Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Logan
Today is the fifth day sitting in Sebastian’s hospital room with his aunt. I got here a couple of hours ago, and I will most likely be here for the rest of the day.
“You know…” Aunt Kathy elbows me playfully. “I’m sure that Bass would understand if you had things to do. He is the most laid-back person I know. Almost annoyingly so,” she huffs.
I give her a side eye. “Are you saying that you want me to go away?” I tease her, which only causes her to roll her eyes at me.
“You’re too sad and depressing,” she informs me.
I snort in amusement, appreciating how straight forward she is. There is no beating around the bush with Aunt Kathy. She is very nosey and very honest.
“Last night, I was chatting with my friend,” she says. “Her name is Gertrude, not that you need to know that. Anyway, I was telling her about you and how you’ve been moping around, and she said you needed to find your girl and get laid…”
My eyes widen in shock. “What?” Not that I am not used to this kind of language, but not from seemingly sweet old ladies.
Aunt Kathy puts a hand up in defense. “Her words, not mine. But she’s right, you know?”
I stare at her for the longest time before turning my attention to the hospital bed where her nephew is still in critical condition.
The noise from the machines keeping him alive are soothing now that I am used to listening to them.
It’s comforting to know that he is still alive, even though none of the news we’ve been hearing have been positive.
“Tomorrow is my last day that I can visit,” I tell her. “So you have to put up with me for only one more day.”
“Two days,” she retorts. “We still have today, too. Today and tomorrow,” she explains. “Two days.”
This time, I can’t help the loud laughter escaping my throat.
The sound comes straight from my chest and echoes all around the otherwise quiet room.
In a moment of panic, I glance toward the hospital bed, worried that I would wake up my friend.
But then I get disappointed when I don’t see any new movement other than the robotic motion of his arms as they come up before lowering back to the mattress.
“I thought you’d like me keeping you company, Aunt Kathy.” She gave me permission to call her that after the first day we spent together.
“Honey.” She pats me on the back. “I’d love the company if it was the pleasant kind. You’re depressing me more than anything. I thought us having a good talk the other day would make you change your mind about things. But no, here you still are…”
“What things?” I shake my head at her in confusion.
Aunt Kathy sighs and rolls her eyes once again. “For one, you’re pining over this Betty girl,” she starts.
I smirk. “Her name’s Elizabeth.”
She waves me off. “I know, but back in my day, they’d call them Betty, so now it’s stuck in my head. Maybe one day you can get a dog or a cat, and name them Betty. In my honor.”
The way she moves from one topic to another gives me whiplash.
“You remind me of Evie,” she says. “She’s the girl I was hoping Bass would end up with. Such a good girl,” she praises. “Good manners and very well raised. But,” she shrugs, “with her head up her ass. All because of a boy who she took forever to admit that she couldn’t live without.”
I about choke on my spit when she says that. I can’t even think of asking any questions to clarify her statement because she’s made it perfectly clear what she thought the problem was in this girl’s life. But I do have another question.
“How does that have anything to do with me?”
She turns in her seat, only to give me a shocked look. “Logan Mantei,” she says with disappointment in her tone. “I can’t believe you really are this slow.”
“Slow?”
“When Bass was telling me about your situation with the girl, I thought he was joking. It really sounded like teenage drama, if you ask me.”
“I’m not…”
“Your problem is this,” she cuts me off. “You don’t trust this girl to love you as much as she says that she does.”
“Me? What?”
“Have you ever tried reading a romance novel?” she asks from out of nowhere.
My mouth drops in shock. “What does that have anything to do with anything?”
“So it’s a no?”
“Uh, I… Well… No,” I sputter.
“That much is obvious,” she hums. “If you picked one up once in a while, you’d know that when a girl goes through all the trouble Betty has only to be with you, it’s because she truly loves you. The only option she will accept is an HEA.”
I shake my head, half amused, and half completely puzzled. “What’s an… HEA?” I don’t even know if I repeated the letters in the correct order.
“Happily ever after,” she explains right away. “You’d know that if you followed BookTok.”
“Book what?” I seriously can’t keep up with what’s happening right now.
Aunt Kathy sighs all while giving me a very disappointed look.
“You literally know nothing. This is too much work.”
I turn back in my seat to stare at Sebastian’s unmoving body on the hospital bed. It’s strange how being in his presence can still bring me amusement even when he is not in any position to mutter a word. I can see where he got that from, though. Aunt Kathy is something else, to say the least.
“Take a break, my boy.” She pats me on the knee. “I’ll give you a jingle if Bass wakes up.”
I let out a snort of surprise. “Are you throwing me out?”
She doesn’t even need to pretend. “Indeed I am.”
I stare at her, leaning to the side to rest my elbow on the armrest of the chair. I try to cover my smile, but I don’t do a very good job of it.
“Don’t laugh at me, young man,” she shakes a finger at me in admonishment. “You need to pay attention to everything I tell you. And stop moping around as a rule. It is very unbecoming.”
Covering my mouth with my hand, I continue resting my elbow on the armrest of the chair, the need to laugh just too great.
Suddenly, she grabs her purse and frantically looks through it. I recognize panic on her face when she can’t locate whatever she’s looking for.
“Everything okay?” I ask, just in case she needs me to run out and get something for her.
“This bag is just too big,” she mutters under her breath. “That’s what I get for trying to be like all these young girls, although, I’m pretty sure this is out of style by now. Those girls are old by now.”
I lean forward, my eyes going inside her bag. It looks like a bottomless pit.
“How can you find anything at all in there?” I can’t help myself from asking.
Aunt Kathy gives me an annoyed look. “I am obviously not able to find anything since I’m still looking, wouldn’t you say?”
My back straightens up as I try to save the situation. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I have to tell you, Logan,” she continues. “And please excuse my candor.”
