A sob rips up my throat. “My dad,” I cry as he becomes blurry through my tears. “He had a heart attack.”
Noah uses his thumbs and wipes the tears off my cheeks before pulling me in and kissing my forehead. “He’s going to be alright,” he promises as he takes my car keys from my hands. “Go.”
I don’t wait a second more.
I barrel through the big double doors of the Emergency Room and scurry across the floor, searching for someone who looks like they know what the fuck’s going on. I find a nurse sitting behind the counter and I collapse into her desk, making her jump.
The nurse looks up at me and sympathy etches itself over her features. “My…my dad,” I tell her with a sob, once against realizing that the tears are covering my face.
The nurse grabs a box of tissues and discreetly slides them towards me before giving me a calming smile. “Just breathe, sweetheart. What’s his name?”
“Harrison Bronx,” I say, somehow managing to get the words out without breaking down.
“Alright,” she tells me, turning to her computer. “Just give me a moment and I’ll find out where they have him.”
As she gets busy on her computer, my patience wears thin. I start pacing in front of her and the more she taps away on her computer, the worse it gets. I don’t understand why it should be taking this long? It should be as simple as looking up his name and seeing the corresponding room number.
“Ok,” the nurse finally says. I instantly stop pacing and whip around to face her. “It looks as though they’ve been performing some tests on your dad. He should be settled back in his room in the Cardio Wing. Level three. Room 484. Go up the lift behind you, turn to the right, through the big double doors, and it will be the fourth or fifth door down from there.”
“Thank you,” I say, nodding quickly before scrambling around, trying desperately to get to the lift. I hurry towards it and slam my hand down on the button, before waiting impatiently for the lift to arrive.
It dings a few, painstakingly long moments later and I barge my way inside, not give a damn about the people around me. Facing the panel of buttons, my mind goes blanks. Did she say level three or level four? Do I turn to the right afterward? Where the hell am I going? I just want my Daddy. I need to know that he’s ok.
I put everything else out of my mind and do my best to focus on what the nurse was saying. I go back in time, picturing the moment of standing before her desk and listening to her voice. I hear her voice in my head, the words, and sounds that came from her mouth and soon enough, it’s right there in my head. Level three, room 484.
I slam my hand down on the ‘3’ and groan to myself as the doors take forever to close. I watch them with a heavy glare. How could a hospital have doors that take so long? What if someone was dying and they lost their battle because the doors of the stupid lift took too fucking long to close?
The lift dings again and finally, the doors begin sliding into place.
“Come on, come on,” I grumble under my breath, hardly able to stand still.
Just about there.
A hand slams between the closing doors and they instantly jump back open. “For fuck’s sake,” I groan out, not giving a shit who it is that needs the lifts. I mean, if it was a little old granny, then yeah, I’d probably feel like crap about it, but honestly? Not right now.
The doors widen and standing before me is a body covered in tattoos and a pair of green eyes that stare deeply into mine, begging to know if I’m ok.
A sob rips through me and Noah rushes into the lift, wrapping me up in his arms and holding me with everything he’s got. The doors close behind him as he tries his best to soothe me. “He’s going to be alright,” he tells me, repeating the very words he had said earlier. “Whatever it is, no matter how bad, he’s going to pull through and he’s going to be right back to threatening me with his gun in no time.”
“You can’t say that,” I tell him, feeling that familiar jolt of the lift taking up and traveling up through the levels. “How do you know?”
“I feel it, Spitfire,” he tells me, pressing his lips to my forehead before placing his hand over my heart. “If he was gone or critical, you’d feel it in here. Just like I felt it with Lily. He’s going to be alright. This is just a bump in the road.”