Christian (The Casanova Club Book 11)

by Ali Parker

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s all right. You have to get it out.”

  “I have to get to the hospital.”

  “We’ll get there. I promise.”

  Straightening up again, I filled my lungs with fresh air and tilted my face up to the sky. I closed my eyes and took a few more steadying breaths, willing my stomach to calm down. I couldn’t afford a delay like this. I had to keep it together.

  “Okay,” I said evenly. “I think I’m good now.”

  “You’re sure? A couple more minutes—”

  I shook my head and turned to face him. “I’m sure. I need to get there, Christian. The longer it takes me, the worse I’m going to feel.”

  He slid across the back seat and made room for me. “All right. Let’s go then.”

  When we arrived at the hospital, my stomach was swirling with nausea once more. I held it at bay and focused on my pulse thundering in my ears as I followed Christian to the reception desk near the main entrance. He took the lead and found out what room my father was in.

  Then he turned toward me and held out his hand. I took it.

  “It’s not far,” he said.

  He and I went to the elevator and rode it up to the fourth floor, where we got off and followed signs to the cardiac recovery unit. We were stopped outside a set of locked doors, where there was a buzzer. Christian buzzed us in, and a nurse greeted us on the other side.

  “I’ll show you to his room,” she said with a friendly, compassionate smile. It did nothing to ease my upset stomach.

  We followed her down a few winding halls until we arrived at a room with the last name “James” written on a white dry-erase board. I clenched my teeth and swallowed hard before stepping into the dimly lit room.

  It was just after one o’clock in the morning. The room was silent except for the beeping monitors of the four patients sharing the room. Curtains were drawn around their beds, and I found my father’s in the far corner by the window. The pale-mint curtains were slightly pulled back on one side closest to the window, and I peeked around the corner.

  Phillip and my mother were there.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  Phillip was sitting beside my father’s bed with his hands clasped together and his forehead resting against his thumbs. He looked up. His brow unfurrowed, and he rose to his feet. “Pipes.”

  He and I came together for a hug at the end of my father’s bed while my mother got wearily out of her chair and joined us. I hugged her next, kissed her cheek, and fought with myself not to cry. It wouldn’t do any good right now.

  “How is he?” I managed to ask around the lump in my throat.

  My mother tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It was an affectionate touch. The kind of thing she used to do all the time when I was a young girl. And it made me forget that we hadn’t been speaking for the last couple of months.

  “He’s resting,” she said, turning toward the bed. I turned with her to see my father on his back, his chest rising and falling peacefully, sleeping. There was an oxygen tube in his nose attached to the wall behind his bed. His breathing sounded almost mechanical.

  My mother rubbed my arm. “It looks worse than it is right now, sweetheart. The doctors have run a series of tests. We’ll have results within a few more hours.”

  I clutched my purse tightly in front of my chest. “What was he doing when it happened?”

  “Reading,” Phillip said.

  “Reading?” I asked. “That’s it? I thought if he was taking it easy, he’d be in the clear and—”

  “It’s not an exact science, Pipes,” Phillip said sadly. “I said the same thing when we got here. And his surgery was to prevent something like this. But the doc says had he not had the surgery, this would have been much more severe. It would have… well, you know.”

  Killed him. It would have killed him.

  Christian cleared his throat behind me. He was still standing halfway behind the curtain, and I blinked rapidly, remembering he was there.

  “Oh, sorry,” I breathed, reaching for him and taking his hand to pull him into the room. “Mom, Phillip, this is Christian. He was the one who got me here so fast.”

  Phillip shook Christian’s hand. My mother stared at him with an unreadable expression. For a moment, I thought she was upset that I’d brought him with me.

  Christian offered my mother a warm smile. “Mrs. James, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Although I wish it was under different circumstances. I’m sorry.”

  My mother’s bottom lip trembled. “Thank you for getting my daughter here so quickly.”

  Christian nodded. “You’re welcome. Have any of you eaten anything?”

  My mother and brother shook their heads.

  Christian put a hand on my shoulder. “You spend time with your family. I’m going to see what I can do about getting some food in here for you guys. You’ll feel better with something in your stomachs. And you’ll all want energy for when he wakes up, right?”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Christian.”

  He pulled me in and kissed my forehead. “Of course, Piper. Call me if you need anything.”

  “I will.” I watched his back as he left. Then, slowly, fearfully, I turned back toward my mother.

  She lifted her chin. “He seems kind.”

  “He is.”

  “He’s been good to you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Very.”

  My mother wrapped her arms around herself as her gaze wandered back to my father. “Good. That’s good.”

  Her eyes glazed over as she stared at her husband.

  My thoughts went in a hundred different directions at once.

  First, what did it feel like when the man in the bed was your lover, not your father? The man you’d spent your entire life with? The man who, over the course of your years together, had fought all your battles by your side and who held your hand, his love unfailing?

