I look at Sebastian’s forlorn expression. He doesn’t look up from wherever his gaze is set on the floor in front of his feet.God.He looks ruined. Ever since Colson came around, it’s been clear how much he cares about him, but tonight that notion hitshard. He wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to him. Just like Colson didn’t know what to do when his mother turned up without a pulse.
Everleigh and I walk past the surgical orthopedic receptionist desk where there’s abe back in fifteensign suctioned to the glass slider. We push out through a door that leads to a hallway. I guide us to where I saw the coffee machine until we hear a commotion coming from the other end of the corridor where the elevators are located.
Near them is a help desk for those who are trying to find different wings of the hospital on this level. I didn’t pay muchattention to it since a nurse from the E.R. brought us to where we needed to be.
We make small talk as we wait for the machine to brew four extra-strong coffees. It adds cream and sugar for us as well. All while that same commotion from the help desk travels down the hall.
“What do you think that’s about?” Everleigh asks, eyes wide when the person’s voice bellows louder and the woman’s voice behind the desk threatens calling security.
“Who knows.”
“Hardly the way to be this time of night or should I say morning? God, I can’t believe we’re even here to begin with.” She reaches out and squeezes my elbow. “You holding up okay?”
I nod in response, even though I’m a mess.
When I notice the familiarity in the male’s voice from down the hall, I blink at the same speed of the last few drops of coffee falling into the last cup. Everleigh collects a carrying tray from the station next to the machine.
My attention seeks out the voice of the person who I can’t see around the corner, waiting for them to speak again. A grumbled, “Fuck,” booms down the hall, ping-ponging off the walls until it lands at my feet.
Wait a second.
I tell Everleigh to head back to the others without me. I’m not keen on being away for longer than necessary, but I’m also incredibly interested in finding out if my instincts are correct.
I wait until she’s gone to make it around the curve in the hall where I can get a better view. Down the corridor, a man dressed in black denim with a long-sleeved gray thermal paces back and forth. His equally dark boots smack against the tile with each step he takes. When the man’s profile turns, and I get a side view of him, my gaze connecting with the inky black lines drawn over the skin of his neck, my hunches are confirmed.
Finn.
I don’t know if I should be relieved or worried to see him. I know which Colson would be. He’d hate knowing he’s in the same building as him. Still, I can’t turn and walk away now, not when I know who he’s here to see.
I’m quick to make it to him so he doesn’t give the lady any more trouble. He hasn’t noticed me yet, so I reach for his arm to gently let him know I’m behind him.
He swivels around as soon as he registers the pressure of my hand. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he snarls out, his eyes darker than ever. Long strands of his hair brush over his forehead like curtains and then recognition dawns. “Violet?”
“That’d be me.” I smile at him sheepishly.
“Fuck, I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s fine,” I cut him off. “You heard about Colson, didn’t you?”
“Word travels fast in Harrison Heights. Someone fucking hit him and ran?”
Worry traces the color in his eyes as I try to find the proper words for an answer. I just nod and murmur out, “Yeah.”
“He’s okay, though, right?” This is exactly how I know Finn cares, regardless of what he’s connected to on a day-to-day basis or what he did in the past.
I shake my head at the same time a glassiness fills my eyes. Aside from the shock and dread that came over me when Sebastian stormed into my bedroom, I’ve been doing a decent job holding it together. However, there’s something about Finn standing in front of me, his face distraught from the idea of Colsonnotbeing okay, that tears my heart in two. It’s quick and easy, like shredding a piece of paper down the middle, but no less painful.
My arms come around my middle and clutch my stomach. My fingers dig into my shirt, twisting the fabric in my palmswhen Finn spins and runs his hand through his hair. He fists it, pulling at his own locks as if there’s no pain attached to the action.
“How bad is it?” he questions after he’s able to swallow down his fear. For a moment, I think how incredibly strange it is to be in this hall with him when the first time I saw him outside of Spring Meadows I referred to him as Stranger Guy.
I remember judging him, thinking how mysterious and out of place he was. How he didn’t look like he belonged in Chatham Hills. I think back on the times Colson warned me to stay away from him and the night I learned about all he did.
I push it all away as if it doesn't matter because it doesn’t.Finn came for me when Colson was fighting and he was worried where he may end up. He was there for me and Olive the night we showed up at his strip club. And now he’s here again, at the hospital where his half brother lies on an operating table for injuries he sustained in a motor vehicle accident.
Maybe that’s what draws me to clutch the fabric at his wrist and yank him down the hall toward the waiting room where we’ve been for the last hour. I don’t know how everyone will feel over him being present, but he deserves a chair in that waiting room. He deserves the updates and details. He deserves to know the man he’s trying like hell to earn forgiveness from is going to be okay.
We make it so far before Finn stops me by the coffee machine and presses me. “You didn’t answer me, Violet.”
