Wilde About Carson: The Brothers Wilde Series — Book Three

by Faircloth, Cate

  “Okay, fair enough. Mom is dating.”

  I almost gag. “What?” I give him my full attention looking up at his smug grin.

  “I’m just kidding. But we need to figure out what to do for the holidays. I don’t really want Mom stressing out about it.”

  “I don’t either.” I close my computer and lean back in my chair. “But you guys treat Mom like she’s geriatric when she is barely fifty-six. Plus, she loves cooking and planning parties, it’s like we’re her eighth-grade class.” I smile to myself. Mom has taught the eighth grade for a long time, and she doesn’t want to teach any other grade. I don’t know why. She says something about bridging the gap into adulthood, but I don’t buy it. I think it’s because they’re old enough to be left alone, but not old enough to be a real pain in the ass.

  “True. But there are more of us now. Alec is having a kid, so is Brant. They’ve got wives now, too.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason. They’re all adults. But I get it, it’s a lot of people.”

  “Look, you’re her favorite. Just convince her to cater it.”

  I laugh aloud. “I am not her favorite. And we are not going to baby Mom. She’ll hate that.”

  Evan nods in agreement. “Fair enough, you aren’t her favorite. But you know who’s the least favorite? Dylan. Since he looks the most like Dad, spitting image. You know that’s why he grew a beard, right?”

  My eyes widen in surprise. I would have guessed Isaac and not Dylan. But that makes sense. Not the least favorite part, no parent would do that.

  “Whoa. I never thought of that. How did you know? Or is this one of your wild theories?”

  Evan chuckles. “No, he told me. He isn’t a crazy man or an asshole. Just troubled. He’s my kid brother, I know these things. Just like I know things about you.” He winks with a smug smile, and it’s hard to be mad at him.

  I smirk. “What do you know about me?” I humor him, threading my fingers together in front of my chin. He waves his head and makes a noise.

  “A lot of things. You’re loyal, and the only reason you worry so much about Mom is because you’re the only one of us who knew how close her and Dad were. You hide it with your ‘I don’t care’ attitude, but it’s obvious.” He shrugs, flashes a smile, and all I want to do is hit him for being right.

  I trace the inside of my mouth with my tongue and nod to myself. “Okay then. I thought you were good with algorithms, not people.”

  “People are algorithms.”

  I chuckle and turn my attention to the last of my emails. Once it’s clear, I relax even though I know it will only be like that for a few seconds.

  “Did they leave?” I ask, referring to Holden and Dylan. I text Emily as I ask him. Usually, she responds fast and also always lets me know when she leaves if she leaves before me.

  “I don’t know, but—”

  He is interrupted by the slamming of my office door, swinging open like a storm coming in, and I’m about to ask who the hell is barging into my office like this before Emily appears in the doorway, tears making her makeup run, dripping down onto her purple dress.

  I stand immediately rushing over to her.

  “Emily, what is it?” I hold her shoulders, shaking like her trembling lips.

  “I…” Her eyes flee to Evan behind me. I turn and glance at him. He nods getting the picture before he quickly leaves and shuts the door behind him. Emily takes two seconds before her tears fall faster followed by her heavy sobs.

  “Emily.” I hug her close to me, or try to, before her hands press on my chest and keep her from letting me hug her. “What is it?”

  “I just, I have to go. My dad…” She trails off, her eyes are puffy and red, trying to look at me through her tears. I cradle her face and use my thumbs to wipe her tears away as they come.

  “What happened? Is he… he?”

  “No,” she quickly stops me. “He had a stroke. I just um… I have to go. Can you tell Holden I’ll be gone for a few days? I’ll send an email once I get there.” Emily barely gets the words out and stumbles over her own shoes as she tries to walk away from me.

  “No, you can’t go by yourself. Your dad lives hundreds of miles away. You can’t go alone. I’ll come, and I will tell Holden on the way.”

  “But I…”

  I hold her shoulders, pull her closer to me, and look right in her eyes, almost unrecognizable without her green contacts and her tears turning her eyes red.

