by Julia Kent
“Dylan has all the God complex anyone could possibly need,” Alex joked.
Laura pulled on him and said, “Let’s leave Mike and his mom alone.” Alex nodded and walked toward the door, Laura at his heels.
“Wait!” Ma exclaimed.
Just then, Mike’s Pa appeared, filling the doorway like a slimmer version of Paul Bunyan. Some part of Mike gave up, like a child releasing a tight ribbon attached to a balloon, winds too strong to make the struggle worthwhile.
Whatever rolled out in the next few minutes was coming, whether he liked it or not. Whether he was emotionally prepared or not. The truth would win out, ugly or beautiful.
Or both.
He couldn’t run away.
And so he just let it go, like Jillian’s favorite movie princess.
“We need to have our say,” Pa said quietly. “With all three of you in the room.”
Ma shot him a glare that made Mike smile. All the body reactions stored within him went haywire at once. Fear became amusement. Happiness became sarcasm. All his wires crossed each other and nothing made sense.
And that had to be alright.
Because Mike didn’t have a choice.
He couldn’t run away.
“Have your say, but keep in mind Mike’s still fragile,” Dylan said from behind Pa. Pa moved forward and gave Dylan a grim nod. Laura hovered near his father now, unsure. Mike didn’t have to even look at Dylan; he knew. He knew to go next to Laura and be her support.
Mike had his people here. And they weren’t related to him by blood.
“I understand that, Dylan,” Pa finally said. The sound of his partner’s name coming from his father’s mouth was a jolt, but a pleasant one. Maybe the doctors had given him drugs he wasn’t aware of, because suddenly this entire scene seemed just...right.
Like it needed to happen, as if the universe was righting some wrong.
“We’ll keep it brief.” Pa walked over to the bed, towering over Mike, making him feel like a child again. He felt the unfathomable: his father’s touch, the rough, worn hand picking up his own.
His father was expressing affection.
“I am sorry, Mikey.”
The words echoed through the room, choked out by a man whose pride had seemed bigger than his body for all of Mike’s life. Pa didn’t apologize. Pa didn’t touch like this. His Pa was a tight, efficient man who enjoyed being outdoors eighteen hours a day, who was a Godly, church-going man, a two-beer-a-week drinker and someone who preferred helping a neighbor with a calf birth than watching a football game on television.
This man wasn’t his Pa.
But then again, Mike had never been the person they’d thought he was, either.
“I’m not sorry for my beliefs,” his father clarified, looking at a spot on the wall right above Mike’s head, “but I am sorry for letting my beliefs get in the way of being your father.”
Ma walked over to Pa and Mike’s mouth opened in shock as she reached for Pa’s hand and held it. The two looked at him with a quiet eagerness, hope flashing in their eyes, Ma’s filled with tears, Pa’s with a ragged sadness.
Fury and relief fought inside Mike’s heart.
“Why are you here?” he finally blurted out. “Really?”
“Because I couldn’t go the rest of whatever’s left of my life without seeing you one more time, son,” Big Mike admitted.
“That’s it? You just appeared out of nowhere and now, what? We’re supposed to go back to the way it was?”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Big Mike said in a rough voice. “I just wanted to visit.”
Laura’s look made his own tears almost rise up. “You won’t judge? Or preach? Or try to convince us to break up or say a single negative word to our kids.” The last sentence wasn’t a question as his voice went low with warning.
“No.” Ma and Pa answered in unison.
“You know I’m a billionaire?” Mike added.
Ma’s face reddened. Pa’s mouth tightened.
“We aren’t here for your money,” Pa spat out.
“I never said you were,” Mike said, the old man releasing his hand, the emotional moment gone. In later years, when Mike revisited this moment over and over in quiet, dark corners of the night, he would realize that he mentioned the money on purpose. It was a trigger. The emotional impact of having his parents appear the night before his wedding, of running away, of being injured, of possibly causing Mike Bournham’s injuries, and most of all—of hearing his Ma and Pa apologize—was all too much.
