Maybe Dad was right, and I was a pussy.
I wanted to see Nicole, but when I brought her up, he changed the subject or just told me to shut up.
I woke to voices in the hallway.
“I’m going to talk to him, Lou.”
“He’s not ready.”
“Well, I need to talk to him anyway.”
“I will not allow it.”
“At this point, I have an incomplete accident report, and police business overrides your authority here at the hospital. I’m going to talk to him.”
“Don’t screw around with me. You’ll regret it.”
“Police business, boss.”
The door opened, and I looked up to see Greg Skye walking into the room. I could still see Dad in the corridor outside with his hand gripping his hair and his eyes boring holes into Greg’s back. Greg shut the door behind him.
He walked over to me slowly with a tentative smile across his face. His hand grabbed the rolling chair, and he pulled it up next to the bed before he sat down.
“How’s my hero?”
I smiled and chuckled a little, which really fucking hurt. I tried to take a deep breath as I looked back up to him.
“How’s my Rumple?” I asked.
Greg shook his head and smiled.
“Nicole is fine,” he said. “She’s really been missing you.”
“Is she going to come here?” I asked.
Greg looked over his shoulder.
“I’m hoping to get her in here very shortly, but your Dad doesn’t like the idea too much.”
I thought about that for a minute. Yeah, I was pretty sure he didn’t like it at all.
“He hasn’t let her visit, has he?”
“She was here in the beginning,” Greg said, “but she and your Dad had a bit of a…confrontation, shall we say? He’s denied her access since then.”
“I want to see her,” I told him. “Tell her that, okay?”
“I will, son,” Greg said, “but we need to talk about the accident a little so I can really say I’m here on official business and not just because I wanted to thank the man who saved my daughter’s life and almost cost himself his own in the process.”
“Worth it,” I said quietly.
His hand lay on top of mine, and he gripped it for just a second.
“Thank you, Thomas,” he said, and his voice faltered a bit on my name. “I’ll never be able to say it enough, but thank you.”
I looked up at him and saw his eyes were shining just a bit in the harsh, fluorescent lights. I nodded to him once, and he nodded back to me.
“Now let’s get down to business before you need to rest some more, okay?”