by Nikki Sloane
I plodded up the stairs, changed into my pajamas, and curled up under the covers, closing my eyes and hoping to shut off my feelings for a few hours.
I awoke chilled, but also covered with a thin layer of sweat.
My room was dark, and the alarm clock on my side table said it was a little after two in the morning. The dull ache in my stomach had graduated into full-out pain. Burning, centered pain.
I rolled over onto my other side, willing it to go away, but it only seemed to intensify as I tried to go back to sleep. It got to the point where I started to wonder if something was wrong. Why did it hurt so much?
Thirty more minutes was all I could take before I dragged myself from the bed down to my mom’s room, my phone clutched in a hand. She’d always been a deep sleeper and put her phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ after eleven. Texting her from my bed wouldn’t do any good.
She was snoring quietly, lying sprawled out in the center of her queen-sized bed. “Mom,” I said. “Mom, wake up.”
She jerked from sleep, blinked her disoriented eyes at me, then launched upright. “What’s wrong?”
“My stomach hurts.” I had to band my arms across it. “It hurts really bad.”
I was seated in the passenger seat of her car in less than five minutes. Her face was completely white as she raced toward the emergency room. I’d been a lucky kid. No broken bones, no major health scares, so we were both in foreign, scary territory. I tried not to think about what was wrong, because my mind immediately went to terrible scenarios and made my anxiety worse.
We’d barely taken our seats in the waiting area before they called us back into a room. People said the emergency room was slow, but it seemed to move at lightning speed for me. The nurse, a woman who looked like she’d seen it all—and probably multiple times—came into the room and took my vitals.
“What do you think’s wrong?” my mom asked.
“I’m not the doctor,” the nurse said automatically.
My mom wasn’t deterred. “Right, but what do you suspect?”
The woman swiped a thermometer across my forehead as I shivered. The “bed” in the room was more like a table with a bend in it, and really uncomfortable. I wanted to curl up into a ball and couldn’t, so instead I gripped one of the metal side arms.
“Is there a chance you could be pregnant?” she asked.
My heart stopped at the same instant my gaze flew to my mother. She knew I was sexually active and had actively encouraged safe sex. But she believed that was happening with Preston, and if I was somehow pregnant? It wouldn’t be by him.
“I’m good about taking my pill,” I said quickly. “And using condoms.”
“Temp is one-oh-one,” she commented, although I wasn’t sure to whom. “My guess would be appendicitis.”
The seasoned nurse was absolutely right—a CT scan confirmed it. By four a.m. I’d been admitted, taken to a room on the third floor, and antibiotics started through my IV. The pain medication they gave me helped, but it also made me shake worse than before.
While we waited for my doctor to come in and talk about the next steps, my mom, wearing the clothes she’d haphazardly thrown on hours ago, dozed upright in a chair beside my bed. I eyed her with a bit of jealousy. I was exhausted, but too miserable and freaked out to sleep. I was hooked up to machines that clicked and hummed, and the room never got quite dark, even with the lights off. Sounds from the hall were steady as well. Heavy beds rolling by. Shoes squeaking on the polished floor.
“Twenty-year-old female. Acute appendicitis,” a female voice said just on the other side of my door. “We’ve got you scheduled for OR two at five-twenty.”
A set of footsteps faded at the same moment a short knock rang out, and the heavy wooden door to my room pushed open without waiting for my reply. My mother stirred and straightened in her chair, perking up as the doctor entered. He made it two steps into the room before he looked at me.
All the air whooshed from my lungs.
Greg froze, disbelief streaked on his face.
THIRTY-TWO
GREG’S STUNNED GAZE went from me, to my mother, then on to the whiteboard beside my hospital bed that listed my stats. As if he needed to see all of it before it really settled in.
“Dr. Lowe,” my mother said, and for the first time in her life, she looked pleased to see him.
He paced quickly to my bedside. His worried expression was so brutal, I twisted away.
“No,” I said feebly.
