When I walked out, James and William were both there waiting, along with just about everyone from Melanie’s family. I sat down in the nearest seat, pulling my phone out as I did. My first instinct had been to call Alex and share the news that our friend was about to have her baby, but as I unlocked the screen and stared at the picture of Noel, I remembered I didn’t have a way to get in touch with him. Alex didn’t have a cell phone, and there wasn’t a phone set up in the loft either. I could call the clinic but doubted he’d pick up, knowing it was a business line.
Frowning, I dialed the clinic’s mainline anyway. When it went to voicemail, I tried again. Then a third time, jabbing my thumb a little too hard on the end call button when there was still no answer. I knew my sister was somewhere at the hospital working, and I sent her a text to let her know what was happening. William and James fidgeted uncomfortably, while Mel’s family chattered boisterously across the room.
After about an hour of waiting, I said, “You guys can go if you want. I’ll call when there’s news.”
Both men looked between me and the door, obviously torn between leaving their friend and taking the out I was offering. Neither of them knew Melanie’s family well enough to spend the next several hours in a waiting room with them.
“Go,” I encouraged. “It’s a twenty-minute drive back. You can be here in a jiffy if anything happens.”
As the hours crept by, loneliness settled in. I wished for nothing else than to see Alex come through those doors. If he knew Melanie was in labor, I had no doubt he’d be here waiting with me, our differences be damned.
At about ten thirty, when some of Melanie’s family had finally left for the night, Brianna entered the waiting room. Her bright green scrubs contrasted with the exhausted, worried expression on her face, but she gave me a relieved smile as soon as she saw me and slipped into the chair next to me, pulling me in for a hug.
“Got your message a couple of hours ago. Sorry I couldn’t get away.”
“It’s okay.”
“How’s Mel doing?”
I shrugged. “Last I heard was she’s progressing kinda slow. So it could be a long night.”
She slipped an arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder. “And because you’re you, you’re going to wait, aren’t you?”
I yawned. “I need to go let Noel out soon. But yeah, I was going to come back.”
She whipped her head up. “Let Noel out? What about Alex? Isn’t he there?”
I carefully avoided her eyes. I didn’t want my sister to see how much that innocent question sliced me open. He probably was at home in the loft, doing who knows what with Roxy. But if the last week had been any indication, he probably hadn’t gone to the house to check on Noel or even noticed my truck was gone for that matter.
God, I missed him. I didn’t regret my decision to let him stay in the loft, but it certainly hadn’t been easy seeing him come and go. John had come by to pick him up the last few mornings, probably because it had been too cold for him to walk the half-mile to their office. And he hadn’t been getting home until well after dinnertime, usually with a box of leftovers in his hands. Not… that I was constantly looking out the kitchen window to see all of this, of course.
“Vaughn?” Bri asked.
I sighed. “Yeah, he’s probably there, but I don’t know if he’d go let Noel out, so I just want to go home to be sure.”
She furrowed her thin brows. “Did something happen?”
I wasn’t sure how to explain without giving away too much about his past. No matter how hurt and angry with Alex I was, I’d never betray his trust like that again. “Yeah, but I don’t really know what. We were good, and then something changed at Silverwood. He just kinda snapped and said he needed space and that he had to get a job.”
“Wait, I thought he was going to help you once Mel was gone?”
I shrugged again. “That was my plan, but… I guess I didn’t get the courage to talk to him about it in time, and it wasn’t what he wanted anyway.”
After a minute, she asked, “Did he leave you?”
I hated the deep burning sensation in the back of my throat. I didn’t want to cry again, especially in front of Melanie’s family and the other visitors. “He’s still staying in the loft for now. Which is good, I told him to. But… yeah, I think we’re done.”
I didn’t need to say more than that. My sister would’ve known how much it hurt that we were over, and I deeply appreciated that she didn’t take that moment to give a snide “I told you so.” She’d been right, of course. I’d fallen too fast and too hard for Alex, and now that he’d decided he was done with me, there was nothing left to hold me together. But for the first time in my life, the heartache wasn’t just something that kept me up at night. It was as though a part of me remained with Alex. I felt lost without him, and I wanted him back.
Bri closed her fingers around my hand and squeezed, making me wince. My joints were still a little tender after Melanie’s crushing grip earlier.
“Guess I was just someone to make out with while Roxy recovered after all,” I said lamely.
She ground her teeth together hard enough that I could hear it over the noise of the others in the room. “That better not be what this is,” she muttered. When I turned to face her, she was looking at the door, as if she was considering going to give Alex a piece of her mind.
“Don’t say anything,” I said quickly. “Okay? Don’t push him. I don’t want him to feel like he needs to leave. Not unless he really has somewhere else to go.”
She huffed, shaking her head in frustration. “You’re a nicer person than me, Vaughn. But I won’t. Or I’ll try not to anyway. But I think he’s making a huge mistake.”
