Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
You spent your whole life taking care of her, Jackson. Even when she should have been the one taking care of you. Steph’s words rattle around in my head, and I know she’s right.
With a sigh, I get out of the Jeep and make my way inside.
“How you doing, Mr. Gibbs?” one of the nurses asks.
“Good. How’s Mom?”
“She didn’t have the best day. She’s sleeping now, though.”
The fist squeezing my insides gets worse. I let her give me an update and once I realize it’s nothing major, I make my way into Mom’s room.
She’s sleeping just as the nurse said she was. I don’t want to wake her, so I take a seat in the chair and wait. One of my favorite things about it here is that every room is private. It’s more like a home environment than some of the places out there.
I hang around for an hour but she doesn’t wake up, so I walk over to her—take in the droop on the left side of her face. Her hair has gone gray and she’s thin—so fucking thin. She’s not the wild, grab-life-by-the-balls woman I grew up with. The one who could never settle down for anything, even me.
“I gotta go. Love you, Ma.” I lean over and kiss her forehead before heading out of the room. I have to make a payment because her insurance doesn’t cover everything. If I’d put her in a less expensive home, it would have been less of a financial strain, but her comfort had been more important.
The office is close to the locked Alzheimer’s unit. Once I fork over some money, I make it partway down the hall before a shock of blond hair catches my attention through a window. It’s to one of the commons facilities with tables, televisions, and a small stage where folks come in to entertain once a month.
I cock my head, unable to believe what I see.
As someone opens the door to leave, I catch it before it closes, and listen.
“Okay…watch this trick next, Randy.” Derek looks at a gentleman in a wheelchair and then at the group of about ten other patients around him. “Friends,” he adds with a smile.
I watch with rapt attention like the patients do while Derek performs a silly magic trick, cracking jokes the whole time. When he’s finished, they all clap and cheer for him. It’s obvious they’re familiar with him.
They know him.
This doesn’t feel like the same man who stumbled into my Jeep.
“Will you teach me to dance one time?” an elderly woman asks him.
“Yes, ma’am. I absolutely will. I’m a fucking awesome dancer.”
I don’t know why, but I roll my eyes at his reply. Still, as I do there’s a smile on my face and my heart is racing. Who the hell is this guy?
I would never have expected this.
“What about you, Randy? What do you want me to teach you?” Derek kneels beside the man, looking at him with so much affection, I feel as though I’m doing something wrong by watching. Like I’m invading a private moment between them.
He wouldn’t want me to see this. I know he wouldn’t.
And I can understand that.
Which is why, as much as I want to stay, I slink out.
I don’t stop thinking about it the whole drive to my apartment.
An hour later, as I’m sitting in front of the television, Derek is still on my mind.
4
Derek
I jog between Gary and Hayden in Boulder Crest Park, just a few blocks from Metropolis—the condo building we all live in.
We’ve worked up a sweat. In a pair of blue running shorts, shirtless, Hayden wears a black armband that holds his iPhone. His dark hair is gelled to the side. I’ve mentioned he needs to come by the salon for a trim before I start hacking at it with a pair of scissors. I trimmed Gary’s thick sandy-blond hair the other day, and I deserve an award for that since his cowlick is fucking unmanageable.
We’ve been meeting up the past few weeks to train for the Alzheimer’s 10K—something Gary and Hayden can’t understand the importance of to me because I haven’t told them about my uncle, Randy. I was just glad they didn’t ask questions when I told them I wanted to sign up to be around all the hottie runners.
I notice an older guy doing burpees on the grass beside the walkway we’re running on. His chest hair reminds me of my encounter with Jackson a few weeks ago.
As we pass him, I growl.
“Down, boy,” Hayden teases.
“Careful with that growl,” Gary adds as he lifts his tank up to wipe his brow. “Sounds a little masc. You wouldn’t want anyone mistaking you for a top.”
Hayden chuckles. “Yeah, you don’t want to confuse all the guys on your big gay cruise in October.”
“Oh, there will not be any confusion. I have not been busting my ass with cardio and weights for the past few months so that I can be hot as fuck for nothing.”