Chapter 11
Blaise
The script flips when we arrive at the hospital and the staff immediately freaks out about a pregnant woman in the emergency room. I guess they don’t like dealing with pregnancy. I attempt to dip the moment I drag Tilly up to the help desk, having done my job, but three nurses immediately surge forward, and she grabs hold of my sleeve.
“I don’t want this,” she tells me, and the frantic tone in her breath has me feeling the barest modicum of sympathy. She totally doesn’t deserve my help, but I pull on the strings of my hoodie to conceal my face a bit better and stand there next to her. I’m not going to take her home, but I feel like if I ditch now, she’ll chase after me.
The nurses are exchanging looks as they take her temperature and her blood pressure. The looks are . . . well, they’re definitely not reassuring. Especially when they fast-pass Tilly into a wheelchair despite the waiting room being mostly full. One nurse wheels her to an elevator bay as another corrals me over to the desk. “I need patient information from you.”
Information I don’t have. I don’t have her last name, and the shit Andy was just telling me, about how they were struggling to find anything about her based on the extra info I gave him, has me worried Tilly isn’t her first name, either.
Makes sense. Con artists don’t usually use their real names, I’d wager.
I glance up at the conniving little snake, debating if this is my opportunity to leave. Hell, just because I’m a nice guy, I can even go back to her place and grab her wallet for her. Yeah, I’ll snoop around a bit, I’m owed that, but I’ll bring her shit here. It’ll make me less liable for anything, and that’s got to give me some Good Samaritan points, at least with Gabe and Joss.
I have to call him. Fuck. I don’t want to interrupt his babymoon, but he’ll be pissed if I don’t tell him I had to take her to the hospital.
There’s a shriek before I can tell the nurse I don’t have Tilly’s info. My heart sinks immediately. She’s yelling at the nurse, saying she doesn’t want to get in the elevator. The screech, it’s not something someone fakes. She has the most panicked look on her face as she tries to get out of her chair and the two nurses try to keep her seated. She’s crying, too, and she sounds absolutely terrified when she yells, “Blaise!”
It hits me in the gut. My back is to the waiting room. With my hood up, it’s impossible for anyone who isn’t directly in front of me to see my face. And my name isn’t super common, but I’m not a one-name kind of guy. If anything, it’s Sinclair. That’s what the jersey says. So no one reacts to her scream.
Except the nurse trying to pull Tilly up in his system. His eyes go wide.
I shake my head. A quick, almost invisible gesture, but he nods. “We’ll have someone come up to you to get everything once—”
I don’t like the way he freezes there. There are any number of reasons why he might have stopped talking. Really, he doesn’t know who Tilly is to me, so he shouldn’t be explaining too much of anything. But there’s a look of fear about him, like I might react really badly to whatever he’s about to say.
I’m Blaise Sinclair. I have a history of doing mostly dumb shit, and a lot of that dumb shit comes off as blowing up over small stuff. He doesn’t want me to blow up.
I don’t want to blow up, but I’m a pusher. I lean over the desk between us. The man’s in decent shape, fairly tall. We could scrap a couple rounds. But no one wants to scrap with me. “Once what?”
His look softens. Not fear. Sympathy. It makes me want to throw up, and I don’t even like Tilly. “The doctor will talk to you.”
He says it grimly enough that there’s nothing else for me to do except run to Tilly. I don’t know what’s about to go down, but she’s a human being. She deserves having someone, even if that someone might be her mortal enemy.
The moment Tilly’s hand grabs mine in the elevator and refuses to let go, no matter what happens, will stick with me forever.
The moment an entire team of doctors and nurses shows up in the room will stick with me forever.
The moment that, in the midst of the chaos, everyone pauses for a single second when the sound of a heartbeat, the baby’s heartbeat, is broadcast, will stick with me forever.
The moment the doctor tells her, doesn’t ask,tellsher that she’s getting emergency surgery and the tears pour from her eyes.
The moment the nurse attempts to take her wig and she tries to stop her, but there’s already an IV pinning her arm down so I’m the one who puts my hand on top of her wig to keep it in place because she deserves this one modicum of vanity. Of dignity.
The moment the doctor says I have to go and Tilly begs her to let me stay, and I give the doctor the most baleful look and mouth a promise that I’ll leave once she’s under, just let her think that I’m here.
The moment I kiss the top of her head and make that promise that I’ll stay with her and do feel guilty about lying, even if it’s in everyone’s best interest, and even if she’s the bigger liar between us by a wide margin.
The moment her eyes close and the anesthesiologist nods to the doctor that she’s unconscious.
The moment the door closes behind me and I’m left with nothing but my thoughts and the prayer that she survives because fuck, I don’t want to be the guy who has to tell Joss
who has to tell the world
who has to be the last familiar face
who has to stand here on the other side and pray for her because if I don’t, who will?