  Was she afraid of being alone?

  I stepped toward her and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s going to be okay, Mom. He’s going to be okay. We have to be strong for him.”

  My mother grabbed my hand and squeezed.

  Phillip came up on her other side. “Dad is a fighter, right?”

  “And a stubborn bastard,” I added.

  A smile touched the corners of my mother’s mouth. Phillip and I exchanged a look behind her head. It was a look between siblings that spoke a thousand silent words.

  I’m here.

  Dad will pull through.

  Mom needs us.

  I love you.

  I sighed and rested my head against my mother’s. She shook and trembled in my arms, and I held her tighter until the trembling subsided and she let out a long, shaky breath.

  “I’m glad you came,” she whispered.

  “Of course, I came,” I breathed.

  “I didn’t know how far away you were. How long it would take you to get here. I was so afraid you’d miss him. That—” She broke off and shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. “I was afraid that you wouldn’t make it on time.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I’m here, Mom. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter 10

  Christian

  Staring was rude.

  I’d known that social rule since I was four. And I’d followed it pretty diligently since I was eight. But standing outside of the main entrance to a hospital was a cruel test to see just how good and honest your manners really were.

  Apparently, mine were less than subpar.

  Aside from the varying conditions and states of people wandering in and out of the automatic sliding doors, there was a lot to see. Paramedics rushed to and fro, toting equipment along with them from the main part of the hospital and back to the ER, which had its own entrance about twenty yards down the sidewalk. Where my part of the hospital was consistent and calm, the ER entrance was in a constant state of disarray and panic.

  Piper’s mother and brothe
r had likely entered the hospital through there.

  My heart went out to them. A sick parent was not an easy thing to confront, especially when that sickness was a life-threatening risk, and one heart attack was almost always a promise for another one sometime down the line.

  If Piper hadn’t realized that, she would soon. Or the doctor would tell her.

  I hoped I was by her side when that happened. She was going to need someone. She had her mother and brother, sure, but I knew something was strained there. There was a tension in the room that shouldn’t have existed. Not at a time like this.

  She needed me.

  That was why I’d called and left messages that I wouldn’t be at work on Monday or Tuesday. If needed, I would take more time. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be the case, but I was prepared to make the call if worse came to worst.

  I glanced at the watch on my wrist. The food I’d ordered should have been delivered by now. Leave it to my luck to order from the one place in this city that can’t be on time at two o’clock in the morning. They couldn’t possibly be burdened with other orders.

  The night staff were probably a bunch of teenagers saving up to buy their first car or a bag of weed.

  Had they been on time, I would have tipped them a pretty penny.

  My gaze wandered curiously to a man who had just wheeled out of the doors of the main entrance behind me. I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans, and I watched him out of the corner of my eye while he came to a jolting stop at the curb. Then slowly, he looked around, the motion pulling at the oxygen tube up his nose.

  With the opposite of speed, he tugged aside part of his beige, towel-material bathrobe, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  I almost laughed.

  Almost.

  His hands shook as he pulled out a lighter and struggled to ignite it. Then he lifted his tired milky eyes to me. “Give me a hand, son?”

  My moral compass spun in delirious circles. Was I really going to help a man on oxygen spark a cigarette? I hesitated.

  “Don’t be a pussy,” the old man growled. “I’m dying anyway, and the only thing that’s gonna make this night bearable is this Goddamn cigarette.”

  I grimaced. Who was I to take this decision away from him? They were his lungs, not mine.

  I pulled my hands from my pocket, approached his chair, and held out my hand for the lighter. He slapped it into my palm, and I lit his cigarette.

  He drew in his first drag. He closed his eyes and held the smoke in his lungs for three long seconds. When he released the breath, the smoke wafted up toward me, and I fell back a step.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. Rude old geezer.

  “Don’t give me attitude, son. I’m a dying old man. You’re young. You haven’t contended with your own mortality yet. Give it time. Soon, you’ll be here like me. Alone. With nothing to look forward to but this.”

  He held up his cigarette as tiny wisps of smoke curled up from the lit end. He narrowed his eyes at it like he loathed the thing and the chemicals wrapped up inside it, but then he shrugged one frail shoulder and returned it to his lips to take a long drag.

  He exhaled. “She’s never let me down.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Sorry.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “I’m sorry that you’re alone. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not even a grumpy old man like yourself.”

  He studied me. Then much to my surprise, he laughed. It was a wheezing, coughing, desperate sound, but it was a laugh nonetheless. “And here I was, thinking you were a prick.”

  “I just insulted you.”

  He grinned. “A sign of common decency, really.”

  Frowning, I tried to make sense of things. Maybe he was senile, too. I rocked back on my heels. “Who were you before all this shit, then?”

  The old man puffed on his cigarette and drew his robe tighter around himself to ward off the chill. “A branch manager at a bank.”

