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“Is he okay?”
“Talk to your brother, Max.”
• • •
“What the hell?” My brother rubbed his eyes. “Are you drunk? It’s two in the morning.”
I brushed by him and entered his apartment.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
He shook his head. “Not this crap again.”
“I’m not screwing around, Austin. I know something is going on with you, and Teagan won’t tell me, which means it has something to do with your health.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not leaving until I get the truth. So you might as well get it over with and start talking.”
My brother’s face changed to something resigned. “Take a seat.”
He walked over to the cabinet and took out a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. Filling them both, he held his up to me before sucking it back. I followed his lead. Austin poured a second, but only filled his glass this time.
“I had back pain for a while. I figured I’d pulled something. But it didn’t get better. Then I started to have trouble running. I’d get winded in half a block when I used to be able to run ten miles without breaking a sweat. One night, I was getting a bottle of water from the fridge, and the next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor. I’d passed out. So I went to the ER.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You were away for a hockey game. That’s the night I met Teagan. I didn’t remember her at first. She hadn’t said much, just shadowed the doctor as he went from patient to patient. It wasn’t until I saw her in scrubs that I remembered. I guess seeing her in context jogged my memory.”
“Okay…but what happened at the hospital?”
“They ran some tests, took X-rays, and did an ultrasound. When they came back, the doctor told me I had an abdominal aortic aneurysm.”
My eyes widened. “Like Dad?”
Austin nodded. He lifted the shot glass from the table and knocked the second one back.
I dragged a hand through my hair. “What can they do for it?”
“They can take it out surgically. But there’s always the risk of it rupturing during the procedure.”
Which was exactly what had happened to our father, and he’d died on the table. This time, I poured the shots. After we each drank another, I shook my head.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you’re going to tell me I’m young and healthy, so my chances are better than Dad’s were, so I should just have the surgery to reduce the risk of it rupturing itself.”
“Is that what the doctor recommends?”
Austin nodded. “He said if I don’t get it taken care of soon, walking will probably become difficult. I’m already winded just going from my car to class. I feel like an eighty-year-old man.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like you have much choice then. If you’re not living life the way you want, you’re dying anyway.”
“I’m fucking scared, Max.”
“Of course you’re scared. But you gotta talk about it if you’re going to get past that. If you don’t deal with it, you’re just giving your fears more power. You can’t let shit fester.”
My brother frowned. “I don’t want to fucking die.”
“You’re not going to die. Have you gotten a second opinion yet?”
He shook his head.
“Alright. That’s where we start. Does Mom know?”
“No. And you’re not telling her either. She’s barely over losing Dad.”
“So, what? You just plan on having the surgery and not telling anyone? In that case, you’ll definitely die, even if the surgery is a success. Because Tate will kill you.”
Austin smiled sadly. “Not yet, okay? I don’t want anyone else to know—at least until I figure out what I’m doing.”
“But you’ll get a second opinion and let me go with you?”
Austin nodded. “Fine. But promise me you aren’t going to say anything.”
“I’ll do you one better. I won’t say anything, and I promise I’m not going to let you die.”
CHAPTER 23
* * *
Georgia
“I’m in love with Max.”
Maggie’s eyes flashed to me and back to the road. “Well that’s nice to know. But where the hell did that come from? We’ve been together since I picked you up to go to the warehouse at six o’clock this morning. I’ve tried to prod you into talking about things a half dozen times. And you pick now to spring that on me? At nine o’clock at night, after a fifteen-hour day, when we’re five minutes away from your apartment?”
I smiled. “Sorry. It’s been a long few days, and I haven’t slept well. I’m really tired, and normally the only thing I want to do when I’m exhausted is crawl into my own bed and knock out. Gabriel and I have argued over it more than once. Like when we’ve rolled out new products, and I spent every night working really late? He would tell me to come stay at his place, but I wouldn’t because I just wanted to be in my own bed. I’m exhausted right now, but I would rather go over to Max’s apartment and snuggle and sleep with him and his two dogs that snore than have my entire bed to myself. And it made me realize that a shitty night of sleep with Max is better than a good night of sleep alone, and that’s because I’m in love with him.”
