Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“I do.”
“Then don’t run away from this. Stay.”
This time when the phone rang it was a different ringtone. Driver cursed, grabbed his cell phone from the table and hit the off button.
“I’m still here,” Driver said with his back to Tam.
“But I’m so scared of you leaving.”
“I can’t give you promises.” When he turned there were lines of grief at the corners of his eyes and lips.
“Driver, I’ve fallen in—”
“No! Don’t say it. God, don’t say it, Tam.” He clutched the back of the chair, eyes begging. “I won’t be able to say it back and you’ll hate me.”
Tam pinched back the confession even though it killed him. On shaky legs, he stood. “Okay. Some things don’t need to be said aloud anyway.”
Driver winced. Then his phone buzzed. “For fuck’s sake!” He grabbed it and checked the text message. His anger fell away in an instant. “Shit.”
At the look of utter dread that transformed Driver’s expression, Tam’s heart dropped to his toes. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something has happened.” He dialed and brought the phone to his ear. “Brandon?” So many emotions crossed his face while he listened to whatever his friend had to say but the worst was terror. “Which hospital?”
When he hung up he was pale and trembling. He crossed to the bag in the corner and pulled out his clothes. “I have to go. My grandmother had a stroke.”
“Oh God. Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s been taken to the emergency room. My grandfather only called Brandon because he couldn’t reach me.” And there was the guilt. Tam had been waiting for it to show its ugly face.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I—I—” He seemed lost as he looked around the room. “My keys?”
“Maybe you should take a taxi.”
Driver snatched his leather coat from the back of the chair and found his keys in the pocket. “I’ll be fine.”
Tam closed the distance between them and grabbed his elbow. “Driver.”
Their eyes met but neither of them spoke. So much was going unsaid and yet the important stuff was declared with perfect clarity.
Softly, Driver said, “I need to go.”
With a single nod, Tam stepped away. Together they left the apartment and as Driver’s long strides took him out of sight, Tam didn’t make a move to enter his own apartment until he was gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Driver was barely holding himself together by the time he found his grandfather in the Greenwich Hospital emergency waiting room. He’d gotten lost twice on the way because he’d been so focused on the gnawing fear taking over his mind he’d missed the turns. His stomach was clenched so tight it had begun to ache and he was slick from a cold sweat.
“Gramps,” he said, drawing his grandfather’s attention.
He’d aged twenty years since the dinner Driver had walked out on. He looked so worn out and worried that all of Driver’s fears seemed weak in comparison. Those wide shoulders that used to carry Driver were hunched like Gramps was carrying the weight of the world. Even when he looked up and saw Driver, not a glimmer of light shone through the darkness in his eyes. He held his trembling hand out though, and Driver pushed his own distress aside to comfort the man who’d given him so much.
“Thank you for coming,” Gramps said, his voice cracking from emotion and disuse. Because he hadn’t been certain Driver would, and what kind of grandson did that make him then? If his own grandfather couldn’t be sure of something so critical? But that uncertainty was what Driver had earned, it was his weight to carry.
“Any news?” Driver asked as he held his grandfather’s withered hand and sat beside him.
“They rushed her in about an hour ago, no one has come out yet.”
“Let me ask.” He stood to go to the nurses’ station but his grandfather’s grip tightened.
“Come right back?”
Driver breathed through his nose. “I will.”
There was only one nurse behind the desk. “Excuse me?” he asked. She looked so harassed Driver felt bad for interrupting her, but she looked up from the computer, full of compassion instead of the annoyance he expected.
“How can I help you?”
“My grandmother, Edith Jones, was brought in an hour ago. Is there any update?”
“Let me check for you, one second.” She went back to clicking on the computer, then pushed her rolling chair across the floor to a pile of files. Grabbing one, she returned to the window. “The EMTs gave her medication in the ambulance. She’s stable and the doctor is examining her now. Someone will be out shortly.”
“Thanks.”
Back at his grandfather side, he forced a small smile. “She’s a fighter.”
Gratitude shone in Gramps’s tired eyes. “That she is.”
“A doctor will be out soon. She’s in stable condition.”
Weight visibly lifted from his grandfather’s back, he nodded more to himself than Driver. “She’s going to be okay.”