“Safety?” Tommy asked.
“We’re kicking the hornet’s nest here,” Brick explained. “It’s not gonna take long before other clubs start taking notice, and we can’t say for sure how they’ll react. We need to keep everyone safe, and that includes you and yours. I assume the baby mama can handle a gun.”
Tommy laughed. Billie could handle a gun. “Yeah. So can the baby grandparents.”
“Both of them?” Bull asked.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t fucking surprise me if Felix can, too. At least the basics.”
“How’s the security here?” Bull continued.
“I haven’t really noticed,” Tommy answered with a shrug. He hadn’t even thought about it. “I… I’ll check it out. Do you really think anyone would attack a hospital for kids?”
“Probably not.” Bull sighed. “Is this where they’ll do the surgery?”
“Yeah.”
“If things get heated, you need to figure out what to tell them, because we’ll keep an eye on all of them, and I don’t think the grandpa’ll miss what we’re doing.”
“No, he won’t,” Tommy agreed. “Not much he misses.”
“He struck me like that kind of a man,” Brick said. “We’ll keep you informed.”
Bull gave Tommy a hug. “Take care of your kid.”
“I’m trying.”
He watched them leave and then walked back into the hospital. Clyde was waiting for him outside Felix’s room.
“Problems?”
“No,” he answered. “Just an update.”
“He’s sleeping. Sit with me,” Clyde said and pointed at a bench. “Think we need to talk.”
This was a conversation Tommy had known was coming, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. The fact that he was in a biker club hadn’t been mentioned once, but he had no doubt that they all, and Clyde especially, had an opinion about it. If it had been any other guy, Tommy would’ve just told him it wasn’t his business, but Clyde wouldn’t accept that, and he still had a lot of respect for the man.
“I’m not gonna beat around the bush with you,” Clyde started. “Are you putting my daughter and grandson at risk?”
Tommy would’ve liked to say that he wasn’t, that nothing would ever happen to them, but he remembered seeing Mitch’s old lady Anna with a gun against her head through the scope. There was no way of ever guaranteeing the safety of the people around them. It was always a priority, and they did what they could, but people got hurt.
“I honestly don’t know, sir,” he said. “In general, no one wants civilians involved, because no one wants civilians to be fair targets.”
“But?”
“But it happens. I’m not gonna lie to you.”
Clyde nodded with his eyes on the opposite wall. “I know you won’t. That’s why I’m asking.” He turned his head and looked at Tommy. “I want you to keep being straight with me. I don’t need the details, but I need to know when… when I need to be on alert.”
“No lessons?” Tommy had expected more than that from Clyde. He’d half expected Clyde to rip him a new one. “Not even a little one?”
“You’re too old for lessons. I might call you son, but I know you’re gonna keep doing this anyway.” He took a deep breath. “I told her to contact you. That it wasn’t right to keep him from you.”
That explained the lack of lessons. Clyde felt bad, and Tommy wasn’t surprised that he’d wanted Billie to do the right thing. He was very much about ‘doing the right thing.’ Tommy still hadn’t fully figured out why Billie hadn’t told him, but he had a feeling she didn’t know for sure herself. Seeing her the last few days at the hospital had shown him a completely new side of her, though, and he understood her a lot better now.
“It’s okay. Well, not okay, but I get it.”
“Really?” Clyde smiled. “Wanna fill me in?”
“I think she had a pretty full plate. She’s…” He laughed. “We didn’t part on the best terms. I don’t know if she told you about it.”
“No. She just said you had a bad argument. I assumed it involved Zach and what happened.”
“It did,” he admitted. “It’s…” Tommy had no idea what to say.
“As opposed to Billie, I’ve been in a war, more than once. I know how different things can seem in retrospect. I know you, and I know you did what you could. I’ve never doubted that, Tommy. Not for a second. And I’ve never blamed you.”
Tommy took a deep breath. He’d never even known how badly he needed to hear those words from Clyde. “Thank you.”
“Keep my daughter and grandson safe, and help me keep them safe.”
“I will.”
“That includes keeping her informed, too. I think we both know that no one is more fit to make sure Felix is safe than she is.”
“That’s probably true,” Tommy said. “I’m not sure how to tell her, though.”
“She knows. She’s no idiot, and she knows. And you know her, keeping things from her just makes her more pissed.”
A few memories of Billie being pissed at him flashed before his eyes, and most of them were from when he and Zach had kept things from her. Like when they hadn’t told her about a party, or about having applied to the Marines.
“I’ll be as honest as I can.”
At the same time he knew he couldn’t tell her everything. There was just no way. He could give her a general update about when they were at risk, but not what they were up to and what was going on. Not simply because she was the mother of his child.
oOo
BY THE TIME WE’D been at the hospital for four days, I was more than glad Tommy was around. I knew seeing Felix in pain was getting to him, but he hung in there. The situation we were in was bringing us closer, too. We were talking again, and not only about Felix. It was like getting an old friend back, and also like I had someone with me, on my side, when it came to Felix. I’d had Mom and Dad, but it was still different with Tommy.