Distraction and deflection gave him an out. A much-needed way to avoid the firestorm of emotions inside him.
“Then why did you mention it?” Laura asked, entering the conversation with such a confused expression on her face that Mike let out a huffy laugh, one filled with so much exhaustion that his father’s face creased with concern.
“Because Ma and Pa should know. It’s a major part of who we are now. I don’t teach skiing anymore; I own the resort. Dylan’s not a firefighter; he runs charities. You’re not a financial analyst anymore; you—”
“You’re a mother,” Mary said with an excited gasp.
The look on Laura’s face was priceless.
“We don’t live like most people,” Mike continued, trying to explain something ambiguous inside him.
“You can say that again,” Pa said dryly.
“And Laura’s uncle crawled out of the woodwork a few years ago, looking for a piece.”
“I don’t want your money, son,” Big Mike said.
“We just want to see you,” his ma added.
Laura beamed at him. Dylan gave his parents skeptical looks, but guarded his expression. Mike knew what he was thinking, because he carried the same thoughts and feelings inside.
How true was any of this?
Mike knew his parents well enough to know they weren’t lying. These weren’t schemers, like Laura’s Uncle Frank. He really did think it was as simple as they described. Pa had a heart attack. He re-evaluated his life and wanted to see Mike. Laura happened to reach out. They were afraid they’d be rejected if they RSVP’d. They showed up unexpectedly. Mike freaked out and fled.
The rest wasn’t exactly expected.
The weight of decision filled the air like a cloud of regret. This was his call. His decision. And he was so tired, body throbbing in pain, bones broken and ground down, wet and aching.
“Can we talk in the morning?” he said, his voice soaked with his own exhaustion.
“Of course,” Pa said. “You rest. We’ll be at the hotel here in town.”
“Wait,” Laura said, looking at Mike with an arched eyebrow. He knew what she was asking.
But he had to be the one to answer. Not her.
“Stay in one of the cabins, Pa,” he said. “That way you’ll be there for the wedding. If there is one.” His eyes were closed, but he knew everyone was staring at him.
“If?” He wasn’t sure who said that single word. More than one person, probably.
“I’m not exactly in any position to stand up as a groom.”
Dr. Druce’s voice cut through his mind. “We can probably discharge you in the morning. No promises, but as long as you don’t have any complicating factors, you can head home with a cast and discharge instructions.”
Mike didn’t know whether to feel grateful or annoyed.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
“But first you need a good night’s sleep,” she chided. “You can all come back at six a.m. for early visiting hours, but right now I think Mr. Pine needs his sleep.”
Laura’s warm lips pressed against Mike’s forehead. “I love you,” she whispered, hot breath tickling his ear, lifting a lock of dried hair.
“I love you, too.”
Dylan’s strong hand was on his shoulder. Mike could smell him lean in. “And don’t worry. My parents have the kids covered with Cyndi and Ellie, and we’ll keep your parents in check.”
“You shouldn’t have to,”
Mike whispered back.
“But we will. We’re here for you. You call the shots.”
“Does that mean I’m the man in charge?” Mike rasped.
Dylan just laughed.
He heard his Ma and Pa say good bye, then felt Laura and Dylan’s presences recede, the pulse of blood and bone turning into a bass drum that beat through his body. Brain buzzing with worry and fear about Mike Bournham, body working on mending, and heart doing the two-step as it tried to make sense of seeing his parents, Mike found himself counting holes in the ceiling tiles.
It reminded him of the stars he’d counted hours ago, trapped on his back at the shore.
Chapter Twenty-two
Lydia
Not once in their years together had her guys experienced a medical emergency. They’d had common colds and Jeremy tended toward bad cases of “mansick” when the little germies got him. Once, Mike had acquired food poisoning from a bad lobster. She’d had horrible periods and strep throat twice.
