Page 38 of A Baby for the Firefighter
Dean
When I answered the phone, my boyfriend sounded like he was about to cry. His voice was shaky and his breathing shallow and I didn’t know at all what was going on.
“Griff? Is everything alright?”
“I’m at the hospital,” he said.
At the hospital?My mind immediately jumped to worst case scenarios. “What are you doing there? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you.” He sniffed, andthatscared me. Not much could bring Griff down, so whatever had happened, it must have been monumental.
“Did someone you know get hurt?” I prodded him along, trying to get the most important facts. I had some experience talking to trauma survivors, and this didn’t feel that different—which, honestly, did nothing to reassure me.
“My dad,” he said. “There was a fire.”
A fire? For a second, my mind went blank, and then it crashed in on itself, burying me under a pile of rubble made from images and memories of the last time I’d had to deal witha fire.But I couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t fall apart when Griff needed my help.Deep breath,I told myself.Talk to him.
“You’re at the hospital right now because your dad was in a fire?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Is it bad?”
“I don’t know. Not really? I mean… I don’t know. He’ll be okay, I think. My mom said so. She said he’ll probably be okay.”
I had to smile at Griff’s babbling, if only because he was moving away from shock and back to coping mechanics that were more characteristic. “That’s good,” I said.
“I’m just… I don’t know… I haven’t seen my parents in a really long time.”
“I know.” Now that he mentioned it, I remembered his family situation. I’d just forgotten about the misery surrounding that at the mention of fire. “Do you want me to come to the hospital?”
“If you could…”
“Okay, just hang tight and I’ll be there as fast as I can, alright?”
“Okay. I’m in room number 214. It’s on the second floor.”
As soon as I was done talking to Griff, I pocketed my phone and let Shane know that I would be taking the car. He didn’t seem to mind and he didn’t ask why I needed it, which was good because I had no time to explain. I had to get to Griff before my own demons caught up with me.
* * *
Luck waswith me and I made it to the hospital in record time. Traffic was light that day and I sped right through until I reached the hospital’s parking lot. I parked the car and walked in without letting myself think, which honestly wasn’t that easy. I’d been hospitalized myself just before coming back to Oceanport, and though this was a different hospital, the memories wanting to bubble to the surface didn’t care.
I bit the inside of my lip as I got into the elevator and waited for it to take me up. Once I arrived on the second floor, it took me only a minute to locate the room with the number Griff had given me.
This was it.
I was officially about to meet my boyfriend’s parents. In all the rush, this was the first time that occurred to me. Maybe because I wasn’t meeting Mr. and Mrs. Stevens for theveryfirst time. I had vague recollections of seeing them every now and then when I was a child, but still, this was the first time I was meeting them as the man who wanted to have sex with their son.
Awkward.
But I couldn’t let myself linger on that.
I knocked on the door. It only took a few seconds for Griff to open, as if he'd been waiting on hot coals for me to come. I could just picture that he'd jumped from his chair the moment he'd heard knocking.
“You're here!”
I gave him a smile. “Yeah, I am.” I leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips. I wanted to go for a longer kiss, really, because I was so worried about him, but I couldn't quite get myself to do that before I knew how he felt about kissing in front of his mother and his bedridden father.
