Page 81 of What Hurts Us

I loved his weird aversion to having multiple dishes in a house. The way I could pull a smile out of him even on his worst day. His grumpy ass before he had coffee in the morning. I loved watching him walk around the house with a towel around his hips.

I loved the way he loved.

Callum loved everyone sacrificially, even though he rarelylikedthem.

I curled up on the floor of the guest room because it was just that. A guest room. A landing pad. A temporary respite.

It wasn’t my home. Not for long, anyway.

My phone rang, and I dug frantically through the mess of clothes that needed to be packed. Gran’s name lit up the screen. I let out a slow breath, trying to quell the tremor in my voice before answering.

“Hello?”

“Well, hey, sweetheart,” Gran drew out as though my answering the call was a surprise. “What’cha up to today?”

I wiped the dampness from my eyes. “Oh, uh. Not much. Just some…”Packing my things because your grandson no longer needs me.“Just some things around the house.”

“Think you could spare a minute and drop by?”

That was odd. Gran was getting up there in age, but she was a hell-raiser, notDriving Miss Daisy.“Um, sure. What’s up?” I dumped a sweater off a hanger, rolling it into a log to be vacuum sealed in a giant plastic bag.

She sighed. “I took a bit of a spill and am havin’ some trouble gettin’ up. These old bones ain’t workin’ right today.”

I was already running down the stairs. “Have you called 911?” I snatched my keys off the little entryway table, grabbed my purse, and shoved my feet in the first pair of shoes I could find. I was out the door before she even responded.

Gran scoffed. “I don’t need no twenty-thousand-dollar taxi taking me to the hospital when I have a soon-to-be granddaughter right down the road.”

I peeled out onto the street, heading in the direction of Gran’s house. If she broke a hip, riding in my car would be excruciating. I made a complete stop at a sign—suck it, Cal—and fired off a text to Hutch.

Layla:911. Gran fell.

His response was instantaneous.

Shane:En Route. Dispatch is calling Fletcher.

Thank heavens for small towns.I pressed the phone to my ear and weaved through mid-day traffic. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Shane is working today, and he’s on the way now. I have someone calling Cal.”

Gran snorted. “No need for all that fuss. You act like I’m the Queen of England.”

I laughed. “You’re basically the queen of the town. Might as well enjoy the perks of being smothered the way you smother everyone else.”

I arrived at Gran’s tidy one-story cottage seconds before the ambulance came rip-roaring down the driveway, spitting gravel behind it.

“Gran?” I hollered as I yanked open the screen door and hurried into the house. I’d only been here once—a dinner she insisted upon after the proposal.

“In here!” she called from the kitchen.

Gran was on the floor, slumped against the cabinets. She had managed to open the fridge and was eating cold chicken and pastry out of a Country Crock container.

I dropped to my knees beside her, leaving the door open so Shane and Missy could pull the gurney through. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Gran huffed as if it was all one big inconvenience. “Tripped on my own fuckin’ shoelaces.”

“What hurts?”

“What hurts?” she parroted with a cackle. “Sweetheart, at my age, everything hurts.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.So, this is why Callum was so tightly wound.“Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten.”

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