Knowing that me laughing right now would set her off, I just move my head up and down, my chin almost hitting my chest as I bob it around.
“You have the common sense of a squirrel,” she concludes.
Her statement is so matter of fact and out of nowhere, I have no idea how to react. I stare at her for the longest time before bursting into laughter. She smiles, too, with a proud look on her face, almost like she loves seeing me laughing.
“Aww…” She leans forward and squeezes my cheek with her fingers. “You are adorable when you’re happy. No wonder Betty followed you all the way to God’s country.”
“Elizabeth,” I correct her. “Not Betty. She’s only twenty-five,” I remind her.
Aunt Kathy looks distracted by now, her right arm just about getting lost inside the handbag.
“Ah, finally!” She pulls out a cell phone. “I need to find a better way of carrying this sucker around. I have to invest in a new bag, much smaller this time.”
She brings the screen to life, then taps on a few things before she looks like she is writing an entire novel. When she’d finished, she drops the phone in her lap and flexes her hands a couple of times.
“They make those keyboards way too small,” she explains when she catches me staring. “Typing on it makes my fingers cramp.”
My head bobs in understanding. “Makes sense. Maybe you should use the voice to text feature,” I suggest.
“That is a wonderful idea! You’re a smart boy.” She pats me on the knee again, just like she did earlier. “But I couldn’t do that now since I was typing things about you.”
The woman never fails to amaze me. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.
“You were typing things about me to other people?” I ask for clarification.
Aunt Kathy harrumphs and crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, I wasn’t going to send a text to myself about you. That’d be weird, wouldn’t you say, Logan?”
“As weird as you sending messages to others, I’m sure.”
Aunt Kathy lowers her glasses down her pointy noise, taking a minute to assess me from head to toe. In the end, she seems to approve of what she sees.
“Thank you for being such a good friend to Sebastian,” she finally says to me. “He told me how you two weren’t very close when you played here in New York, but it was good for him to have a familiar place out there.”
I swallow around the large lump suddenly forming in the back of my throat.
“I was happy he was there, too,” I murmur. My voice comes out weak. Talking about Sebastian is a reminder of the situation he is now in. As weird as it sounds, the funny interaction I just had with his aunt made me forget about him being on life support only feet away.
“I need you to do something for me,” Aunt Kathy continues. “Go down the hallway and take the elevator to the eleventh floor. Then you take a right, and you will reach a conference room. Go and wait for me there.”
Looking around in confusion, I try to figure out what she’s talking about. Nothing has changed with Sebastian, and I know she hates leaving him alone.”
“Why?” I ask in obvious confusion.
Her response is quick. “Because Sebastian would want you to.”
More confused than ever, I stand up and stretch my legs, feeling a bit stiff after sitting in this plastic chair for the last couple of hours straight, not to mention the four days before today.
“Is there anything I can bring you on my way back?” I ask. “Something to eat? Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“I’ll come up with something,” she assures me. “I’ll text you.”
I grin at her, showing all my teeth. “I’ll make sure to check my phone.”
She shakes her head at me in amusement. “How did you even end up this cute? Go away!” She points toward the door. “Eleventh floor. Make a right. Conference room.”
Still confused about what’s going on, or why she needs me to go to this conference room, I play along, only to appease her. After all, she’s going through a lot right now, and I don’t want to further aggravate her by not listening to her.
A couple of nurses almost run into me as soon as I walk out into the hallway. They both smile and giggle before apologizing. I smile back although, I’m not really feeling particularly flirty.
The walk to the elevators is long and annoying, with the soles of my shoes squeaking on the white floor of the hospital. When I finally make it, I press on the button that takes me to the lower floor. It feels like forever until the doors open and I am on my way to the destination.
“Eleventh floor,” I say to myself as I push on the respective button.
It doesn’t take long to get there, but I still don’t know why I’m going or what I should expect.
“Maybe it’s her boyfriend,” I mumble, although, I have no idea if Aunt Kathy has a boyfriend, or why she would even ask me to talk to him at all.
All in all, I am more confused than ever by the time I stop in front of the door to the conference room she directed me to. It looks plain, nothing special about it. From what I can tell from the tag on it, this room is usually used by family members of the patients who stay in this hospital.
For a split second, I wonder if I should just barge in. Since I have no idea what’s waiting for me on the other side, I think that knocking first is a better option. There’s this weird feeling in my stomach, like nothing good is about to come out of whatever this is.
I raise my hand and knock before I can give myself more time to change my mind.
“Come in,” a man’s voice calls out. It sounds gruff and angry at the world.
Pressing on the handle, I push the door open and look inside. Then, I promptly proceed to freeze only one step inside of the doorway.
I clear my throat a few times, unsure of how to react.
“Mr. Brown,” I say. “I did not expect to find you in here.”
He eyes me up and down, taking in my T-shirt and jeans that have seen better days, along with the athletic shoes on my feet that I’ve had forever.
“I didn’t expect to ever meet with you in here either,” he admits.
That’s when I realize that he is dressed fairly casual as well. Our attires are similar, apart from him wearing a sports coat over a black T-shirt.
“Sebastian Roonie’s aunt sent me here,” I tell him. “She said I needed to come here…”
“I asked for her help with seeing you,” he cuts me off.
My eyes widen in surprise. “Why?”
He pulls a chair out and takes a seat before motioning for me to do the same. I would feel weird if I was rude to the man despite knowing how much he dislikes me, so I sit across the table from him.
“Two reasons,” he says. “Number one is you wanting to break up with my daughter.”
Panic takes over so fast, I swear I see spots.
“Number two is you wanting to quit playing hockey.”
My mouth goes dry.
“Both of them are very serious allegations, and I am here to get your head out of your ass, for lack of more professional terms.”
I am speechless.