“You mean am I choosinghimoveryou? No.” Leaning in his direction to guarantee there can be no confusion to what I’m concluding, I forcefully clarify, “I’m choosing us over everything.”
Chapter 23
Thayne
You know when music isn’t really music to your ears?
When that’s practically allyou’ve heard for the past couple of hundred miles.
Well, that and your little brother snoring whenever he lets himself drift off.
Bud is louder than the eighteen wheelers we cruise by.
And while flying was an option – perk of being on the same team with Peck who happens to have a family plane available in emergency sitches –thiswas quicker.
Less work.
More control.
Dubs has periodically called whenever the doctor or nurses arrive to keep us informed of every little thing they’re doing, which is also why I didn’t wanna fly.
I can’t handle not knowing what’s happening as it’s happening.
I can’t handle beingthisfar away from everything.
From her.
How did she get this sick?
How sick is she really?
How long has this been going on?
Why hasn’t she told me?
Fuck, why does everyone wanna keep so many goddamn secrets all of a sudden?!
By the time we arrive in Grams’s room at Highland North Medical Center – the closest large hospital to Middlebrook – I’m running on playoff level of fumes.
Despite loading up on LMC coffee, my eyes are heavy.
My head is heavy.
And worst of all, so is my heart.
Hell, it’s the heaviest of them all.
Seeing the woman who helped raise me with tubes in her nose and cords taped to her arms damn near drops me into a butterfly, something that would hurt to the high heavens without my padding.
Regardless of the fact, we’ve had longer conversations with the cashiers at checkout counters than we have with one another lately, Gilly still swoops in for the assist.
Winds an arm around my frame.
Aids in easing me into the bedside chair that Dubs slips out of as Bronny leans over her sleeping frame. “Grams?” He gingerly places a hand on top of hers and cranes his face closer. “Grams?”
“Boy, livin’ with a dentist should make your breath better than this,” she grouses on a small adjustment of her frame.
“You’re awake,” escapes me in mostly air.