  “No ‘buts,’ you need a friend right now, and I’m here. And you don’t want to fly commercial in this condition. I’ll have a pilot on the ground within the hour.”

  She nods, barely. I kiss her cheek and hug her tightly, and she lets me this time. “Get your stuff. Let’s go.”

  14

  Emily

  I hate Mondays.

  I have said this before, and somehow, I lost my way not believing that it was valid to hate a day just because it was a day. But not in my case, and I shouldn’t have forgotten that. The first time I broke my leg when I was in the seventh grade, it was a Monday. When I got my tonsils out and had an infection so bad I was in the hospital for four days, it was a Monday. And the first time I learned of my mother getting sick, it was a Monday, and then she died on a Monday too.

  Now this…

  Packing up my office to leave, ready to eat pizza instead of a simple low-carb dinner and probably figure out how to talk to Carson about the crazy stuff going on in my head, I get a call from an unmarked number. I usually don’t answer those, especially on my personal phone. But I did. And then my world just turned in on itself. We try and think of what we will do in that situation. I was too young to remember the first time with my mom. I’ll always remember this though, and that really sucks.

  I don’t know much, but they just said he was playing golf and collapsed. It wasn’t until he got to the hospital that they figured out he had a stroke, and they still don’t know the cause. I am on my way to find out, that’s the only thing I can think about. My only small saving grace is that I know the hospital is world class, and so are the doctors with him.

  “Relax, all we have to do is fly now.” Carson grasps my hand over the middle armrest. He got one of their pilots at the hangar within an hour, just like he said, and we took off in their smallest plane, a five-seater jet. It’s comfortable, it smells like leather, and I can’t get my foot to stop shaking. That’s why Carson moves his hand from mine to rest on my leg. Sometimes I think their resources are over-the-top and unnecessary, but I was in a skin-tight office dress, so him calling his assistant to bring me clothes is the only highlight of this day. Jeans and an overpriced black t-shirt are enough to make me feel human.

  “I know.” I watch out the window. It’s already dark, and I can’t see anything, but somehow that is better than looking inside the plane or even at Carson.

  He is worried for me, the frown lines on his forehead are coming through, and the tick in his jaw is back.

  Him and my dad get along. When we were in high school, it took Dad a while to adjust to him being in my bedroom so much, but he got the picture eventually. Since then, it has been smooth sailing, and I know that Carson respects my dad and whatnot. But he really only came for me, to be there for me. I’m sure I looked an unstable mess barging into his office with my tears and makeup making their own mixture. It was like I held it all in while I was on the phone with the hospital, and the first thing I could think to do was immediately go to Carson. But second to that, I had to tell Carson—needed to tell him—not to cover my missed days at work, but because I need my friend. In the mix of all this, it made my doubts from earlier seem silly, useless, and unimportant. This is what matters when I am at my worst or not quite there but heading there—he is there for me without question.

  “I didn’t even know your dad moved to New York,” Carson says casually, and somehow it sends me back into a frenzy.

  “I know,” I croak through new tears.

  He turns suddenly
to me. I shake my head hiding my eyes with my fingers as I wipe the tears as soon as they fall. Carson rubs my shoulders and tugs me to his chest. I bury my face in the crook of his shoulder, inhale his soothing mint and cologne scent as I try to talk through my sobs.

  “I didn’t even know. We talk very week, but… I didn’t even know. Some research grant came through, and he left a few months ago. I had no idea.” I swallow hard. I’m so disappointed in myself that I didn’t even check enough to find out. Our conversations are so generic. He might not even know that I got promoted last year.

  How busy could I really have been not to ask what he was doing—what he was really doing? And not just at that moment. Our family home, the home I grew up in—he sold it before he left. I don’t even know where he put all my stuff from my room and around the house. It’s like he packed up my entire life, his entire life with my mom, and then left it behind. I tell all this to Carson, through tears and horrible sobs, and he listens as I soak his sweatshirt with my tears.

