Booker (Courting Chaos Book 3)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “I didn’t.” I flagged a taxi as I talked to him. I wanted to get a bag packed and find a flight as soon as I could. I covered the phone to tell the cabbie where I needed to go it was close but a car would still be faster than walking. “My phone died earlier and I didn’t have my charger. I gave it to our manager to charge. He had it while I was on stage and up until a couple of hours ago. I called Paige right away. She didn’t answer.”

  Silence hung between us long enough that we were still quiet when I got out of the car three minutes later and tossed a twenty into the front seat. I wasn’t sure what Dad was waiting for, if anything to speak again. We’d been in a silent standoff before and he could definitely out silent treatment me.

  “Dad,” I started out. This might’ve been the chance to make some progress between us. “I love Paige. I wouldn’t ignore her.”

  “You love her?” he asked. I didn’t think I needed to repeat it. “Does she know that?” he prodded.

  “I haven’t said it, but… ”

  “Nothing comes after that but. Nothing that matters anyway. Look”—something shuffled against the phone—“if I teach you one thing, it’s going to be to not lose the woman you love for anything. I fucked up majorly a long time ago. You haven’t felt terror until you’ve possibly lost the very thing that gives your life meaning and that’s exactly what I did with you and your mom.”

  Holy. Shit. I couldn’t believe he’d just admitted that to me. But I got a little of what he was saying. If Paige thought I’d been ignoring her, since I had no way of knowing that something happened with my mother Paige probably assumed it was directed at her, she would’ve been pissed, then probably hardened herself toward me. Fucking hell.

  “I’ll call her.”

  “I’d let her sleep,” he said quietly. “We’ve been at the hospital all day and I’m not proud to say that I’ve been leaning on her all day. The lights are out in her bedroom. I’m assuming she’s asleep but either way, your apology should be bigger than a phone call.”

  “Like a big house on a huge lot of land?” I asked back fully expecting a loud verbal lashing that never came.

  “Yeah,” he said then sighed. “Something like that.”

  He was right. Calling wasn’t what I wanted to do anyway. I was going back home and could talk to her face to face once I was there. She couldn’t hang up on me that way.

  After ending the call with Dad, I began to jog toward my bus but thought better of it and went looking for Lawson. I’d left once without telling anyone I’d be gone and that seemed to cause some concern. Not that I needed to answer to the band, I was a grown man, but it was probably more of a courtesy. We cared about each other like family and I had learned the hard way that leaving without a word… family didn’t like. When I dropped out of school at sixteen, I left with nothing more than a note that I was fine and I’d call. Mom worried. Mom cried. Finally, I did call and told them I wasn’t coming back which pissed Dad off. Mom worried. Mom cried. While I didn’t think the band would cry in my absence, I did think they’d worry.

  My first stop, the most logical place I’d find Lawson this time of night, was his bus. I banged on the door a lot harder than I needed to, taking out my anger and frustration with myself on the poor metal.

  “Whoa, what’s going on?” Lawson asked when he opened the door.

  “I’m going home,” I said, not stepping onto the bus, so he stepped off.

  “Again?”

  “My mom is in the ICU. Replace me or whatever the fuck you all decide to do, but I can’t be here if she dies there. I have to go.”

  “Hang on,” he called out. “What’s going on?”

  “My mom had a stroke two months ago,” I said realizing that I’d told the guys but had never given Lawson any details. “She’s had a few complications and she’s having one right now. She’s been back in the hospital since this afternoon. They tried to get a hold of me but… whatever. I have to go. I don’t know when I’ll be back. But I’ll understand if you need to replace me.”

  “We’re not replacing you,” he said. I started walking away again. “Wait,” he called out.

  I stopped but didn’t go back toward him. He came over to me.

  “Is that who called you earlier?” he asked.

  I furrowed my brows. “What?”

  “Fuck. Earlier today after I charged your phone it rang a few times. Annoying as fuck so I answered it. I told the girl to stop calling that you’d call if you wanted to speak to her.” He jammed his fists into his pants pockets. “I was busy and honestly I was a dick to her.”

  “What?” Rage burned through my body. Both because he hadn’t said anything when he handed me my phone and because he was a dick to Paige. She didn’t deserve that.

  “Yeah, man, I’m sorry. She didn’t say anything about your mom, though.”

  “Did you give her a chance to?” I yelled. Lawson could be abrupt when he was running around for us. Some days were worse than others. It was a good trait as a manager, but maybe not so much on a personal level. As a manager he got things done and more than a fair share of shit had been thrown his way since the beginning of this tour. “What did you say to her?”

  Lawson closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “I told her you’d call if you wanted to talk to her. But ah… ” He scratched the back of his head, something I’d seen him do when he was uncomfortable. “I’ll own up to the fact that I was busy and was pretty much an asshole. And no I didn’t give her the chance to explain why she was calling.”

  “Goddamn it, Lawson.”

  “I know.” He swallowed hard. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When you came to get your phone, I’d honestly forgotten about it. I had a million things going.” And he’d been on a call of his own but he didn’t mention that part.

