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Mason’s eyebrows go up. “I told you I was going home for an hour to shower and change. It’s been…” He checks his watch. “Fifty-two minutes. Did you forget?”
A chill prickles across my gut. “You can’t abandon your company because I took a spill.” I manage to give the sentence a tune, but it’s broken. Unsteady.
“I’m not abandoning my company, Gabriel. Nothing will happen to Phoenix if I’m out of the office while you recover.”
“Youcan’t.Don’t you get that? You can’t just leave the office. What if something happened to the company? What if we lost the house? You can’t even run anymore. You already lost that. We can’t lose the house.”
Mason’s eyes go wide. Shocked. He looks how I feel, because I have no idea where that came from. I didn’t mean to say any of it. The chill turns to full-blown worry, verging on panic.
He takes three seconds to collect himself. I can practically see him counting. Mason used to do this once he’d healed enough to confront the stress of keeping us all together.
Onone, he crosses the room, lifts one of the slightly-less-uncomfortable chairs away from the wall, and puts it in front of me. Mason sits, his knees only about five inches from mine. There’s no surprise on his face anymore. My older brother’s calm in the face of…whatever this is. It’snota crisis. It’s just that his expression tamps down my rising fear.
It shouldn’t. I know better than anyone that he’s not actually superhuman. He can’t fix everything.
The panic is less, at least. The shame of blurting out something so ridiculous.
“Gabriel.” Mason balances his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. “Running is—don’t worry about that. There’s no house to lose. Phoenix is self-sustaining. It’s been that way for a long time.”
“I know that.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t believe me. “You’re not leaving the hospital.’
My snort-laugh hurts. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Mason rolls his eyes. “I was eighteen and foolish.”
“No.” I can see him at eighteen. I can see his face going gray with pain when the painkillers wore off. I can see the terror in his eyes, and the way he sobbed when one of the doctors told him he’d never run again, might never walk. I can see his refusal to give up, even when it would have been easier. “You were grieving. And desperate. And you did what you had to do to save us.”
He puts up a hand, his cheeks flushing. “Let’s not talk about me right now.”
“Actually, I think we should.”
The nurse—fuck, I can’t remember her name—comes into the room and keeps her eyes professionally averted. She manages to look absorbed with checking the monitors.
Mason’s eyes go slightly darker. “You want to do this here? Now?”
“Yes. Let’s tell Sophia, who’s just trying to do her job, that me leaving the hospital a day early is nothing compared to you hobbling out of here on your broken leg.”
The nurse frowns. “It’s Sandra, Mr. Hill.”
I turn my head to face her, and all of my balance almost goes with it. “His leg was shattered beyond belief when he walked out of the hospital. I have a few bruises. I’ll make it.”
The traitorous nurse exchanges a look with Mason, finishes her checks, and leaves.
I turn back to Mason, my hands aching from holding the side of the bed.
“It’s not a few bruises.” It’s his no-bullshit tone, but he’s softened it for me. “You have at least four cracked ribs. You have a severe concussion that’s causing you extreme pain, and that’s not to mention the memory loss and confusion.”
“I’m not confused.”
“You were just worried about Phoenix and the house. I know you weren’t talking about your brownstone. There was only one house we ever worried about like that.”
“I didn’t mean to say it, Mason. I know what year it is.”
“You’re still being monitored for organ contusions. Everything hurts so much because you have bone contusions in addition to the cracked ribs. It’s serious, Gabriel.”
“And guess what? You don’t have a lock on being the only sacrificial lamb in the Hill family. Why do you think I went through with that initiation? I got to choose that. Not you.”