But the kind of emergency that lands you in the ER? No. Lydia hadn’t set foot in a hospital since her grandmother’s heart attack.
And now she was standing in front of a neurologist who calmly tried to explain what had happened to Mike, the words seizure and CT scan and MRI and God, no—brain bleed—washing over her like words from someone else’s life. Someone else’s horror.
Someone else’s tragedy.
Jeremy’s arm was loose about her shoulders, his hair still wet, his skin grimy with sand that stuck to her shirt. Lydia stared at the doctor’s mouth and tried to make the words sink in.
“So it’s just wait and see?” Jeremy asked, visibly paling as he spoke.
The doctor nodded. Lydia didn’t know him.
“We may need to life-flight him to Portland,” the doctor added.
Life flight.
Portland.
Brain bleed.
No.
Just...no. This was not real.
“How did this happen?” she asked, skin flushing from her toes to her scalp, the feeling uncomfortable and screwy.
“We think he experienced multiple blows against rocks as he rolled down the cliff. We don’t have an exact answer, though,” the doctor replied. A beeper on his belt went off. He looked at it, glanced up, caught the eye of someone behind her, and nodded.
“I can try to help,” said a man’s voice behind them.
She turned, startled, to find Alex Derjian standing there, compassionate brown eyes bounding between her and Jeremy.
“If you need me to liaise with the staff, I can do my best.” His words tapered off, and in that winding down, Lydia heard the truth.
The real truth.
This was bad.
“Your wedding!” she groaned, clinging to the one topic she could handle. “You should be back at the campground enjoying your last night with Josie.”
Alex arched one eyebrow. She felt Jeremy pull away from her and the two men exchanged a questioning look.
“Lydia,” Jeremy said, his voice soft and low.
“You should go back to the campground,” she said firmly, mind darting through the to-do lists. “Get ready for your wedding.”
“I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding,” Alex said.
“Why not?” Laura asked, appearing to their right, Dylan with her, an older couple flanking them. Lydia dimly remembered them from earlier in the evening. One of the grooms’ parents? Unexpected last-minute guests Sandy had scrambled to house for the event.
“For obvious reasons,” Alex replied.
“You and Josie don’t have to postpone just because of Mike!” Laura glanced at Lydia and Jeremy. “My Mike, I mean.”
“We can discuss this later,” Alex said tightly.
“You are not canceling the damned wedding!” Lydia snapped. “My mother didn’t go to all that work just so the wedding can fall apart like, like—” She couldn’t breathe, her breath coming out in great big whoops, like there wasn’t enough oxygen to fuel all the feelings inside.
Alex frowned, sharing a quizzical look with Laura.
“Lydia.” Jeremy only had to say her name once before she spiraled into sobs, his arms pulling her closer, the chill from his wet clothes of no consequence. She needed to cling to him, to be anchored to someone in a world where her other someone had an injury so bad his brain was bleeding.
Bleeding.
Mike was suffering and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to help him.
All she could do was wait.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this. How do you do this? How do you just sit and wait in agony until someone comes and tells you whether one of the people you love most in the world is...is....”
Luke.
The memory of learning that her brother, Luke, was dead came roaring into her memory. There had been no waiting. No wondering. A visit from uniformed men had been their only sign that something was wrong, a finality that was too grim to imagine—until it happened to them.
Mike wasn’t dead. Mike wasn’t Luke.
Mike was not going to die.
“Thank you,” Jeremy said to Alex. The rumble of his words passed through Lydia’s body like she was his throat. “I think what we need is as much information as possible, and they don’t seem to have much of that.”
“Sometimes the best medicine is time,” Alex replied. “Short of a surgical intervention, the neuro needs to watch and wait.”
“Brain surgery?” Lydia gasped.
“No, no, Lyd. We don’t know that’s necessary.” She felt Jeremy’s chin lift up from the top of her head, imagined him looking at Alex and asking what she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
Was it necessary?
