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Nurses and doctors turn to scowl at my brother.
I ditch the thick cup of coffee I’d been trying to choke down and sprint down the hallway.
“He’s waking up.”
“Well, call the doctor, not me.” I lunge for the call button and Marcel stops me.
“I already did.”
Blake groans, and I cry in relief.
A doctor and nurse rush in and check him over.
“Blake, can you hear us?” I keep repeating as they check his eyes and motor responses.
He groans again, and I burst into tears.
“That should do it, he hates when you cry.” Marcel pokes me.
“Shut up.” I slap him back.
“Mr. O’Callaghan, can you move your fingers for me?” the doctor asks.
A few seconds later, the doctor steps back and mutters something to the nurse.
“Come on, Murphy,” Charlotte encourages. “I can’t hold down the ginger power pact on my own. You know Hope’s not ginger enough.”
The doctor casts a strange look at her.
“He’ll know what I’m talking about.” Charlotte flicks her fingers at him. “Keep doing what you’re doing, doc.”
“Heidi?” Blake croaks out.
I practically knock the nurse out of my way to get to Blake’s side. I grab his fingers, careful not to disturb the IV in the back of his hand.
Then he’s quiet and still again.
“Blake?”
“It’s okay,” the doctor says. “This is a good sign.”
Forty-Five
Murphy
“Last chance to run.” Teller knocks on my hospital door and shoves it all the way open. He holds up a garment bag.
“That better not be a suit.”
“Come on. At least you won’t flash your ass to the whole hospital.”
According to the doctors, I’ve made steady progress since I regained consciousness. Enough to let me wheel my ass down the hall to the chapel and get married. Not enough to get the fuck out of here.
I quit my bitching enough to notice Teller’s also been forced into a suit for the occasion. “Heidi do that to you?”
“No, Charlotte did. But I assume Heidi put her up to it.” He waves the suit at me again. “You’re going to look like a jackass if your best man’s wearing a suit and you’re in your jammies.”
Laughing hurts my head and I groan.
“What’s wrong?” Teller shoots straight back to serious.
“My head fucking hurts.” I grab the suit from him and lumber into the bathroom. Still can’t look in the damn mirror. I don’t care what Heidi says, I look like a naked grizzly bear. Feel like one too.
I emerge from the bathroom and find Teller waiting for me with a wheelchair.
“I don’t need a wheelchair, you dick.”
“I think I liked you better when you were unconscious.” He pushes the wheelchair toward me. “Just get in it and shut up.”
I squeeze between him and the wheelchair and go sit in a chair by the bed instead. “I liked you better when I was unconscious too. You were nicer, for sure.”
His eyes widen and he goes completely still. “What are you talking about?”
“You know.” I wave my hand at the bed “When you told me how much you loved me and needed me.”
“You remember that?” he asks slowly.
“So, you admit it.”
He drops into the chair next to me. “Nah, you must’ve been hallucinating. That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Don’t fuck with me. I had some weird fucking nightmares, but I know you talked to me. Rock did too.”
“He did?” He raises an eyebrow. “What’d he say?”
“How he loves me more than you.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Now I know you’re lying.” His teasing expression fades. “All of us were in here talking to you all the time. Wrath threatened you.”
“Naturally.”
“Ravage read you a book of dirty jokes.”
“Surprised he can read.”
He snorts. “I’m pretty sure Charlotte and Lilly read an entire romance novel out loud.” His smile fades. “Heidi brought Alexa in to see you.”
“Wish she hadn’t done that.” I stare at him for a few seconds. “So, tell me about all the stuff you’ve been hiding from me.”
He doesn’t answer. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t already know about my best friend, so I start guessing. “You knock Charlotte up? I won’t be mad if you have one before Heidi and I have another.”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds.
Fuck. Did I hit the jackpot? No, he’d be happier. “Marcel?”
“You don’t want to talk about this today,” he finally says. “It’s your wedding day.”
“That means you have to do what I want, brother.”
“Fine.” He lets out a deep sigh. “We…were. She was.” His troubled eyes meet mine and I feel like absolute shit for joking around now. For forcing him into this conversation. “Don’t say anything to anyone.”
“You know I won’t.”
He sits back and runs his hands through his hair. “She wasn’t that far along. Nine and a half weeks, I think.”
“I’m so sorry, brother.”
He sighs again. “We didn’t tell anyone yet because it was too early but after…I wished we had, you know? Like, maybe it wouldn’t have happened? I felt so fucking guilty because I was away. Rushed back as fast as I could.”
“Where were you?”
He waves his hand in the air, dismissing the question. “This was right before Grace was born. That’s why Charlotte didn’t want to say anything.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“I felt fucking powerless. I never wanted her to go through that. Can’t stand her hurting. It’s the worst feeling in the world when there’s nothing I can do to make it better.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. It feels so inadequate, especially since I forced him into talking about this when he clearly didn’t want to. “I wouldn’t have asked if—”
“I feel better now that you know.”
“Does Heidi know? She and Charlotte are close.”
“Nah, like I said, Charlotte didn’t want to tell anyone.”
It makes sense now that Charlotte didn’t show up to see baby Grace right away. Teller told everyone she was busy with a case at work and we all just accepted it. “I hate knowing you two went through that alone.”
“Bro, the only thing I could do for her was honor her wish not to tell anyone.”
“I understand.” Thank fuck, my memory is intact. I go back over those couple of months. The paternity suit with Inga the whole club got pulled into. I was working my ass off at Furious for the grand re-opening. Teller up and left at some point. “That why you ran off to Canada?”
“No,” he answers quickly.
I’ve poked at Marcel’s sensitive spots enough for one day, so I don’t pressure him for more.
Someone else knocks on my door. A nurse rushes in to check my vitals
and scribble down some notes. I swear to fuck someone’s in here annoying me every fifteen minutes.
Teller checks his phone while I’m getting prodded.
After the nurse leaves, Teller turns his phone my way. “Girls are headed down. Let’s get you to the chapel.” He grabs the tie I left at the end of the bed and ties it into a noose around my neck.
If I treat him too gently because of what he just shared with me, it’ll just piss him off. So the dickhead in me decides to be, well, a dick. “I’m not getting in that wheelchair. You should give me a piggyback ride.”
“Just get in the fucking chair.”
“Thank God you didn’t go into a healing profession,” I grumble. “Your bedside manner is shit.”
I grip the sides of the wheelchair, annoyed to be in it, but not entirely sure my big ass could lumber down the hallway on its own. Not that I’d admit that to Teller.
“You know, we’re way too young to have wheeled each other around in wheelchairs as much as we have,” he says as he squeezes the chair through the door.
“Watch my elbows.” I cross my arms over my chest. “What are you yammering about?”
“Me after the accident. You now.”
“You’d think we live dangerous lives or something,” I quip.
“Yeah.”
I tug at the tie he wrapped around my neck. “Was this necessary? Did the doctor approve it?”
He snorts at my question. “Did you really just ask me that?”
“I don’t do ties.”
“Apparently, today you do.”
I’m having second thoughts.
About the suit and tie. Not the wedding.
My only consolation is that Teller’s in a suit, too, and I know he hates it as much as I do.
When we arrive at the chapel doors, I put the brakes on. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Murphy, you look so handsome.” Charlotte clasps her hands together in front of her face while her eyes gloss over with tears. “I’m so happy to see you up. You had us so worried,” she whispers.
