“Sure, man,” I said, clapping him on the back.
With one last glance at Lennon and Dallas, I followed Maverick out in the hallway, passing Agent Kidwell who appeared to be on the phone with someone.
She glanced at me as we passed, immediately hanging up on whoever she had been talking to.
The little alarm bells that had started ringing in my head earlier when I recognized her face got a little bit louder and I made a note to ask Dallas about it whenever he woke up. He was always better at making connections than I was.
Chapter Thirty Four
Fingers combed through my hair gently as a pair of voices held a whispered conversation.
“It was like I could hear everything, I just couldn’t wake up.”
“So you could hear the doctors and nurses talking about your prognosis?”
“Yeah. Which, by the way, is a scary as shit conversation to be heard about you while you can’t do anything about it.”
Jerking up, I rubbed at my heavy eyes.
“Dallas?” I mumbled sleepily, afraid I was dreaming.
He sounded better. Fantastic even.
How could he have gotten so much better in what I assumed was just a couple of hours?
Finally managing to open my eyes, I found him sitting up in the bed with my head in his lap and his fingers entwined in my hair.
He still looked pale and sick, but he was awake.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greeted me as I scrambled up onto my knees and held his face in my shaking hands. “We were wondering when you’d finally wake up.”
I let out a wet laugh as I pulled his face to mine, inhaling his sweet apple whiskey scent deep in my lungs as I kissed him. “I could say the same about you, asshole.”
Brooks looked happier now than the forlorn presence he’d been when I walked in earlier. He was practically vibrating in his chair as his green eyes bounced between us. “I’ve been calling him Sleeping Beauty for the past twenty minutes since he woke up.”
“Does that make me the prince?” I asked with a loud yawn. “How long was I asleep for anyway?”
“About four hours,” Maverick answered as he held out a paper cup of lukewarm tea and a donut.
I nearly spit the minty liquid out as I gaped up at him. “Fourhours? My Mom is going to kill me.”
We’d agreed on two after I’d threatened to throw a very expensive bust of George Washington at the Secretary of the Interior and she’d still looked pissed about it after I’d stomped out of the room victoriously.
Four hours meant I was either about to get the lecture of a lifetime or the silent treatment and neither were options I had the mental capacity to handle right now.
“What if you just didn’t go back?” Zeke asked from where he was standing against the far wall of the hospital room. “You’re a grown adult, Lennon, what can she do?”
I thought about Agent Kidwell who was probably still standing in the hallway. Something in my gut told me that that woman would have no qualms with physically picking me up and dragging me back to the White House kicking and screaming.
Then again, there was also the real reason I needed to go back.
Carter’s words a few days ago about my mother’s demons had been constantly ringing in my head and I wanted to know what he was talking about. My mother didn’t seem like she had any of those outside of her grief for my father… which she rarely let show these days.
No, Athena Holloway rarely showed any weakness.
“I don’t want my relationship with my Mom to be broken forever,” I told them softly. “She’s the only parent I have left. I know it doesn’t make much sense…”
“It doesn’t have to,” Dallas said firmly, his fingers sliding into mine and squeezing. “You wanting to have a relationship with your mom makes sense.”
