Freeing my hand, I wrap both of my arms around her shoulders and pull her into me. She comes easily, pressing her face against my chest. It’s not long after that her shoulders start to shake as she releases the tension, emotions, and thoughts she’s been holding onto all night.
My heart aches to make it better for her. To fix it and take the pain she’s feeling away. Right now, all I can do is hold her while she falls apart.
It isn’t until she’s ready to pull away that I loosen my hold on her. Easing back, eyes redder and puffier than they were before, she peers up at me. “Will you take me home?”
I push my fingers through her hair, moving it away from her face as I nod. “Yeah. Of course.”
She bites down on her lip, her eyes sliding away from mine. There’s something else there, and I give it a moment to see if she’ll say it. It takes her nearly a full minute to finally say, “Do you have plans today?”
“My only plan today was to feed you breakfast.”
Fresh tears shine in her eyes, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips as well. “How about a nap and then breakfast for dinner instead?”
“Now that sounds perfect.”
Chapter 21
Bryn
“You’resureyou’regoingto be okay?” I ask Gran for the umpteenth time.
She shoos my hands away with her good one when I try to adjust her blankets. “I won’t be if you keep fussing. Go.”
Heaving a sigh, I put my hands on my hips, glancing around the expansive master bedroom for something to give me strength, but unless I’m throwing her cream armchair out the window, nothing is going to do. “Gran.”
“Bryn, you haven’t left this house in days. I’m fine. It’s time you went and saw that hunky man of yours,” she tells me, a sly smile creeping along her lips.
A fractured wrist, countless stitches in two different places on her head, and bruising on her face that makes her look like she went ten rounds with a pro boxer hardly equates to fine. Not to mention the concussion that has her memory not quite right, and headaches persistently bothering her. Not fine.
Running my hand over my stomach as an anxious bubble swirls within, I sigh. “I won’t be gone long. You promise you’re going to stay in bed until I get back?”
“It’s been three days, Bryn. If I want to get out of bed, I’m going to get out of bed.”
Dropping onto her white, plush comforter, my face pulls into a frown. “Gran.”
Her eyes roll, but it’s accompanied by a slight wince. She pats my hand and smiles to cover the throb in her head I’m sure that caused. “If it’ll get you out of this house, fine, I promise. Though if you’re going to fuss this much, I don’t know why you don’t just invite him here. Then I could finally meet him.”
Forcing a smile onto my face that I don’t feel, I give her hand a squeeze and stand up. “That’s the kind of excitement you don’t need right now.”
It’s only half the truth, but I turn so she can’t see my face. If she knew what I was about to do, she’d try to talk me out of it.
“Excitement keeps me young, dear. Bring him here next time,” she says to my back as I head towards the bedroom door.
Lifting a hand over my head, I call back, “Promise.”
But my stomach churns, knowing there won’t be a next time, no matter how badly it makes my chest ache.
I haven’t seen Wyatt since our breakfast for dinner, which was really somewhere in between lunch and dinner. My mom had called until we woke up, telling me to get back to the hospital so her and my dad could leave. I’d wanted to get back there anyway, but Wyatt had insisted on feeding me since neither of us knew when I’d have an opportunity to have a good meal again. He cooked for me while I took a shower, blew my hair dry, and put on a layer of makeup that would make my mom happy.
The teeth stayed in the back of the bottom drawer in my bathroom, though. Ones she’d forced me to get after I’d snapped my first ones.
The sun shines on my favorite strip in Santa Rosé overlooking the surfing spot Brody frequents as I look for street parking. I see old Betty a block away and know Wyatt beat me here. He surprises me, though. I’m expecting a cowboy hat to be on top of his head, but instead I find him on my favorite bench wearing a blackbaseball hat, backward, a curl peeking out. He looks so…Californian, wearing board shorts and a loose Santa Rosé Fire t-shirt on this blistering hot July day.
He’s the best thing I’ve seen in days besides Gran, and it has tears filling my eyes because nothing feels right.
But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe if things aren’t right, it’ll make it easier.
He jumps to his sandal-covered feet, cowboy boots nowhere to be found, a boyish smile breaking across his devastatingly handsome face, making that right dimple appear. I rejoice in it for just a moment. The happiness he wears so easily all the time. It comes naturally to him, and I love that because it never ceases to be contagious.
