Flirt With Me (With Me in Seattle 17)

He nods and leaves the room. I’m left with relative quiet, just listening to the hustle and bustle outside of the room.

I kiss Hunter’s hand and press it to my cheek.

“You’d better wake up,” I say and feel tears drop onto my cheeks. “Damn it, Hunter, you’d better wake up. I didn’t get married today just to turn around and be widowed. I need you. Rachel needs you. Our life doesn’t work without you.”

I kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear.

“I know you can hear me. I need you to fight, goddamn it. That’s what you do best. You fight.”

I hear a buzzing in my handbag. I reach over and pull out Hunter’s phone which is buzzing with a call from his agent. Just as I’m about to answer, the medical staff comes in to move us upstairs, so I send the call to voicemail.

The move is quick, and once we’re settled, I drop all of my things on the couch near the bed and scoot a chair over so I can sit with Hunter.

I have both his phone and mine on the bed next to me.

I don’t know who to call first. I need to call his parents so they can talk to Rachel. I really want to hear my dad’s voice.

But before I can make any call at all, Hunter’s phone rings again.

“Hello,” I say into the phone.

“What’s going on?” Hunter’s agent demands. “I saw media footage of Hunter getting loaded into an ambulance.”

I give him a rundown of everything that’s happened over the past couple of hours.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he growls.

“There’s footage,” I inform him. “The hotel has security footage.”

“Good. I’m going to make some calls. Keep me posted on his condition. I didn’t want him to accept this fight. I tried to talk him out of it.”

“Do you think the attack has something to do with the fight?” I ask.

“It has everything to do with it. I’ll call in a bit to check on him.”

And then he hangs up.

I sigh, reach for my phone, and call my da.

“Well, hello there, my bonny lass.”

“Da.” I brace my head in my hand and hear the tears in my voice.

“What is it?”

I tell him everything I know in between bouts of sobbing and sniffling.

“Maeve, turn on the tele.”

“What?”

“Keegan just turned on ESPN. You’re going to want to see this.”

I find the remote and turn on the TV, fumbling through channels until I find a news station covering the story.

“They’re showing the security footage,” I mutter, watching closely. “Oh my God, Da, that’s Danny.”

“Aye, it is. You need to call Hunter’s father. You don’t want Rachel to hear of this from the news.”

“I’m calling him now. I love you, Da.”

“I love you, too, me sweet girl.”

I hang up and dial Jay’s number, relaying all of the information once again.

“Jay, it’s all over the news. It was Danny. It’s plain as day on the footage.”

“I have to get Rachel from Charity’s,” Jay says, urgency in his voice. “I’ll get her and we’ll get to Vegas as soon as we can.”

“Give it a couple of hours to see how he does,” I suggest. “I know you want to get here. But I’m hoping that we’ll be headed home in a couple of days.”

“I’m coming,” Jay replies, no room for argument in his voice.

His son sounds exactly like him.

“Okay. Thank you, Jay.”

I hang up, ignore both of our phones as they go crazy, and stare at the television screen as the news shows the footage over and over again and then cuts to the scene where Hunter and I are being loaded into the ambulance.

“Turn that shit off.”

I spin without turning it off, surprised by the sound of Hunter’s soft voice. His swollen eyes are open, and I reach for his hand to gently kiss his cheek.

“You woke up.”

“You threatened me,” is his only reply. “That fucker tried to kill me.”

“He won’t get away with it.” I tell him about the evidence and then I hear from the television, “Breaking news. An arrest has been made in this case.”

We watch as Danny and Carla are both led to police cars in handcuffs.

“This was maybe the busiest day of my life,” I say and turn off the TV. “We got married, and then all of this.”

“We got married?” he asks.

“Oh, God. Did this mess with your memory?”

Hunter tries to grin, then winces. “Kidding. I remember making you marry me.”

“You didn’t make me.” I kiss his cheek again. I can’t seem to stop kissing him. “I love you so much, babe. So, so much.”

“Love you,” he whispers. “Really tired.”

“Let me call in the doctor.”

I ring the bell and then watch as he’s evaluated. The doctor smiles, then nods at me.

“This is a good sign,” he says. “A very good sign. Hunter, I’m going to need you to really retire for good now, do you hear me?”