Page 71 of Keep Your Guard Up
Her eyes flared and met mine. The mask on her face shattered. “Y-you … what?”
“I’ve got you,” I repeated. “I’m with you. I’ll be right next to you or out here. I’ll be wherever you need me to be—just say the words, Sunny.”
“H-he …” She swallowed the stammer in her breath. “He may not be … happy to see me.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t exactly been a frequent visitor of this place.” Her eyes refused to meet mine, darting around her uncomfortably.
I swallowed the burning question inside of me—why—and took a breath in to respond.
She beat me to it.
“Come with me.”
~
The home was quite inconspicuous. It could have passed for a regular aged care home that no one would spare a second glance at, but a man who had changed the entire sport of MMA was within these walls. I picked up Mari’s hand in mine before we walked through the doors and laced my fingers through hers.
“Good morning—” The short, dark-skinned receptionist beamed when she heard the bell go off that signalled our entry. “Oh! Mari! What a treat to see you!” She smiled, wide and toothy. Her curly hair, much shorter and with tighter curls than Mari’s, bounced as she stood from behind the desk.
“Hi, Rhiannon,” Mari said, though her fingers tensed over the back of my hand.
“It’s so good to see you!” The woman’s joy and brightness would have been contagious if I hadn’t felt the rigidity of Mari’s body all the way down to her hand. “Oh, Elijah will be so happy! He’s been talking about you a lot recently.”
A smile made its way across Mari’s lips but never reached her eyes. They lacked that honey brown I so desperately wanted to see. The colour she wore when she was happy. “This is Chance. He’s here to visit him with me today.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Chance! The more the merrier!” Rhiannon clapped her hands together. “Hold tight. I’ll just grab your sign-in forms.”
“She’s … jubilant,” I mumbled.
“She was here when my dad was first admitted,” Mari whispered back. “She … helped me a lot when it all first happened.”
The tightening of Mari’s mouth told me not to push the subject, so I nodded as Rhiannon plonked down two clipboards in front of us.
We filled out the visitors forms and were given a pass to get us into the wing Mari’s dad was in.
“It’s a … privacy feature of his package,” she said quietly as we slipped through a set of double doors. “He’s considered a code VIP. Same nursing staff and doctors each week—all have signed an NDA. Other than reception staff, no one else knows he’s in here.”
My gaze snapped to hers.
“No one else knows?”
She shook her head. “His nurses, doctors, Rhiannon, Nan, Al, Rocco, JJ …” She counted off of her fingers. “And now you.”
Sunny stopped in front of a door and took a deep breath. I took the opportunity to pick her hand up again. I gave it a gentle squeeze and she, to my surprise, returned it.
She huffed out a breath quickly and pushed the door open.
There, in the corner of the room, sitting in a black velvet armchair, was Elijah Trevino.
Chapter 39
Mari
Dad’s mouth fell open for a few seconds. I took a breath in to speak but couldn’t find the words there to use. Then, he smiled, big and wide. He pushed up off his chair and reached me in a few strides. His big, still-calloused hands were warm on my bare arms as he stood in front of me, taking me in.
“It’s really you.” He beamed and pulled me in for a hug.