He didn’t seem to hear me. “How’s your pain?”
Bad, I wanted to say. Terrible ever since you made me leave you. Instead I curled up into myself, keeping a lid on my mouth and my emotions.
“She’s been better the last hour,” my mother answered, rising from the chair and moving to stand next to the bedrail on the side opposite him.
“Good. That’s good.” He shifted back into doctor mode, his focus still on me. “We’ll get you feeling a lot better once we’ve taken your appendix out.”
Then he launched into a whole thing about what the appendix was, why it was going bad, and how it would be removed. His practiced speech about using a tiny telescopic camera and small cuts and scars barely registered. My mother listened dutifully, nodding along and asking questions. I just stared at the two lumps of my feet under the heavy blanket covering my lower body. Was it the drugs they had me on, his presence, or the combination of the two that made it difficult to focus?
“Cassidy.” My name was a soft command in his voice. “Do you have any questions?”
I rolled my gaze to him. He had one of those fitted hats on to keep his hair back, the same blue as the hospital scrubs he wore. No white coat, thank God. Even dressed down in shapeless clothes, he was still masculine and sexy.
When I didn’t say anything, he set a palm on my bedrail, bringing him closer. A gesture that probably meant nothing to my mom but felt weirdly intimate to me. I peered at his fingers, tracing each one with my gaze.
In less than an hour, that hand was going to hold a scalpel and cut me open.
“I don’t want you to do the surgery,” I said.
His grip tightened in reaction. “I know it’s scary, but your appendix has to come out. There’s no other way to treat—”
“No.” He’d misunderstood me. “I don’t want you to do the surgery.”
He released his hold on the rail and straightened. “What? Why?”
My mother looked just as surprised. “Oh, honey. It might feel strange because he’s Preston’s father, but he’s a doctor. Don’t worry about him seeing your body.”
What the hell? My cheeks warmed with embarrassment. She thought I was freaking out about my ex-boyfriend’s dad seeing me naked. That wasn’t high on my list of concerns. “It’s not that.”
“Okay. Then—?” she asked.
Greg stood with his hands resting on his hips. He appeared casual at first glance, but I saw the tension in his forearms and the way his shoulders were higher than normal.
“Mom, can you give us a minute? I need to talk to Greg alone.”
I realized my slip too late. I’d never called him by his first name, and her gaze narrowed on him. Her tone was cool. “Greg?”
When she held her ground, I said it with force. “Please?”
I couldn’t focus on the fact that she was unhappy right now. We didn’t have time. I was beyond exhausted, uncomfortable, anxious, and I couldn’t find a better way to ask her to leave. I also didn’t want to dance around the conversation I needed to have with him.
My mother examined Greg with new suspicion. “Fine. I’ll be right outside when you’re done.”
The door had just clicked shut when he spoke again. “Tell me why you don’t want me to do the surgery.”
I stared up into his brown eyes, and my voice went shallow. “Because I don’t want it to be the last time you put your hands on my body.”
He sucked in a deep breath, and his expression turned to defeat. He couldn’t argue and tell m
e it wouldn’t be. Neither of us knew what the future held.
I crossed my arms over my chest, which probably made me look like a pouting teenager, but the pain in my belly was growing, and I needed to hold myself together long enough until he was gone from the room. “I want someone else.”
Beneath the pain I inflicted, his jaw set. “This isn’t a teaching hospital. I’m the trauma surgeon on-call.” He took in a breath. “I could opt out of this, but it might be hours of scrambling before we find someone else available. And also, Cassidy? I’m the best. You think I’m going to let someone else do this? Not a chance.”
I was annoyed that the weak part of me faltered at his bravado. Of course, the cocky surgeon wanted me under his knife. It was the only way to ensure I got the best possible care. But it also felt like control, and this was one time I didn’t want to be under it.
Irritation simmered below my surface, threatening to erupt. “I said no. I don’t want your scars on me for the rest of my life.”