Tommy’d kept talking to Felix about Zach, and I’d actually heard some stories I hadn’t known about. I was in a lot of them, but there were some stories from after the time I stopped tailing them that Tommy’d told Felix. I was glad he kept the worst things from him, though. Most of them were quite innocent, and I knew there had been some not-so-innocent things going on. Tommy’s interest in easy pussy wasn’t something that had started when he joined a biker club, and Zach had been the same. They’d always been so set on the military, neither of them had wanted to get tangled up in girlfriends who might hold them back, but they’d always like easy sex.
Having Tommy around apparently meant having the other members around as well, but that was good. Felix was thrilled about the number of visitors he was having. They’d come by two at a time, since that was the maximum amount of visitors allowed inside the room besides the immediate family. Travis or Adam was one of the two visitors at least once a day. I was impressed because both of them, but especially Travis, seemed to catch up quickly on how Felix was doing each day and adapt to it. I was also really surprised that it didn’t seem to matter to Travis who was taking him to the hospital. He seemed quite comfortable either way, and it obviously didn’t matter to his mom or dad.
That day, Travis came at lunch, and I hadn’t seen the girl who was with him before. She was around eighteen, and when she noticed my confusion, she took my hand.
“I’m Eliza,” she smiled. “Brick’s daughter.”
“Ah, okay. Nice to meet you.”
“Travis wanted to come here directly after school, and since everyone was working, I said I’d take him.”
“That’s really nice of you.” I tried to remember what I had been like when I was that age, and taking younger kids to meet other kids at the hospital had probably not been high up on my list of things I’d like to do. “Travis’ visits are usually his favorite part of his day.”
“I figured they’d be. It’s a club kid thing. We take care of each other,” she said with a shrug, as if it was the most natural th
ing in the world.
It wasn’t. The few friends Felix’d had tended to freak out when they saw him like this, and they thought it was scary. Travis had never even blinked, he’d just adapted, and Adam had been almost the same. When Felix had a really bad day, they just lay next to him and watched a movie with him. It might seem like nothing, but I knew Felix liked to have someone with him. Someone his own age.
“Club kids?” I asked.
“Yeah. Kids of the members. Travis is the oldest of the younger generation, so he’s used to taking care of them. Aren’t you?” she said with a nudge at Travis’ arm when she sat down next to him. “Remember what your mom said—be careful.”
“She says that every day. I know!”
I watched the two kids on the bed. Travis was explaining something that had happened at school, and Felix was watching him with wide eyes.
We didn’t have any other family in Phoenix. It was just Felix, my parents, and me. So that was who was usually around him when he was at the hospital. Now he had at least two visits, with two people each time, every day, and I knew he was thrilled. They brought little gifts or food, sat around for an hour or two, and talked to him or watched a movie with him. When they noticed him getting tired, they told him to get some sleep and that someone would come later that day or the next morning. And the grownups weren’t sitting there talking to Tommy and me; they were there for Felix, too.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Tommy when we were taking one of our breathers at the cafeteria later that day.
“Like what?”
“That they keep visiting when someone is at the hospital.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Not that we’re in the hospital that often, but they support however they can.”
“Think they’ll keep it up even if this happens every second month?”
“Absolutely. They’ll always do that.”
“It’s really helping him, so could you let them know that I really appreciate it? He usually nags about going home, but it’s been really easy for him this time. They’ve made a big difference.”
“I’ll tell them.”
On our way back to the room, we ran into Brick and Melanie. Brick gave Tommy a very manly hug, despite it not being that long ago since they’d seen each other, he’d been there that morning, and Melanie turned to me.
“I made him some cookies. I checked the list and called Leah, but I couldn’t get hold of her.”
I took the paper that I assumed was the recipe, and eyed through it. “This is fine,” I concluded. “Thank you. He’ll love them.”
She gave me a hug, and I wasn’t much for physical contact with people I didn’t really know, so I did a strange, stiff, half-assed clap on her back. She definitely noticed, because she gave me a smile and patted my cheek. Patted my cheek! Like I was a little kid. I didn’t really understand these people, but if they kept Felix happy that was all I gave a shit about. I could deal with them, and the hostility I’d felt the first time I met them all seemed to be mostly gone.
They stayed for about an hour, and Melanie gave me another odd hug when they left. Tommy noticed it and gave me a smile, but he didn’t comment on it. He knew I wasn’t much for random hugs.
*
Along with Dr. Gardner, Dr. Matthews was in charge of Felix’s care, and when he walked through the door later that night, I knew he had bad news.
He was in his early forties, quite handsome and unmarried—that was my mom’s assessment of him.
To me, he was a good doctor that Felix liked. I had some other opinions that I kept to myself, like how he was surprisingly bad at the female physiology for being a doctor. We’d dated for a short while, and since then we both pretended it had never happened. We were not compatible, in or out of bed.
“Miss Jensen, do you think we could have a word outside?”
I nodded and turned to Tommy. “You should come, too.”
He stood up, and when Dr. Matthews gave him a strange look, I explained.
“He’s Felix’s dad.”
“Ah.” Dr. Matthews took his hand and introduced himself, “Dr. Matthews.”