  I could’ve strangled him right then and there and not even felt an ounce of guilt, but I didn’t want to waste the minutes it would take for him to stop breathing. Plus, Lawson was overall a decent guy. He hadn’t done it on purpose, that much I could’ve been sure of.

  “I have to go find a flight.” I turned to walk away from him again.

  “I’ll take care of that. You pack. Come back when you’re done,” he called out to me.

  Fuck yeah, he’d take care of it, considering he’d caused part of the mess in the first place.

  Back on my bus, I grabbed my bag and shoved what I needed inside. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It’d save time not having to go to baggage claim. Fifteen minutes later, I was back banging on Lawson’s bus door again.

  “There isn’t a flight out until seven tomorrow morning. I’m sorry. I’ve looked. Nothing even close,” Lawson told me as soon as he opened the door. I stepped in as he spoke and saw his laptop and phone sitting on the table.

  “Fuck.”

  “I know.”

  I took a minute to go over all my options. If I thought I could make the drive in less time, I would’ve. I mapped it and driving would take almost fourteen hours to get there from Providence and that was without long stops. Shit.

  “Just email me the flight info,” I said as I got to the bus door.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Going to the airport.”

  “You don’t need to be there for hours.”

  “I know.” I nodded. “But I can’t fucking stay here and just wait.” I headed for the door. “See if you can even find indirect flights to get there. I don’t care.”

  I’d deal with Lawson later, but for now, I’d wait at the airport. Maybe Lawson’s guilt will get him to work harder to find me a flight out earlier. I ordered a car as I made my way across the parking lot and it was already waiting for me when I got out to the sidewalk. There were always Ubers and cabs and all the other car services hanging around the venue on show nights.

  But I waited until I got to the airport to try calling Paige again. Now it was really late so it wasn’t surprising that she did
n’t answer.

  “Paige,” I said quietly into the phone. “It’s Booker.” Silence hung in the air because I didn’t want to apologize over the phone. I wanted to see her. Wanted to look into her eyes so she’d know I meant what I said. “I… I’m sorry we’ve been playing phone tag and I didn’t know you called earlier. Listen, I’m waiting for a flight out right now. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I ended the call even though I didn’t want to. That right there was the closest I’d been to Paige in too long. I needed to rectify that.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Paige

  Joe and I headed back to the hospital right after I force-fed him some breakfast. As I’d predicted, he’d slept harder than he thought he would. Which I could see from the pillow lines on his face when he came out into the kitchen. When I asked if he’d heard from the hospital he’d said no, which gave me so much relief. They would’ve called if there’d been a problem. No call meant no problems.

  “Ride with me,” Joe said when he saw me heading toward my own car. “I’m spending the day at the hospital, so if you need to go do something while we’re there, you can take my car.” It sounded reasonable, so I nodded and crossed over to the passenger side of his car, then climbed in. Though I didn’t think I’d need to go anywhere.

  The drive only took ten minutes and when we walked into Marina’s room, the smile on Joe’s face couldn’t have grown any wider. Marina was sitting up in bed… well, the bed was inclined to where it looked like she was sitting and the bags under her eyes along with the redness streaking the whites said she was still exhausted. But her color was much better. Joe leaned over and kissed Marina on the forehead, to which she smiled. Those two were truly adorable.

  “It’s good to see you awake,” I said, then I gave her hand a squeeze before taking a step back.

  “It’s good to be awake.” She tried to give me a smile, but it was weak. “I’m so tired, though.”

  “It’ll take some time to get back to one hundred percent,” I told her. “Sleep. Like a lot. And let the medicine work.”

  “They’ve taken a lot of blood,” she said to Joe. “The doctor said they’re making sure my count doesn’t increase or decrease. Whichever. Making sure the infection isn’t spreading.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Paige has been on top of everything.”

  I smiled at them. “You’re in great hands.”

  Marina nodded slowly. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”

  “You do that.”

  While she slept, Joe and I played Euchre, a game I’d learned from my favorite foster father. I wasn’t good at it but I could fumble through most of the rules. Joe gave me pointers along the way. The nurse also came in to update us whenever more tests came back or if the doctor changed an order. Marina wasn’t completely out of the woods, that would take a few days of antibiotics and ensuring the infection hadn’t spread, but she ate a little bit of applesauce that morning, the nurse had told us, which was excellent. They were going to hit her hard with antibiotics for a while to kick the infection completely out.

  After two hours, I had to stand up and stretch. I wasn’t used to sitting that much and had never done it in a hospital. I was usually running around like crazy because I was working.

  “You hungry?” I asked Joe. I felt like I was constantly asking him about food but that was one of the things I knew I could do for him. Reminding him to keep his strength up while he worried about his wife.

  “I should eat.”

  He didn’t say he was hungry, but rather that he should eat and probably had thought I wouldn’t notice the difference. But I did and at least he’d gotten the lesson I’d tried to teach him. He had to take care of himself even when he didn’t want to or was too worried about his wife.

  “Do you want to go get something? Or I could go and bring food back for you.”

  “I really don’t want to leave now that she’s awake some of the time.”

  “Then I’ll go get it. What do you want?” I grabbed my purse, ready to get whatever came out of his mouth.

