; Something vibrates in my pocket, and it hits me that my phone is still there. I dig it out and see it’s a text from Maggie.
Maggie: I called Portland. They are having Dillon’s Oncologist fly into Trinidad now. We don’t have to worry about traveling. I told them you’d donate to their hospital if the doctor came as soon as possible. Hope that’s okay.
“Oh, wow,” Finley reads the message over my shoulder. It doesn’t bother me. I want her to see who I’m talking to. I’m not hiding anything.
Me: I’ll write them a check for a million damn dollars. I’ll buy them whatever they want. I just want Dillon to be okay.
Maggie: I know. Me too.
I tuck my phone in my pocket and hold Finley a bit tighter, then I reach for Dillon’s hand. He’s cold, clammy, and he doesn’t squeeze back. “Finley, I’m scared,” I whisper into her ear so only she can hear me. “I’m so fucking scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be human. I’m scared too.”
I lean my forehead against her shoulder and do my best to control myself. This, this right here is another reason why I refused to get close to anyone again in the last eight years. I finally had nothing to lose.
And now I have Dillon and Finley.
The reasons why I have everything to lose.
Chapter Sixteen
FINLEY
Finley
If someone would have told me a month ago that I would be in the hospital with my older boyfriend waiting to see if his son was okay, I would have looked at them like they had lost their mind.
But here I am, in a cold waiting room in the hospital, waiting on Dillon to get out of surgery. Grayson is pacing back and forth down the hall, and everyone else is sitting in the uncomfortable gray chairs. Quinn and Gabriella are seated on either side of me, and Maggie is on the other side of Quinn.
The guys are across from us. Zeke is talking on the phone in his New York accent so fast, I can’t understand what he’s saying. Heaven and Owen are watching Grayson pace. Jaxon and Sebastian are talking in hushed tones.
I look over my shoulder when the hair on the back of my neck stands up. That’s only happened to me a few times in my life, and it usually means Trevor is near. That’s impossible, considering I bashed his head in. Someone is watching me, though. I feel it.
When I turn around to see who is behind me to get a better look, all I see is an older woman reading a magazine and her husband napping next to her. There’s a TV on in the background, but it’s on the news. I hate the news, so I turn around again, trying to pay attention to the conversations happening around me. I still feel a weird inkling, but there isn’t anything I can do about it right now.
Maybe I’m just hypersensitive because of the situation.
“I can’t be here. I need fresh air. I need to go. I … I don’t know how to handle this,” Grayson says abruptly, stopping in the middle of the walkway.
Jaxon stands to stop him, but Grayson is already marching out the door.
“I got it,” I say, and Quinn reassuringly squeezes my hand before I go.
Jaxon takes my empty seat, and I run out of the automatic doors, hoping Grayson didn’t go far. The sun is just starting to peek into the sky, and the stars are slowly fading. I look left and then right and see Grayson sitting on a bench.
A bench surrounded by dandelions.
They are just weeds, but there is a small part of me wondering if maybe it’s my dad. I doubt it.
Those silly wishes again.
Grayson’s hands are folded together to make one large fist, and his chin is resting on it. He’s staring at the sidewalk beneath him, unblinking, completely lost in thought. I take a seat next to him and pull my legs to my chest.
For such a big man, he feels so deeply, which is something so unexpected when someone looks at him. This is a very emotional time, but in general, even while we have sex, he is gentler than I ever thought he could be.
It’s another reason why I love him.