“Tommy Miles.”
We followed him outside, and I was already dreading what he would tell us. I wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing that I’d learned to interpret every one of Felix’s doctors’ facial expressions. I always knew when bad news was coming, and this was one of those times.
“Give it to me,” I said when we stopped a little farther down the hallway.
“The infection seems to be stabilized for now, and the pain is already better, as you know. He can leave tomorrow, but you need to let us know if the pain returns.”
“And the bad news?” I asked.
“His kidneys are getting big. To the point where he’s going to start experiencing pain from that alone.”
“What?” Tommy asked.
“They’ll start pressing against other organs,” I explained. I’d known it was coming, but I’d been hoping he’d have a new kidney before it became acute. “And his liver?”
“There’s some scarring, but it’s not beyond repair yet.”
“How long?” Tommy asked.
“From what I understand, you’re a match, so it won’t be a problem. It’s not so far gone that he’ll need the liver before we can do the transplant from you, but the size of the kidneys means there will be pain. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t already been more of an issue. We’ll do the surgery as soon as possible.”
“If, for some reason, I can’t donate, then what?” Tommy asked.
“Then we need to rely on the transplant list,” I answered. “That could mean years, since he’s not critical and won’t be until his liver fails, too.”
“It won’t get to that,” Tommy tried to assure me, but I still had a hard time breathing when I thought about it. “How long until he can go home for now?”
“Like I said, he’s out of the woods, so you can take him home tomorrow. In a few days, we’ll do an assessment of any other pain, and what we’ll do about it,” Dr. Matthews said, and I nodded. He put a hand on my shoulder. “He’ll get through this, too.”
He left us in the hallway, and all the oxygen disappeared. I couldn’t breathe. There was simply no air around me, and I tried to take deep breaths to find some. Then Tommy was next to me, pushing me down to sit on the floor.
“Calm. Put your head between your knees and take deep, calm breaths.” His hand was stroking slow circles between my shoulders.
“I can’t. I’m wearing a skirt.”
That always happened when I was at the hospital for a few of days. Mom brought me clothes, and she picked clothes she found appropriate, which weren’t clothes I usually wore. I never argued, because I didn’t care. The skirt I was wearing, a long floral hippie thing, was something I couldn’t even remember buying.
“Keep talking to me,” Tommy said. “It’ll ground you. What’s up with you wearing a skirt? You used to hate them, especially long ones like this. You said you couldn’t climb trees when you had a skirt.”
“I don’t climb trees anymore.”
“You should. You were good at it. When you didn’t fall down.”
“Just once.”
“I know.” He kept rubbing my back, and along with hearing his deep, rumbling voice, it was helping. “He’s gonna get through this. I’m almost done with the tests and preparations. He’ll have a new kidney soon.”
That’s when the oxygen came back and hit my lungs with full force, and I started crying. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had lost it as completely as I did. It felt okay when he was with me, though.
“Hey,” Tommy said and sat down next to me to pull me onto his lap. “Come here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry about crying. Be sorry about the cunt move of not telling me I had a kid instead. The best kid ever.”
I dried the tears while still sniveling and looked at him. “Are you trying to piss me off?�
��
“Yup. Better than being sad,” he smiled, and I leaned against him with a laugh. “Nothing wrong with crying a little, though, but I know you hate it. And frankly, you get all puffy when you do. You look like shit.”
That made me laugh again because he was right. I always looked like shit when I’d been crying, and I could never hide it. We sat there until I managed to calm down. After a couple of deep breaths to make sure I felt okay, I turned to Tommy.
“Does it show that I’ve been crying?” I asked, and he started laughing. “I take it that’s a yes. I need to wash my face.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“In case I’m planning on sneaking away and falling apart alone?”
“Exactly,” he said and stood up. “And because I don’t wanna give the news to them alone, and I have no idea how to explain where you are.”
“Just tell them I’m taking a dump.”
“Really? You used to have the worst language. You basically taught Zach and me how to curse, and now you’re using words like darn and dump.”
“I had a kid.”
He actually followed me inside the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat while I started washing my face. A look in the mirror confirmed that he’d been right to laugh when I asked him if it showed that I’d been crying. It showed, and I looked like shit.
“Something you said the other day,” Tommy started. “Was it to protect me from this that made you not tell me about Felix?”
I shook my head. “I wish I was that noble.” I kept washing my face. “I was at a really bad place when I found out I was pregnant. It had lost Zach and you—which was my own fault—and things that had happened in the Navy. I sort of hated everything and everyone at the time, and you got included in all of the hatred. By the time I was out of it, Felix was sick, we’d moved here, and… I don’t know. I honestly didn’t know you lived this close, and… I was scared.”
“He knew something was wrong. Zach,” Tommy explained when I looked at him. “He said he knew you well enough to know you were lying even if it was in writing.”
That felt like a stab in the chest. I remembered those letters to Zach, how I felt when I wrote them. I should’ve known he knew. I’d never been able to keep anything from him. But it hurt to know he’d died knowing I wasn’t well. More than I’d expected.
Resonance (Marauders #4) Page 11