  “This isn’t your fault, Emily. None of this is your fault.” He pets my hair, kisses the top of my head, and shushes me.

  I shake my head clutching his other arm and sinking deeper into his warmth and security and comfort.

  “No, I… he was lonely. His entire life changed, and he was all by himself. That stressed him out, and he had a stroke.” I sniffle, catching up on the tears and sobs I missed while I was talking.

  Carson hugs me tighter taking a tissue from the back of the seat in front of us and gives it to me. I blow my nose obnoxiously and keep crying. It is all too much to take in at once, and the altitude is making me crazy. My stomach churns like it wants to both implode and explode, and every inch of me wants to scream and cry for help, but I can’t actually do that. And I don’t know what I would say.

  “Emily, you can’t come up with all these crazy theories and make your head spin. Just try to relax, clear your head, so when you get to the hospital and see your dad, he isn’t worried about you because you look like you have a massive hangover. And he can focus on getting better.” Carson rubs my back more and pats my hair down. Eventually, I stop crying and take my head from his now ruined sweater to look at him, and I almost smile.

  “A hangover?” I whisper. My voice is so hoarse from all the crying and strain.

  He chuckles a little, and I feel it vibrate from his chest and onto me. “Yeah. After you cry, you just look like you have a hangover.” He smiles, and it makes my world just kind of stop for a minute, all the bad and worrisome. It just stops when he smiles.

  For a second, I can try to be myself, try to relax like he told me to. He does that, he makes it easy just to breathe and exist. He does that.

  “Is that a joke about my eyes?” I fake a frown. I’m surprised when I do. Carson is magnetic, he always has been. I just never expected to need his magnetism during such a hard time.

  “No, and they were never that thin. You did that to yourself.” He pokes my nose, and it makes me smile a bit.

  “Well, if I can’t make Asian jokes about myself, what am I supposed to do?”

  “You only get half.” He chuckles once, and he is sort of right. My dad is all American, it’s my mom who’s Korean, and I loved growing up that way. It was often exciting and challenging, but holidays were confusing but still fun. Mom was… I could never put into words how I miss her, how much I just wish she was here with me, and that I wasn’t afraid of losing both my parents all the time, now that one of them is gone.

  “That’s true. Just half.” I sigh and go back to leaning on his shoulder—strong and solid. He doesn’t even move for the next hour because he doesn’t want to move me. My body wants to fall asleep, and I can’t let it. My brain is so wired and exhausted at the same time.

  “When my dad died, I kept thinking of all the ways I probably worried him and stressed him out. I kept thinking I could have done more—for the company, for him. I kept thinking of all the ways it was my fault and all it did was get in the way of me mourning him properly. And that almost messed everything up.”

  “Carson… you can’t tell me about your dad dying. I just…”

  “Shit, I probably shouldn’t. All I’m saying is that it’s not your fault, and that you shouldn’t worry too much. You can worry a little. If you don’t, you’re evil. But just a little.”

  I try to smile, but it doesn’t quite come through because the flight status on the screen says we are ten minutes to landing. It was a little tough finding a place to land, but they managed to get a spot in the smaller airport in Jersey—probably only because the Wilde’s own a portion of the land the airport sits on.

  “Thanks. For trying.”

  “It’s my job. You want to use the bathroom before we land?” he suggests.

  I nod. The bathroom in here is cleaner than at the airport. So, I get up and rush making sure to wash my face before I get back just in time before the seat belt light comes on. Carson smiles at me and holds my hand through the descent and landing. I look out the window again, watching the floodlights appear, and the plane jostle. I don’t know this pilot. He must be their backup or something.

  We still have to wait for the car he booked to arrive, but once it does, we deplane with no bags and head to the hospital, despite it being after 9:00 p.m. Carson and I sit in the back of the sedan traveling from Jersey into the city to get to the Colombia Hospital & Research Center. I haven’t been to the city in such a long time, and it now seems so foreign to me. This all seems foreign. I forgot how to be worried like this. I forgot how to be sick with uncertainty about someone I love. And for it to be my dad, just hurts—my dad who taught me everything and danced with me in father-daughter dances at school. I don’t know how to think or wrap my head around this going any other way but up. Because it can’t.