  “Sounds dull.”

  “It was,” he said, a smile touching his thin lips. “But it paid me a decent wage. Decent enough to support my wife and daughter.”

  “You have a daughter?”

  “Yes. She’s spoken for.”

  I laughed. “I wasn’t asking because I was interested. If I was, that would mean I’d have to see your sorry ass again. And let’s be honest. I’d rather not.”

  He chuckled and wheezed and coughed some more. “Yes, a daughter. She’s married now. He’s not good enough for her. But he’ll take care of her fine. And her mother will look out for her.”

  I watched the smoke rise in tendrils from his nostrils as he exhaled.

  “Do they come see you?”

  He was quiet and still. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked them not to.”

  That made no sense to me. “So let me get this straight. You have the option of company, of family, but you’re choosing to sit out here alone, puffing on the thing that probably put you in here in the first place?”

  “You got it.”

  “Why?”

  “This is my atonement.”

  “For what?”

  He didn’t look at me. He stared off into the half-empty parking lot like he was looking for something. Or someone. “A child shouldn’t see their father like this.”

  “So it’s a pride thing?”

  “No.”

  I smirked. “Yes.”

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be, you obnoxious little shit?”

  I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Yes, actually. I have someone waiting for me upstairs. Someone who needs me. But I ordered some food, and I’m waiting for the delivery.”

  “A girl?”

  I nodded. “Yes, a girl.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “The word pretty falls very flat when speaking of her.”

  The old man nodded knowingly. “Lucky man. Do you love her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “I hardly know her. It’s complicated.”

  “So un-complicate it. Before you know it, you might find yourself meeting an end like mine. Trust me. This is the very last place you want to be sitting, wondering what if until your body finally ends your suffering.”

  I tilted my head back to the starry night sky speckled with puffy gray clouds. “I never thought I’d have a conversation like this. It’s almost like it isn’t real.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  I laughed. “You, the all-knowing prophet. Me, the young, impressionable, and dangerously handsome stranger. Us coming together to talk of death and love. People write songs about this kind of stuff.”

  “You’re a strange kid. You know that?”

  Headlights swung up around the corner, and a car pulled into the lot. It crept slowly over the speed bumps until it reached the entrance where I stood, and it came to a stop. The driver got out, asked if I was Christian, and took the money I handed him in exchange for the brown bags of takeout food.

  I lifted the bags to the old man when the driver pulled away. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to get back to my girl. I ordered extra. Can I interest you in a burger and fries?”

  “Nah.” The old man waved his hand. “It’d be a waste. Can’t taste nothing no more. Can’t keep it down, neither. Good luck up there with whoever it is needing a prayer or two.”

  “Thanks.” I paused. “You too, grumpy old man.”

  He flipped me the bird.

  I threw my head back and laughed. “You should call your daughter and invite her to come see you.”

  “Get lost.”

  “You gave me advice. Now it’s my turn. You’re punishing her when she didn’t do anything wrong. She deserves to spend as much time with you as she needs before she has to say goodbye. You’re stealing precious time from her when it’s not your call to do so. Consider it. Will y
ou?”

  He eyed me skeptically. “Help me light another cigarette before you go, and I will.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 11

  Piper

  Phillip was snoring in the corner of the room, his chin on his chest, his arms hanging loosely by his sides over the armrests of one of the chairs. His feet were kicked up on the end of my father’s bed, and they were sliding off slowly. Eventually, they would fall, and he’d wake up.

  I tugged on the blankets to move his feet up a bit and buy him more time. He needed the rest.

  My mother had her back to me as she stood by the window, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city beyond. She wrapped her arms around herself as she drew a tense, steady breath.

  Nobody had said a word for the last twenty minutes or so.

  There was nothing to say. Our hearts and minds were racing, and it was all I could do to keep the panic at bay. I’d taken up a seat beside my father and held his hand in both of mine. His hand was huge.

  I remembered being a little girl, thinking my father was a superhero. His hands were strong and capable of anything. His hugs were the best hugs. He always smelled like grass and cheap cologne and whatever meal he’d cooked most recently.

  I couldn’t lose him.

  Not like this. Not with the air so murky around us. And not so soon.

  We needed more time.

  I ran my thumb over his knuckles. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry this happened to you. And I’m sorry I haven’t been here.”

  I hung my head and took a shaky breath. My hair fell in front of my face like a curtain. I hid behind my long locks as tears surfaced in my eyes, and I willed my mother not to turn around.

  “I know you’re still angry with me,” I said. “And I understand. But I need you to wake up. I need you to be okay. It’s selfish. I know. But I still need my dad. Please.”

  “Piper.” My mother’s voice broke through the wall I’d put up between us.

  I didn’t move.

  “Piper,” she said more firmly this time.

  I lifted my head and peered up at her from between the two curtains of my hair.