The doors to the suite burst open. The redhead who answered the door looks between me and my father in shock.
“Call 911.”
She recovers then dashes to the phone on the table. While she’s dialing, I press my fingers to the side of my father’s neck. I can’t feel anything and I’m not sure if it’s due to the angle of his body or the adrenaline racing through my own veins.
“Come on. Come on.”
At the hospital, the doctor disappears behind the swinging door and leaves me standing in the waiting room feeling like someone just clawed an open wound in my chest.
He’s alive. Barely.
“Is there someone I can call for you?” The nurse behind the desk is watching me with the kind of patient, gentle expression I imagine they must teach at nursing schools. She’s an older woman, with dark brown hair pulled up into an elegant knot at the back of her head. She looks like the kind of lady who has a husband and three well-behaved kids. I briefly consider asking her if she’d adopt me.
I wouldn’t even know what to do in a normal family.
“No. I’m going to call my brother.” I pull out my cell phone and retreat to one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. I dial Finn’s number and the voicemail picks up.
“Finn. I’m at the hospital. Norfolk General. Our father has had a stroke. Or a heart attack. I don’t even know exactly. I just … need you to come. Just in case.”
I hang up and scrub my hands through my hair as I settle back to wait. The time passes slowly. I’ve never liked hospitals and this waiting is just brutal. I look at the clock on the wall for the millionth time. The doctor still hasn’t come back out to tell
me what’s going on. I’ve been waiting for a half an hour. I glance at the nurse behind the desk. She looks at me and then her gaze skitters away.
I stand and pull out my phone again. Shouldn’t there be someone else I should call? Does my father even have friends? There are probably a million things I should be doing right now but I have no idea what they are. Things a good son would do. But then I’m not a good son, am I?
I was yelling at him. Christ.
The door from the outer corridor opens and Finn walks in. A second later, Gabe and Zack follow.
A sense of relief fills me to overflowing. I sit down suddenly, sagging against the chair.
“I came as soon as I got your message.” Finn takes the chair next to me. Gabe and Zack take the ones across the aisle.
“How is he doing?” Gabe asks.
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything.” My voice cracks slightly.
Finn’s hand lands on my shoulder. “He’s going to be okay. He’s too cranky to die. Isn’t it only the good who die young?”
I know he’s trying to make me feel better but his words just work on the guilt I’m already feeling. “I was yelling at him. I told him he was a bastard who would die alone.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I look up at Zack’s voice. Gabe and Finn look over at him, too. He speaks so rarely that it’s always something of a shock.
Gabe grins at us. “Yeah, he comes out to play sometimes.”
“Shut up, Gabe,” Zack responds, but there’s a wealth of history behind it. It reminds me of how I fight with Finn. “All I’m saying is, it’s not your fault. Any one of us could have been there when it happened. Hell, I yelled at him when I saw him, too.” He runs his hands over his shaved head. The intricate designs tattooed on his scalp stand out in stark relief against his pale skin.
I glance over to see Finn watching me. “You guys were getting along better. There’s got to be more to this story. What happened?”
Strangely enough, I have somehow pushed the conversation about Emma to the back of my mind. “It was about Emma. He hired her.”
I stand up. I just can’t sit in these stupid beige chairs any longer pretending like everything in my life isn’t completely screwed up. The one person I thought of as normal, perfect and untouched has been a part of this screwed up business from the beginning.
“He hired her?”
“According to Mr. Boyd. But Dad confirmed it.” I give a bitter laugh. “He paid her to convince me to agree to his terms.”