“Jesus Christ.” He ripped his gaze away from me and glared at the wall. “I know you’re unhappy, but this isn’t the time to start acting like a child.” I gasped, wounded by his child comment, but he wasn’t finished. “This is serious. Do you understand that? The recovery for laparoscopy is two weeks. Four incisions, most about half an inch long. If you wait and your appendix ruptures? Everything changes.”
He set his hands wide on my bedrail, leaned over, and hung his head. “I’d have to open your abdomen and remove all the toxic bacteria inside from the rupture. That scar would be eight, maybe nine inches, and your recovery would be measured in months. Months, Cassidy.” He lifted his head and gave me a piercing stare. “You don’t get to pick your doctor then, because at that point, it’s a race to the OR to save your life.”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them back.
He took a hand off the bed, scooped it behind my neck, and brought our faces together, his warm forehead pressed to mine. “I don’t want your life in my hands. Don’t make me do that kind of surgery.”
He didn’t want my life in his hands, but in that moment, I realized it was already too late for my heart. I closed my eyes and unleashed a tear, which he used his thumb to brush away.
“I understand,” his voice fell to a hush, “I’m not your first choice. I wasn’t for a long time. But today, I’m your only choice.”
The realization hit me with a physical impact, and I jolted in Greg’s hold. He’d hinted more than once he’d had feelings for me while I was with Preston. In fact, he’d told me, but I’d brushed the statements off.
Had he felt like he was my second choice this whole time? Because he wasn’t.
“I . . .” I started, speaking before I had my thoughts.
What difference did it make now, laying all the cards on the table? We’d kept our relationship a secret, and it hurt Preston, and Greg had kept Preston’s betrayal from me. How could the truth be any more painful?
“I think I might be in love with you,” I whispered.
He sighed and closed his eyes. His expression was unreadable, and his silence was fucking terrifying.
“Forget I said it.” I shifted out of his hold and sat back in the bed. “It’s the drugs you’ve got me on.”
A slow, sad smile warmed his lips. It spread and spread, until he was grinning, and I’d never seen him look more beautiful.
“I made a promise to him,” he said, “but I fucking swear, today won’t be the last time I touch you.” He seemed reluctant to put distance between us, but stood. “You have to trust me. Okay?”
I swallowed a breath and brushed a lock of hair back, out of my eyes. “Okay.”
“Good.” Relief swept through him so hard, he looked ten pounds lighter. “Then I’ll see you in recovery.”
THIRTY-THREE
THE LAST DAY AND A HALF had been an ordeal for my mom and me, but she’d been much stronger than I had. She didn’t leave my side, choosing to sleep on the cramped window bench in my hospital room last night. Now it was time for breakfast, and I’d pretty much thrown her out of the room, urging her to get a decent cup of coffee or a meal she wouldn’t have to eat out of a Styrofoam container.
God. I’d spent the summer wanting to be an independent adult, not realizing how nice it was to have my mom around—not until I’d needed her.
The surgery had gone well, or so I’d been told. In recovery, I’d been out of it from the sedation and didn’t remember a thing. My mom said Dr. Lowe came by to check on me soon after I’d woken up, but she hadn’t said anything else, even when I pressed her on it.
And I hadn’t seen him since.
I shifted in the bed against the pillow propping me up. My incisions were in my belly, but my back hurt no matter what position I was in. The hospital was nice, yet everything about the room was uncomfortable, and I turned my gaze toward the window and the sunlight outside. The morning nurse said I’d probably be discharged this afternoon, and I was desperate to be home and in my own bed.
There was a knock on the door, jolting me. I expected it to fly open—none of the busy hospital staff waited for a patient to invite them in. The knock seemed more of a courtesy announcement. But whoever had tapped on my door, they lingered outside, waiting.
“Come in,” I called.
The oversized door was pushed open, but the boy remained in the hallway, staring into my room with disbelief.
I couldn’t believe who I was seeing either. “Preston?”
