea. You can do one more step, and then you can rest again," Jess adds, walking over to me and Dominic to wrap her arm around my back, offering me the slightest amount of support.
I take a deep breath, grip tighter onto Dominic, and then groan as I push myself to take another step forward.
"Okay, okay, that's enough now! Give the boy some time to recover," Louise says, rushing over to me and pushing her son away as she helps guide me down into the wheelchair that Jess wheels behind me. "You did really good, sweetheart."
"Thanks, Auntie Lou."
My body slumps back against the wheelchair and I allow my muscles to relax now that I'm sat down.
As everyone moves around the room, putting everything back to where it's meant to be from where we moved it to have enough space for me to walk around, my mind drifts to Rory.
She's in the hospital somewhere.
She came in this morning and checked on me, being extremely professional apart from sneaking me a bag of rainbow belts, and then she's avoided me since.
I don't know if she's avoided my room because my whole family decided to turn up for a visit today, or if she's avoiding me because of what happened yesterday, but I don't like it.
I want to spend every moment I can with her, especially now that I'm getting better.
My stay in the hospital is coming to an end soon, and I haven't had a sufficient amount of time with her yet .
"Well, we best be off sweetheart. We have some meetings to attend to and we have to go and pick up Dominic's suit from the tailors, but we'll be back in a couple of days."
I kiss my aunt's cheek as she bends to give me a tight hug.
"I expect to see you running around this room by time I next come back," Dominic adds, clapping me on the shoulder.
I scoff and shake my head as I watch the surly bastard walk out of the room.
"Obviously he's joking. We all want you to get better as soon as possible, but don't go injuring yourself, son," my uncle says, coming over to give my other shoulder a squeeze before moving on to kiss Jess and Sophia goodbye and then shake Kaleb's hand.
Once they leave, I heave a sigh and glance between the remaining three family members in the room.
Kaleb's holding Sophia tightly on his lap as if he's afraid someone's going to try and steal her out of his arms and pressing kisses against her shoulder.
Sophia's watching him with awe in her eyes and a wide smile painted across her face.
They're in their own little bubble.
It's adorable, but also nauseating.
"They've been like this all week," Jess states, sitting on my bed.
"They're always like this, but I agree they've gotten worse."
Kaleb's icy stare turns my way and his eyes narrow.
"Are we disturbing you?" he asks.
"Very much so," I retort, giving him a snarky smile.
He rolls his eyes and flips me off with his middle finger .
"Can you two stop with the childish antics. You know I don't like it," Sophia says, flicking her gaze between us both.
"He's better now," Kaleb mutters as if that's an excuse for him to continue with the bickering we always fall in to with each other.
"Well, I'm not sticking around for this," Jess says, pocketing her phone and jumping down from my hospital bed. "I'm going to do a little retail therapy. Good job today, Jay. You're doing better than I expected. I'll be back tomorrow morning."
She hugs us all, bar Kaleb, and then hurries out the room.
I watch after her with a frown, confused by her abrupt exit.
"Something's definitely going on with her."
"I could ask Charlie to follow her, find out where she's actually going," Kaleb says, picking up his phone.
Sophia and I turn to him in disbelief.
"You're not putting a tail on my sister," I tell him.
"Why not?"
"She's entitled to her privacy," Sophia says, shaking her head.
"Fine," he sighs, shrugging and putting his phone back down.
"You seriously have some issues," I scoff.
"Says the man who snuck into Sophia's bedroom while on FaceTime to his sister to prove to her that I was in your cousin's bed," he shoots back.
"In my defence, Jess didn't believe me, and I needed some proof."
Sophia laughs at the pair of us and stands from Kaleb's lap to come and sit beside me.
"Okay, I can't handle this any-more. I forgot what it was like to be in the same room as you two."
Kaleb takes the hint, standing from his chair .
"I'll go and warm the car up."
He kisses her temple, nods his head towards me in a bid goodbye and then walks out.
"As annoying as you two are together, I've missed it," she says, smiling sweetly and placing her hand atop of mine.
I watch her for a moment, noting the sheen in her eyes and thinking back to the conversation Rory and I had about her friend Chrissie.
"You got something to tell me, Soph?"
Her eyes dart away from mine for a quick moment before they return and she shakes her head.
I raise my brows and watch as she squirms in her seat.
"You know you can't lie to me."
"Well, technically I can, I'm just not very good at it."
"Out with it then," I say.
She rolls her lips inward, wringing her hands together as her glossy eyes bounce between mine.
"I'm pregnant," she mumbles, watching me for a reaction to the news.
I knew it!
A smile breaks free and a lump forms in my throat as I reach forward and pull her in to a hug.
"I know," I tell her, rubbing her back as her arms wrap around me. "I'm allowed to be happy about this, right?"
She chuckles against my shoulder and nods.
"Yeah, you are. We're happy about it. Well, Kaleb's ecstatic actually. He'd be shouting it from the rooftops if he could."
We pull away from each other and my chest squeezes tightly when I see the tears dripping from her cheeks .
"You're happy too?" I ask.
She nods, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
"Very happy."
"Promise? Because if that fucker is forcing you to—"
"Don't be silly!" she shrieks, smacking my arm. "We both want this, Jay. I promise, he's not forcing me into anything. I'm excited, but also a little stressed, although I think that's natural."
"Well then I'm happy for you," I tell her sincerely. "Both of you."
"You can't tell anyone though! We're planning to keep it a secret for a little while longer to make sure that everything's okay."
"My lips are sealed, but only if you promise me that when I get out of this hospital, Myra will cook me a feast because I'm withering away in here without her food."
"I promise," she says, chuckling.