Page 99 of While You're There
She nodded wordlessly but couldn’t bring her body to move. Jake tried to guide her backwards, but her feet were planted in place.
Sighing, he walked around her and grunted. A moment later, he was behind her again, this time with the couch in his outstretched arms. She let out an unexpected cackle, clamping her hand over her own mouth once she realized the sound was coming from her. Nothing about this was funny, but the absurdity of watching Jake carry a couch across the room finally cracked her shellshock. He set the furniture down gently, then pushed it across the vinyl floor a few more inches, positioning it as physically close as possible to the hospital bed.
“Sit,” he instructed. This time, she obeyed.
The next few hours passed in a hazy blur. A few nurses came in to check Rhett’s vitals, but no one would tell them anything. They all kept reassuring her he was okay. They all kept telling her the doctor would be by with a full report in the morning.
All she knew for sure was that he had a concussion and he’d had two surgeries—one on his shoulder, one on his spleen. Oh, and that it was unlikely that he’d be charged with any sort of driving under the influence charges, because no one mentioned a word about his blood alcohol level. She had no idea how Jake had pulled that one off, but it seemed like a foregone conclusion that he had it handled.
She had been huddled up on the couch and half-asleep when she heard the first tolls of the alarm on her phone. Jake startled awake beside her.
“Baby?” he tried, his voice deep and gravelly with sleep.
She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t move a muscle. Her alarm had been set for a very specific reason this morning. She wasn’t ready to face this day. Not alone. Not without Rhett.
“Tori. That’s your alarm.” He nudged his knee against hers, urging her to turn it off.
“I know,” she breathed out, grasping at the frayed ends of her resolve. Weeks ago when they agreed to move forward with embryo freezing, she never could have predicted it would end like this.
“What do we need to do?” He sounded just as exhausted and despondent as she felt. “I know your procedure is supposed to be this morning. It’s here in this building, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she choked out, a silent tear rolling down her cheek as she thought about the irony of what she was about to do. The man she needed today was lying just a few feet away. He had come home to bring her here. And yet they were already at the hospital, not for her procedure, but because of him.
“Are you still going to go through with it?”
She snapped her head to glare at him for the preposterous suggestion. She’d come so far, endured so much to get to this point. She couldn’t just not go through with the egg retrieval. She didn’t think delaying it was even an option. She loathed the idea of having to start over and endure the shots and hormones for another cycle. She shuddered at the thought of having to move back her hysterectomy.
She took a steadying breath. She had to keep her head straight. She had to go through with the procedure, and she had to do it on her own. She had always planned to go through everything alone, anyways. She knew she had it in her.
“I don’t think not going through with it is an option,” she replied calmly. “I’ll head up there in a few minutes and then just come back down here when I’m done. Will you stay with him for me?”
Jake’s face contorted in anger. “Is someone supposed to go with you?” he demanded. “Tell me the truth, Tori. Are you supposed to have someone up there?”
He stared at her and she returned his gaze. They were locked in a stalemate, Jake refusing to fill the silence as she refused to answer to his question.
“Goddamnit…” he muttered before letting out a huff of a breath and pushing to his feet. He removed the baseball hat he was wearing for just long enough to run his hand through his hair. It was a very Rhett-like gesture that struck a nerve buried deep in her subconscious.
“I’m going up there with you,” he declared as he replaced the hat on his head and turned to face her.
“No, Jake, you can’t. They won’t even let you in the room. I want you to stay here with…”
“No way. He came home for this procedure. I know this is a big deal. You’re being put under, aren’t you?”
Tori nodded, her throat clenching up at the thought of everything the procedure entailed. She would be put under. There would be pain. And they told her to expect a fair amount of bloating and cramping for the next few days. Go home and rest, they said. She hadn’t counted on having to stay at the hospital afterwards.
“That’s what I thought. I’m going with you. This isn’t a debate, baby, so save your fucking breath.”
“What if someone finally comes in to talk to us while I’m up there?” she protested as she wiped a tear of gratitude from her cheek. “What if he wakes up when we’re gone?”
“I don’t give a shit if he wakes up alone. I can barely look at him right now. You don’t want me in this room alone with him when he comes to,” Jake clipped.
“We’ll talk to the nurse before we head upstairs and ask that they can wait to do rounds until we get back. Don’t worry about that. Cleaning up Rhett’s messes is turning into somewhat of a specialty of mine,” he deadpanned.
“Did someone text you back?” she asked, already knowing the answer without his confirmation. She’d watched him respond to a flurry of texts about an hour ago. She’d been afraid to ask for an update.
“Yeah. Cole and Dempsey both texted me. Rhett got wasted at my bar last night, fought with everyone who tried to help him, then had the audacity to get behind the wheel and ram my car into the train bridge.”
She nodded solemnly, accepting all the revelations she already knew. Now that the consequences of his actions were playing out in front of them, all the other truths they’d been dancing around all summer seemed even more obvious.
