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“Emily, are you there?” Michael’s voice snaps me back to reality.
I smile at him and nod, but I can’t help but look at Evan again before I put my eyes on the computer.
“What were we saying?” I ask.
They all chuckle, and I raise my head toward them again.
“I hope yourhoneymoon phasewith Evan doesn’t last long because if you can’t concentrate, that’s gonna be a problem for Jail Records,” Damian laughs amusedly, and I blush like a little girl.
“It’s not Evan that’s distracting me, or at least, not for the reasons you think,” I mumble.
He frowns and turns around to study his friend, who is still arguing on the phone. The expression on his face becomes as tense and worried as mine.
“Do you think he’s adding too much pressure on top of what he already has?” The apprehension in Simon’s voice is evident.
“I hope not. He doesn’t need any more stress right now,” I inhale deeply and rub a hand over my face.
Everyone watches me, a little worried, then look at Evan when he raises his voice on the phone. They’re his friends, and it can’t be easy for them to see him go from Mr. Perfection to a wreck in a matter of weeks.
“He’ll have a heart attack sooner or later,” Thomas comments without irony.
I look up at Evan and remember that night like it was yesterday. The fear in his eyes as he looked at me begging for help, and the helplessness I felt holding him in my arms without being able to do anything is still vivid in my nightmares.
“Don’t even joke like that. I’ve already lived through that once, and I don’t want to repeat it,” I say softly. They’re shocked by my statement, and I immediately realize I’ve said too much.
“Excuse me? He had a heart attack?” Damian asks, dumbfounded.
Evan relieves me from the embarrassment of having to answer by entering the conference room. Everyone turns around toward him.
“Sorry I’m late.” He freezes in the middle of the room when he realizes they’re all staring at him, wide-eyed.
“You had a heart attack and didn’t tell us?” Michael asks incredulously.
Evan throws a scolding look at me, and I shake my head. I honestly thought he would have told his best friends. He sighs and sits next to me on the couch, the tension evident in his every gesture.
“It wasn’t a heart attack. It was stress and an ulcer that I’m treating.”
“And a probable panic attack that got you hospitalized instantly,” I warn him not to minimize what happened, afraid he’ll go back to underestimating his health risks.
“They hospitalized you?” Damian snaps in disbelief.
“He collapsed to the ground clutching his chest and struggling to breathe. When the ambulance arrived, I thought I was going to die too. I’ll never forget that night.”
For several reasons, I’ll never forget it, but Evan on the ground still gives me nightmares.
“And it didn’t cross your mind to tell us?” Thomas asks, gaping incredulously.
“I was only in the hospital one night, and it wasn’t a heart attack. I’m fine,” Evan replies with a vein of exasperation in his voice.
The way he tries to protect the people he loves by hiding things infuriates me. These are his friends. Of course they’re worried about his health!
“We would have flown overnight to the hospital!” Michael counters.
Evan sighs and lowers his head, exasperated by the conversation. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you anything. You’re drama queens. You freak out about every tiny problem.”
“You call hospitalization atiny problem?” Simon snaps.
Evan turns to me with a pleading expression as if to ask me to bail him out of this situation, but I can’t do it.
