Page 10 of Reckless
As Kelly walked with me to where my mom lay in a bed behind her own curtain, I took in her curvy figure out of the corner of my eye. The top of Kelly’s head was barely higher than my shoulder, her nurse shoes silent on the shiny tile floor. The scent of candied cherries surrounded her, making my cock twitch in my pants.
I needed to shut that shit down. It wouldn’t do to get a boner in the emergency room my mother was checked in to. Especially over an ex-girlfriend who was obviously not happy to see me.
No, notanex.Theex. The only ex, because I’d never gotten serious with another woman after her.
I was torn about mom seeing her. She’d always had the hope that, somehow, we’d get back together. But Kelly had been inconsolable back then, so sure that she could never leave New Hope, and so sure that she didn’t want me to stay with her either. And I’d been useless in the face of her pain. Her pain and my own.
Her dad had been the closest thing I’d ever had to one. I’d never had a father, as mine hadn’t even stuck around long enough to see me born. It had always been just me and my mom, and Kelly’s family was the next best thing to having a family of my own. They’d been close-knit, Kelly and Stephen, unlike any siblings I knew. They actually liked one another and even hung out. They got along well with their parents, it was a home filled with laughter and love.
Not that I ever felt deprived. My mom was an awesome enough parent, but I loved the noise of the Cavendish home. That asshole drunk driver destroyed a really good family. He might have lost his own life in the accident and paid the ultimate price, but he took half of the Cavendishs with him.
And I lost Kelly that day too. Her heart died along with her father and brother. The love she had felt for me had gotten lost in the deep well of her pain.
I hoped Mom would be presentable when we reached her partitioned off area. The nurse aid had been changing her gown when I’d stepped out. I didn’t want to upset Kelly. Whatever was going on with my mom had made her lose weight in a remarkably short amount of time. Her skin and eyes were a strange yellow color that had made my heart sink when I’d first seen her. She was weak, her legs like jelly when she stood. I didn’t want to think the worst, but my mind kept darting there regardless. Something seemed to be destroying her from the inside out.
And I couldn’t shake the suspicion that everyone here knew more than I did.
“So, what’s happening with your mom?” Kelly stuck to a safe topic as I hung back from the curtain Mom was behind to fill her in.
“I don’t know, really.” I raked my fingers through my hair, her eyes following their path, as if she hadn’t noticed how much longer it was. “I was on tour in New York, we’d just done a show, and she called me. It was late last night, and she sounded so weird, not like herself. I got here as fast as I could, had to skip out on the next show.” The words spilled from my lips, and as Kelly’s face twisted up, I realized I’d come across as pretentious.
“Oh, that must have been…a hard decision to make.” She seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.
Idiot!I wanted to smack my forehead. “No, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I’m just…I haven’t had much sleep.”
Discomfort crept through me, a hot reminder that even though this was Kelly Cavendish—the girl I knew better than anyone in the world, the only woman I’d ever loved—she was now a mere stranger.
“I understand.” Kelly was using what I was sure was her nurse voice, and I wondered again how she ended up here, nursing sick people. “Has she complained to you about feeling sick before?”
“Well, this morning she confessed that she’d fainted a couple of times, but I’m sure she’s playing it down for me. You know how protective she is, she tries to shield me from everything.”
Kelly shot me the briefest of smiles. It wasn’t much, but it made my pulse rate speed up dramatically. That smile took me back to a time when it was the one thing I lived for. Back then, I never thought I’d have to live without it.
“I hope she’ll be happy to see me.” Kelly pulled back the curtain, stepping into the nurse role that was unfamiliar to me. And hot.Back then, she’d been cute, sexy even.Now, she was pinup-girl hot, dressed in nurse garb.Damn. I needed to get sick real quick. I tried not to grimace as my cock pulsed.
“Let me raise your bed, Ms. Strickland. I’ll—”
“I don’t need anyone to raise my bed for me, thank you very much, I’m not dead yet! I can raise it myself.” Mom glared at the nurse and snatched the remote out of her hand, jabbing her finger onto the button.
This was why I never needed a father figure. Mom’s personality filled whatever room she happened to be in, and she was never afraid to tell it like it was.
“Mom, she’s only trying to help.”
The glare turned my way. “Gage, you shouldn’t even be here. I told you not to come. You don’t get a say…” The glare turned into wide-eyed surprise before morphing into pure pleasure. “Kelly?”
Beside me, Kelly turned up her smile by several degrees. “Hi, Ms. Strickland.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help out here.” Mom didn’t even hear me, her face lighting up as she cooed Kelly’s name again.
Mom’s eyes shot back to me. “I’m at the hospital, aren’t I? Let me take it from here.”
With what I was sure had to be the sheer determination of an ox, she hoisted herself up on the pillows and peeled the sleeve of her robe back to let her blood pressure be taken.
My eyes collided with Kelly’s, and we shared a knowing look. My mom was a whole lot of fun, but I wasn’t sure she’d be the best patient ever. Relief shot through me that Mom’s stubbornness had thawed Kelly toward me, even if only for a minute.
When the nurse was finished and made her exit, the atmosphere automatically thickened.
The last time the three of us had been in the same room, Kelly’s family had still been whole. We’d been a couple. Life had been good. Everything left unsaid shimmered just below the surface, a heavy cloud of the past hanging in a low fog.