  “I’ll take some ice cream,” that tired voice said before we’d decided what he wanted me to get him.

  “She can have some,” the nurse said as she came through the door as if we’d called her. “Her nutrition isn’t restricted, so if she wants some ice cream, I can order some for her.”

  “I’d rather have the vanilla from Margo’s,” Marina said, looking directly at Joe.

  “I’ll go get it.” He stood.

  “No, no.” I pat his shoulder to get him to sit back down. “I’ll go get you something, get the vanilla from Margo’s, then come back. As long as I can still use your car.”

  He tossed me the keys but didn’t tell me what he wanted. I’d decide and he’d eat it as long as he got to stay with Marina.

  First, I stopped at the deli next to Margo’s and ordered him a roast beef sandwich. I wanted something hearty for him, but not overly aromatic, so as to not disturb the other patients then I went next door for Marina’s ice cream. Even I had to admit this was the best place in town to get ice cream and being outside of the hospital for a bit wasn’t exactly a punishment.

  Half an hour later, I returned to the hospital, a bag in each hand. As I stepped off the elevator on the third floor and turned right, I ran into someone. Hard enough I almost dropped the bags of food.

  “Shit, sorry.” I looked up and everything about what I’d been feeling changed. My mood tensed, and I put that wall up around my heart. Apparently, when I stepped off the elevator, Booker had also stepped off the one beside me and I’d slammed right into him. “Uh… hey.?” I assumed that him being here meant Joe had gotten a hold of him. “Sorry. For running into you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Do you know which room Mom is in?” he asked, that deep voice trying to suck me back in. It was working. I could feel him chipping away at the irritation I was only onto without even trying.

  “Ah yeah. I’m headed there now.” I stepped around him and started down the hall.

  “After I see her, we need to talk,” he said from beside me.

  I shrugged. I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to talk to him. If I was ready to talk to him. The feeling of abandonment I’d had was a familiar one and probably unfair to him. He hadn’t abandoned me exactly but I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he had. My stupid childhood came back to haunt me every once in a while and it sucked donkey balls. Instead I picked up my speed until he grabbed my wrist to stop me.

  “What’re you doing?” I asked. “Your mom really wants this ice cream,” I said with a hard but quiet tone. I wasn’t going to let him bother the patients. There were extremely sick people up there.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Well, I want to get this food to your parents.”

  “Would you like me to take this in for you?” Ashley, the day nurse, asked, suddenly right beside me. She raised an eyebrow and looked from me to Booker, then back again, asking me silently if she needed to step in. If he was bothering me.

  “That would be great. Thanks.” I handed over the bags, and Booker released my wrist. Once he did, I stepped away from any open patient doors. “What?”

  “Is there somewhere less… public?” he asked, glancing up and down the hall.

  “No. Shouldn’t you go see your mother before harassing me?”

  Booker cocked his head to the side and sighed. “I was texting my dad from the plane. Yes, I want to go see my mother, but he said things are good right now.” He leaned down into my personal space. “Are things good?”

  Booker’s dark eyes heated me even more when he showed just how much he cared about his Mom. Like being a good son was an incredibly sexy trait that I found irresistible.

  “Yes, she’s doing well right now,” I told him. No matter how angry I was with him, I’d never keep information about his mother from him since I had their permission to share it. “Look,” I said, keeping my voice down. “I don’t need
any sort of explanation or an apology even. You left to go on tour. I didn’t have any illusion as to what might happen, though you didn’t need to rub it in by giving your little speech about not wanting to be with anyone else until we see where this went.”

  “That’s not exactly—”

  “But fucking hell, Booker, I’m taking care of your mom. You’d think you’d at least care enough about her to take my phone calls instead of ignoring me like… well, like a guy. So excuse me if I don’t want to stand here talking to you right now. Excuse me.”

  “Paige,” he called out as I walked away.

  I needed to get out of there. Joe hadn’t mentioned that he’d gotten a hold of Booker but then again Joe didn’t share much. Though how did that look? I tried several times and got nothing. Oh wait, I did get told off by some other guy I didn’t know. But Joe tried and apparently got through. No idea how many tries it took but still, he got through.

  With Booker now at the hospital, I didn’t want to stay. I slid open the door to Marina’s room to find Joe dutifully eating his sandwich while Marina poked at her ice cream.

  Booker followed me in. As he stepped around me, his hand slid across my back and I hated how my body reacted to his touch. I was mad at him. My body shouldn’t betray me by enjoying the warmth from him. Or leaning into that contact. But there was no denying the way Marina’s face brightened when he stepped in and then kissed her forehead.

  “What are you doing here?” Marina asked.

  “Do you really think I wouldn’t come home?” Booker said. “You’re in the hospital.”

  I snorted. It was involuntary and I shouldn’t have done it.

  “You can’t run home every time I go to the hospital,” Marina said.

  “I hardly think this qualifies as a normal doctor’s appointment,” he countered.

  “I’m going to go home for a while,” I said, cutting through their chatter. Booker’s dark eyes came up to meet mine and his jaw tightened. Clearly, he’d envisioned another chat between the two of us. Which was exactly why I was leaving. “Unless you need something,” I added to Marina.