Page 64 of Accidentally Falling For My Best Friend
Yeah, that’s not happening.
I take a deep breath and flash my most charming smile. I’m fully prepared to yell and throw my name and money around,barge my way past this guy if I need to, but I’ll try to be nice first. “Listen, I don’t know what I need to say to get in there, but I need to see him. I just walked out of my family’s Christmas party without saying goodbye, and jumped on the first flight here to see the man that I’m in love with because finding out that he was in the hospital and I wasn’t there for him when he needed me nearly broke me. I need to see him for myself, to make sure he’s okay, and that he knows we never should have been apart for Christmas, for any day. I spent the entire flight planning speeches, picturing a dramatic reunion where I can confess my feelings after putting in all of this effort to be heretoday,and none of that is going to work if I have to wait another twelve hours to do it.”
The guy looks amused now, smirking as I keep going. “I don’t care who I have to bribe, or if I need to claim to be family, or his partner, or his husband. I want all of that to be true anyway. So just tell me what to say and I’ll say it, but respectfully, I will be seeing him tonight. So how can we make that happen?”
He eyes me for another moment before finally smirking, holding up one finger as he picks up the phone in front of him to make a call.
“Hello, are you the charge nurse tonight for the ICU? I’ve got the husband for 2108 who just flew in requesting permission to visit after hours. He seems pretty desperate, but I don’t think he’ll cause any trouble.” He laughs at whatever she says, before ending the call. “Apparently, his girlfriend was with him all day. Lucky for you, the nurse is intrigued enough to want to hear more about your drama, so she’ll let you visit after hours.”
He gives me a pass and wishes me good luck before directing me on how to get to Parker’s room. Exiting the elevator onto his floor, it’s like I’m eleven years old again, scared and desperate to see for myself that my best friend is okay, only now I know he’s so much more than that.
When I enter the room, I’m frozen for a momentas I take him in. He’s laying in bed in an ugly hospital gown, with wires connected to his chest that I think are showing his heart rate on a monitor next to the bed. The soft steady beeping assures me that even though his eyes are closed, he must be alive—sleeping and not in a coma again like my anxiety has been trying to convince me he would be. There are tubes coming out of both arms, connected to bags of fluids and medications hanging from the pole on the other side of his bed.
The scene is peaceful, and there’s no staff in the room. Logically, I know that means he must be stable, not fighting for his life like I kept picturing on the way here. But he looks so sick, so vulnerable in a way that my strong best friend never should. It breaks my heart that I wasn’t able to prevent this from happening. My guilt is threatening to consume my every thought. I know Parker won’t blame me, but I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself that he ended up back here.
I need to get over myself, though, and focus on being there for him in the future, and that starts with telling him the truth now.
I finally shake off whatever fear had me hesitating and rush to his bedside. I don’t want to wake him up.
I know that I should let him rest, but I can’t stop myself from leaning in and placing a soft kiss right on his lips.
30
PARKER
December
Soft lips brush against my own, rousing me from sleep.
Oakley.His mouth on mine is the most comforting feeling I’ve ever experienced—a sense of belonging, of home that I’ve only ever associated with him. I chase his lips as he tries to pull away, my eyes aren’t even open yet, and I’m ignoring the soft beeping that must be his alarm. I’m not ready to be apart from him.
There’s stubble on both of our faces, and I love the rough scratch of it rubbing together as we deepen the kiss. He’s firmly cupping both sides of my face, tongue licking into my mouth desperately, like he wants to be inside of me in any way that he can. I alternate fighting him for control of the kiss and letting him take the lead.
I try to move my hands into his hair, but my arm is caught on something, preventing me from reaching him. I pull back to see what it is and he lets go as I finally open my eyes and take in my surroundings. We’re not in our condo like my half-asleep mindhad assumed. I’m laying in a hospital bed and the thing tugging my arm is an IV.
Shit. How did I forget I’m in the hospital?
The events of the last few days come rushing back to me all at once, and I’m suddenly much more awake.
“Oakley, what the fuck are you doing here? This is still Atlanta, right? How long have I been out if you’re already here?” I’m so confused by his arrival that I just keep asking questions without actually giving him any time to respond. I’m pretty confident I hadn’t even had the chance to tell him where I was or what had happened yet, but somehow he’s already here.
I’d been panicking over telling Oakley everything. I begged every nurse, doctor, lab tech—really anyone who’s come into my room—to lend me a phone charger so that I could talk to him, but no one had.
I glance around the room, wondering if Aspen came back, but Oak and I are alone.
“This is still Atlanta,” he confirms with a smirk. I’m glad to see that he’s smiling. He was so concerned about being apart, and I had to go and end up in here. I expected him to be pissed. “I’m not sure when you fell asleep, but Aspen called me a few hours ago. I think a nurse gave her a phone charger, and she told me what happened. I left right away. I didn’t actually bring anything with me. I just walked out of my family Christmas party…” he admits, trailing off like he isn’t sure he should have been so honest about dropping everything to be here.
“Won’t that worry them?” I point out.
“Beck and Cody saw me leave. I have a feeling my entire family knows exactly where I am,” he says in a strange tone that makes me think there’s more to that story.
Did something happen? Maybe he ran into an ex while I was gone, or met a man he’s interested in and wants to date? Maybe the time apart was all he needed to decide he was doneexperimenting with me, and now he’s ready to find someone to settle down with. Did he come here to end things with me in person so that he could properly date this new mystery person?
One of my monitors starts beeping loudly, pulling my attention away from the dark spiral my thoughts have turned into.
“Woah, Parker. What’s wrong?” Oakley’s eyes are wide as his gaze pings from me to the monitor. “You’re breathing really fast and your heart rate just jumped up.”
I try to calm down and force myself to breathe and ask him rather than making assumptions. “Did you come here to end things between us then?” I choke out, not sure I want to hear his answer.
