I shook my head and opened my eyes to stare at the woman I considered family “I don’t know, Ash. I have no idea at all.” I rose from her bedside.
“You really shouldn’t leave your phone on silent,” she admonished.
“I won’t let it happen again,” I assured her. “I need to hold my children.”
She climbed out of bed. “Me too. I just needed a moment to fall apart by myself.” Ash hastily wiped her cheeks. “How do I look?”
“You might want to splash some cool water on your face,” I suggested.
She sighed. “Gone are the days where I don’t look like I’ve been up all night, or crying, or wearing my emotions on my skin.”
Gone are the days of our youth.
While Ash washed her face, I turned on my phone. It pinged with several missed messages and voicemails. I scrolled through them, one by one.
My phone rang and I answered it. “Hey, love.”
“Don’they loveme,” Flynn snapped. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours. Where the hell have you been?”
“Went for a drive,” I lied. “My phone was on silent.”
“Hen,” he began. “You can’t do that. You can’t. Not ever, and especially at a time like this. You know better.”
Ash made a gesture that she was going to leave and give me privacy. I nodded.
She closed the door behind her.
“Hen?” Flynn prodded. “I need you to answer me.”
Under different circumstances, I would’ve raised my hackles and put up a fight at his high-handed tone. But there was too much going on and I didn’t have it in me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, truly contrite.
He sighed. “You scared the shite out of me.”
“It won’t happen again. I’ll be more vigilant.”
“This isn’t like you, Barrett. You haven’t been this absent-minded in a long time.”
I thought for sure this was the moment that he’d call me out on my erratic behavior and then I wouldn’t be able to hold back what I knew—what I still hadn’t quite come to grips with.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“With Ash. She told me about Ramsey. Is he going to…”
“There’s no change in his status yet. Duncan is en route to him.”
“This is awful,” I whispered. “Every bit of it.”
“Aye.”
“Do you think this is a coincidence?”
“It seems far too coincidental,” he said. “But I don’t know for sure.”
“I hope he wakes up,” I said quietly. “We’ve lost too much the past few years.”
“Story of our lives, it seems.”
