When she disconnected, Addie looked at her cousin. “At leastyou’llbe able to have a drink when they’re here.”
“Well, you’ll be on pain meds,” Eric countered.
Addie laughed, hand coming to her sore ribs again. “You could still run away and see the rest of the family.”
He took her free hand and squeezed. “I’ll be staying here. I have to intimidate your ex when she shows up at the apartment, anyhow. She tricked me into giving her our address.”
“How?”
“Well, she sounded very nice and asked me.” Eric widened his eyes. “I was completely blindsided.”
“She has that effect on people.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Eric asked gently.
Addie looked at her phone and quickly texted Toni: “I’m fine. You don’t need to come.”
“Ads?” Eric said, drawing her attention back to him.
She glanced away from her phone, which was not showing any replies so far, and told Eric, “I don’t want my heart to hurt more. I love her. She doesn’t want me to, but I do.”
“Then she’s a stupid person,” Eric insisted. “There are better women out there, Ads. And once you’re healed, we’ll find one of them for you.”
Addie blinked away tears. “I don’t want to see Toni.”
“Then you won’t. I’ll stop her,” he promised.
If the only way to get her to be by my side is to be injured, she isn’t worth it,Addie thought before she closed her eyes again.
Chapter 48Toni
Toni took multiple connections. One of the commuter flights out of Dulles routed her through West Virginia and then to Pittsburgh, where a fifty-minute layover was all she had before boarding a flight to Vegas. Although she preferred the tight-enough-to-have-to-run time to this indeterminable wait in Las Vegas.
A series of delays with mechanical issues and then the lack of a pilot had Toni with an eight-hour layover.So far.By the fifth hour, she was ready to rent a car and drive to Los Angeles, but she’d been awake most of the last thirty hours. Her three- to four-hour nap from Pittsburg to Vegas wasn’t enough to make her confident that she could drive safely on Thanksgiving Day through the desert when she wasn’t sure if service stations would be open—or that she could stay awake even with the amount of coffee in her system.
She read and reread Addie’s messages as she waited. The last one—“I’m fine. You don’t need to come.”—cut deeper because Toni knew Addie was injured and still refusing to talk to her.
A month of trying to convince herself she could move on was resulting in exactly no progress. Toni had to fix this. She needed Addie in her life. There was no other answer. She sat in an airport looking up tests to see if she had the genes that meant she’d end up with dementia.Maybe that would help.Then she searched ways todecrease her odds of it. It was stupid, unscientific, but it made her feel less helpless. That was something, at least.
Toni finally got to LAX late afternoon on Thanksgiving, and since her only bag was a carry-on, she took a car straight to the hospital. She hoped Addie had been discharged, but she also wasn’t going to go to her apartment in case she was still at the hospital.
“I’m here to visit a patient. Adelaine Stewart,” she told them at the welcome desk just inside the lobby.
Toni got her room number and headed to the third floor. By the time she reached the third floor, Toni was fairly sure she was going to make a fool of herself. She had no idea how to have this conversation, especially after that last text from Addie.
I need to see her, though. I need to know she’s okay.
But when she reached Addie’s hospital room, Toni felt a wave of relief when she saw that Addie was wearing the cardigan she’d borrowed from Toni. Surely, that meant something, right? Addie was still wearing Toni’s clothes.
“I told you not to come,” Addie said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You don’t need to be here.”
“I do. You were hurt, and Ineededto see you.” Toni stepped into the room, staring at the machines. An IV was jabbed into Addie’s hand, and a monitor showed her heart rate—currently escalating—and another showed her oxygen levels. Toni was familiar with all of this from when Aunt Patty was sick.
“I’m fine.” Addie motioned at the bandage. “There were set scissors, dull enough to take effort to shove through my skin.”
Toni winced.
“Dirty blades, though, so they have me on antibiotics and stuff.” Addie shrugged with the unbandaged arm. “Bumped my head. Some minor cuts. I could’ve told you over the phone and saved you a flight.”
