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“Sorry,” I murmured.
“Ronan’s on the phone,” Hawke said as he held up his cell phone.
“Is it Matty?” I nearly shouted as I scrambled upright and grabbed for the phone.
Hawke gently put his hand on my shoulder to hold me back and quickly said, “Matty’s fine, Tate. He’s completely fine.”
I blew out a breath and pressed my hand to my thudding chest. “Thank God,” I whispered.
“Ronan just wanted to make sure you made it okay last night. He said you didn’t text him and you didn’t answer your phone.”
“Shit,” I said as I grabbed the phone off the nightstand. “I forgot to charge it last night. It’s dead,” I said as I held the phone up to show him.
“I have a charger in the car,” Hawke said. “Here, talk to Ronan.”
I took the phone from him and reassured Ronan I was fine and apologized for forgetting to let him know I’d made it. Hawke watched me for a moment before leaving the room and a glance to my left showed it was still dark outside. I listened as Ronan gave me a rundown on Matty’s final night of chemo. I pulled the phone away from my ear long enough to check the time and saw that it was only four in the morning so I knew Matty would still be asleep.
“How you holding up?” I heard Ronan ask.
“I’m good,” I said.
“And Hawke?”
I wanted to laugh at that. The man was so unreadable that I had no fucking clue how he was doing. “He didn’t ditch me, so I guess that’s a good sign,” I finally said.
Ronan chuckled. “I wish I could say he’ll warm up, but Hawke is…well, Hawke is Hawke.”
I smiled at that. “Thanks, Ronan. For everything.”
Ronan didn’t respond right away and for a second I thought he’d hung up on me without saying goodbye. “It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?” he finally said.
“What is?”
“Knowing you don’t have to do it alone anymore.”
I swallowed hard at that and managed to say “yeah” before my throat closed up with emotion. I’d suspected I’d found something in Seth and Ronan that I’d been needing for a long time, but to hear Ronan confirm it was nearly too much.
“I’m going to send some pictures to Hawke’s phone in a few minutes since yours is dead, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And I’ll have Matty call you as soon as he wakes up.”
“Okay,” I whispered as I dashed at a stray tear that fell. “Thanks.”
“We’ll talk soon, Tate. Take care and trust in Hawke…there’s no one better to have at your back.”
I managed to say goodbye and then climbed out of bed so that I wouldn’t keep Hawke waiting. It took me just a few minutes to get cleaned up in the bathroom and then I was hurrying down the stairs. I stopped in the living room to see if Hawke was in there, but it was empty. I was about to turn away when I noticed the mantle…the picture was gone.
“You ready?”
I turned to see Hawke standing near the front door. I nodded and handed him his phone but it beeped just as I was giving it to him. I saw that it was a picture from Ronan. “Can I?” I asked Hawke.
He nodded and unlocked the phone for me and gave it back so I could scroll through. I laughed as I realized what I was seeing. In the first picture, a dozen pieces of paper lined the wall of Matty’s hospital room. They all had multiple Tic Tac Toe games on them and on each page was a big “M” in the right hand corner and Matty was standing proudly next to them, a huge smile on his lips as he pointed to the pages. The next picture was of Seth standing in front of only one piece of paper with an “S” written on it. His over exaggerated pout was laughable as he pointed to his meager winnings. The very last picture was of Matty standing side by side with Seth, but this time Matty was wearing a paper crown that he’d clearly colored himself.
I laughed and didn’t resist when Hawke took the phone from me and scrolled through the pictures himself. A brief smile ghosted his lips, but when his gaze shifted to mine, his eyes went dark again and then he was turning away from me.
“We should get going,” he said.
I followed him out of the house and put my bag in the back of the pickup truck. He’d moved my rental car at some point so it was parked next to the garage. He said nothing as he climbed into the truck next to me and in fact, it was almost an hour before he said a word…and that was only to ask what fast food place I wanted to stop at for breakfast.