  “I need to see Mr. Sanders Rhey, he was admitted earlier this morning,” I tell the ICU nurse, who looks like she would rather be anywhere but here, but I think I might look the same way this late at night.

  “Visiting hours are over. If you want to talk to the doctor, I can page him.”

  I slump over the counter and huff, but she doesn’t look at me. She types something into the phone, I guess the page number. I turn to Carson standing beside me and clutch my purse.

  “We can… come back tomorrow I guess… after we talk to the doctor,” I tell him.

  Carson tightens his brows, the deep ridge of his dark brows drawing over his dark gray eyes. I can’t place his look, but I know it’s the ‘let me handle this’ look. I step aside, he leans over the desk and clears his throat.

  “Ma’am, miss…” He leans over the table and finds her nametag, “Nurse Layla.” Carson flashes his smile. I have seen it so many times, the flirting smile. I want to roll my eyes, but I am too busy hoping it works. She does look up at him, and immediately her blue eyes soften, and her hand absently goes to her hair.

  “I really need to see him, just for a few minutes. That’s all I’m asking, it’s really important.”

  “I… I understand. I can take you there myself.” She clicks her pen and stands up quickly nearly knocking over the chair. Carson smiles and makes eyes.

  “Thank you, and can you have the attending neurosurgeon consult on him, too? I understand if it’s too much to ask…”

  “Oh no, I can do that for you. Please follow me.” She is still making goo eyes at him as she comes around the curved table and leads us through the wide, sterile halls.

  I really hate hospitals. Which is odd considering my dating doctors phase. But the sterility, the sadness… I know it is a place that heals, but it hurts a lot too. It hurt me. There are so many people bustling around even at this late hour. The hurt never stops, the crisis. Carson nudges me on the way raising his brow with a smile. I offer him at least something and smile, barely.

  The cold in my chest spreads, makes my hands and feet clammy as we get closer. The nurse’s pager goes off, and she walks a bit faster. That makes me really nervous. When she glan
ces at the pager, she turns back to us and then quickly turns back, and that tells me what I need to know.

  “What is it? Is it my dad?” My voice shakes with fear, and Carson holds my hand tightly. The pressure lets me be calm for a little bit. But not long.

  She rounds one last corner, and we get to a hall with huge wooden doors. One is wide open, and I watch enough medical shows to know they are running a code blue. I gasp, tears flooding my eyes. The nurse starts to run and turns back to us. “Just wait here.”

  I catch up to her, tugging my hand from Carson’s to reach her enough and grab her hand.

  “Is it my dad?” I feel my lips tremble, my soul drop.

  “Yes. I’m just going to check. Wait here.” She points to the chairs outside long enough for me to see them, and then she goes inside with three other people.

  “Emily,” Carson tries to stop me from peeking in just to see what is going on.

  And…

  “Carson—” I cry out, stopping myself from doubling over and crying onto the floor. Thankfully, Carson is right there behind me, watching what I’m watching—my dad’s head wrapped in a bandage, a doctor trying to revive him, and nurses assisting with the meds and the gel and calling out things I don’t know the meaning of but recognize because I watch too much television.

  “Emily, come here. Don’t watch this. Come on.” Carson tugs at me only for the show, but he can easily lift me and move me away which he eventually does.

  I fight him along the way, but he drags me from the room and onto the chair where the nurse told me to sit before. I had only a moment, a moment of even wishing it would go right. That it would go well. That this wouldn’t be—that I had a chance.

  They are in there for twenty minutes. I count manually as I cry because it keeps my sobs from screaming in my ear and hurting myself. Carson hugs me tightly to him, the pressure only helps my breathing a little bit. I have to let myself drift to the worst possible scenario, imagine everything that could go wrong and hope it doesn’t, but I realize that it just might. That this might be it.