He moved hesitantly inside, shutting the door behind him, and then glanced around the room, checking to see if there was anyone else. Satisfied we were alone, he set his focus on me.
What the hell was he doing here?
His expression was full of worry, almost like seeing me in a hospital bed, an IV hanging at my side, had him rattled. I found his presence right now unbearable. My tone was so harsh, it even surprised me. “What do you want?”
Preston jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and drew in a deep breath. “Hey. How’re you feeling?”
I was tired of sugarcoating things and no longer cared about how the truth was going to make him feel. “I’m feeling like you’re the last person I want to see right now.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I figured.” His face was grim, his posture tense. “Greg told me what happened. I was worried about you.”
So, he was back to calling him Greg. I hurt for his father, and it made me angry. I gave my ex-boyfriend a flat look. “You didn’t care about me when we were together. It’s a little weird to start now.”
He had the nerve to look wounded. “Don’t say that. Cassidy, you know you—”
I lifted a hand, cutting him off, because I had no patience left. “Why are you here?”
He was restless, unable to stay in one place or hold my gaze. He paced a circuit from one end of the room to the other. “What he said, about the girl in the hot tub? I fucked up. I’m sorry, okay?”
I wanted to believe what I was hearing, but my skeptical side didn’t trust it. “You came . . . to apologize?”
He stopped pacing. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
My simple question derailed him completely, judging by his stunned look. “What?”
“Why?” I repeated. “Why do you feel the need to apologize?”
He looked at me like I was losing my mind. “You don’t think I did anything wrong?”
I gave a tight, humorless laugh, but pain flashed through my incisions. “No, I do. What I mean is, coming here and saying this isn’t exactly fun for you. You could get away with not doing it. So, why are you?” Like most people, Preston would avoid responsibility if given the opportunity. “No one’s making you apologize.”
The moment my off-handed statement registered, his gaze drifted to the door, and my stomach flipped over.
“Oh,” I said quietly. There were a half-dozen reasons he could have given on why he’d come. He could have said he felt bad. That he hadn’t meant to hurt me. But, no. I s
uspected Preston was here only because his father was on the other side of the door and had put him up to this.
Which made any apology he gave me empty and worthless.
“I screwed up, and I’m sorry.” Preston’s voice might have been sincere, but I couldn’t tell. He didn’t give me much of a chance anyway, because he scowled. “But don’t think that makes what you did with my dad okay. Because it’s not.”
I was so tired, and for once, shouldn’t I get to be selfish? This conversation wasn’t going to do anything but make me feel worse, so I wasn’t going to have it.
“Can you just go?” I turned away from him, blinking away tears I refused to cry.
Silence dragged, but finally he sighed his frustration. “I told him this was stupid.”
His footsteps rang out as he marched to the door and yanked it open. I didn’t want to look out into the hallway and find Greg waiting there, but my heart had a different plan. It wasn’t about to give up the chance to see him again.
Greg wore the white doctor’s coat. He had on black pants, a white dress shirt, and a black tie with small dots decorating the silk. The sides of his coat were pushed back so he could rest his hands on his hips, and he peered over Preston’s head to find me in the bed.
My watery eyes were all he needed to see. He set his jaw and glared at Preston. “No, not good enough. Try again.”
His son went stiff. “I held up my end of the deal. I said I was sorry.”
“Looks like you need to tell her again.”
“You know,” Preston snapped, “you can’t actually make someone forgive you.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m aware.” Greg’s voice was heavy with meaning. “I’m not giving up, and you don’t get to either.”
His arms came down to hang at his sides, and his posture straightened. In fact, his whole demeanor shifted. His determined, focused look locked onto his son.
“Preston.” His voice was full of gravity. “I’m sorry I made the wrong choice when I was young and stupid, and I’m sorry I was a selfish, shitty father to you. I can’t change what I did, but I wish I could.” He softened, everything from his stance to his tone. “You want to be selfish and shitty to me? I get it. I haven’t earned your forgiveness, so all I can do is keep trying.”