“He’ll be fine,” Laura said firmly. “He will. And when he recovers, I’ll be the first in line behind you two. I need to give that man a hug and thank him a thousand times. You too, Jeremy.”
“Me?”
“Without you and Mike, my Mike wouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice breaking into little pieces of glass that Lydia could hear dropping onto the linoleum floor.
“Oh, Laura,” Lydia said, pulling away from Jeremy and hugging her, the two of them openly sobbing. She saw Alex and Jeremy huddle, heads together as they murmured, and then they both disappeared down a hallway toward a set of vending machines.
“I’m so sorry,” Laura whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Lydia gasped into her soft shoulder, Laura’s embrace so much like Sandy’s. “Mike did what he did because he’s Mike. I’d expect nothing less of him. Mike found your guy in the beach and was determined to get him to safety. Jeremy says he just slipped.”
“I know,” Laura sniffed, still holding Lydia tight. “I’m just...I’m sorry. I’m sorry anyone got hurt at all.”
“Me, too. And your wedding—”
“Fuck my wedding.”
Lydia laughed in surprise. “My mom would love that one.”
“Fuck the wedding?” Sandy’s surprised words made Lydia yelp. “Why are we fucking the wedding?”
“Mom!”
“What? I can’t say ‘fuck’?”
Lydia gaped at Sandy.
“How’s Mike?”
“He’s fine,” Laura said, then her face went blank. “Oh. You meant Mike Bournham.”
“Both of them?” Sandy asked.
“My Mike is fine. A few broken bones and bruises. Mike Bournham, though...”
Lydia’s heart tightened at the truth Laura spoke. Sandy gave her a look of alarm.
“Seizures, Mom. He’s having seizures. And a brain bleed, and they might have to life flight him to Portland. He hit his head on a bunch of rocks as he rolled down.”
“Oh, baby,” Sandy said, her throat moving with emotion, her eyes narrowing with sympathy. The feel of Sandy’s hands smoothing her hair and wiping her tears made Lydia cry even harder.
“W-w-we don’t k
now what’s happening,” Lydia wailed, just as Jeremy and Alex appeared, carrying coffee trays filled with cups.
“Shhhhhh,” Sandy soothed. “I’m here. Mike will be fine. It might be rough for a while, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Lydia saw the look Jeremy and Alex shared. It was a look that said Mike was anything but fine.
Her mind raced with all of the possibilities she’d pushed aside, so sure of the future that she’d sacrificed the present. After Laura, Mike and Dylan had reached out to Escape Shores Campground, her little threesome had been shaken ever so slightly by the reality that another triad—happy, stable, and with two billionaires—was planning a wedding, and that the three were raising children together.
Children.
Mike had asked Lydia what she’d thought about having kids—someday.
Every conversation involved someday. What arrogance they’d had, assuming that someday stretched out before them, taken for granted, presumed to be there for as long as they needed.
Stupid. She felt so stupid. Bereft and aching, filled with regret, her mind flashing through all the times Mike had asked for sex and she’d been too tired. The night-kayaking invitations she’d turned down. The hundreds of tiny offers from him to do something boring and domestic that she’d turned down because...why?
Because it was inconvenient. Because she was doing something else. Because she was busy. Because they lived a life where she’d always assumed she could do that thing with him next time.
She took next time as a given.
And now next time was suddenly in question.
“I am so stupid,” Lydia whispered, thinking about that day long ago at Bournham Industries, her job orientation workshop, how it had felt to see the Michael Bournham. That man was down a hallway right now, fighting for his life with blood pouring into parts of his beautiful brain.
His beautiful soul.
“You’re not stupid, honey. No, no,” Sandy whispered back.
“I thought we had the rest of our lives. I wish I’d—oh, Mom, he can’t die.”
There. She’d said it.
Jeremy happened to walk up to her, holding two coffees, at the moment she blurted out the words. Shock poured into his features like a computer animator coloring a character.
