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“You still with me, baby?”
“Mmmhm.” I let my eyes close and let my head drift back against the headrest as I picture him. Picture us.
“Call me when you’re alone later. I’m not done with you.”
Iarrive at the hospital twenty minutes later, my body wound so tight after my conversation with Jacob and no release. I only brought a small weekender tote packed with the basic necessities so I’m able to move through the hospital quickly. I’m brought to the floor where Parker is and I’m grateful to learn that he’s stable and not in ICU. When I turn the corner, I hear his mother before I’m even to his room and I let out a deep sigh at the thought of her torturing whatever Doctor assigned to his case. I spot Savannah, Parker’s assistant sitting on a bench in front of the door, her laptop perched in her lap typing away. She looks like she hasn’t slept all night and a part of me wonders why she wasn’t in the car with him.
“Whitney,” she says as she looks up at me.
Her dark curly hair is wild and untamed unlike the tight ponytail it’s usually pulled into. She pushes her glasses onto her head and hops up to give me a hug. Her brown eyes fill with tears when she pulls back.
“Thank God you’re here. Mrs. Anderson hates me,” she says, referring to Parker’s mother.
“Laura hates everyone but Parker.” I give her a small smile and look toward the door where I still hear her barking orders like she has ten years of schooling and a medical degree. Savannah was young, probably about my age. Fresh out of business school. Wide-eyed and bushy tailed about the world and not one of those assistants trying to sleep with her boss. I couldn’t read her at first. Perky, enthusiastic and always willing to give one hundred and ten percent. It was foreign to me that she hadn’t fallen into the allure of trying to seduce her boss for a leg up like so many other assistants and interns at Parker’s company. “One of the good ones.” Parker always said.
“How long have you been here? You weren’t in the car?” I ask and then realize how that may be perceived. “I’m glad you weren’t,” I say, touching her shoulder. “I just assumed…”
“Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Kent were with him. They left the club and I don’t know what happened. Next thing I knew I was getting a call from the hospital and Mrs. Caldwell was hysterical. She and Mr. Kent’s fiancée had gone back to the hotel in a different car.”
I briefly wonder why they’d left their significant others to go somewhere with Parker, but maybe the women were tired and left sooner?
As if she can hear my thoughts, she speaks up. “Mr. Anderson was a little… agitated.” She bites her bottom lip, like she’s struggling to let the words leave her lips.
“What do you mean?”
“He was a little drunk. And umm… Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Kent weren’t exactly helping the situation.” I blink my eyes at her several times. Parker wasn’t a stranger to alcohol but he liked being in control. He didn’t like that alcohol made him someone else. He hated that it made him shed his protective shell he wore and made him more social with “people I don’t even like.”His words.So, to hear him out drinking with Nick Caldwell and Owen Kent, who were always the drunkest at any given work event made me wonder what brought all this on.
“I see. Do you know why he was agitated?” I’m not looking at her. I’m staring at the door, wondering what I’m about to walk into. She doesn’t respond and when I turn back to look at her, she’s staring at me. She tucks an errant curl nervously behind her ear and shifts her weight back and forth between her feet as she looks down avoiding my gaze.
“No.” She answers in a way that leads me to believe she does know and isn’t telling me. Like she’s worried she’s said too much already.Like the answer has to do with me.
Great.
I let out a breath, leaving my bag with Savannah before pushing my way into the room. I draw the curtain back and the room goes silent as all three sets of eyes fall on me, anurse, Parker’s mother and Parker. His brown eyes soften a little when he sees me and I see a smile pull at his lips but he isn’t the first to speak which is surprising given that he’s not intubated.
“Finally! Didn’t your plane land an hour ago?” Laura asks from where she stands. Firmly planted right next to Parker’s bed, his hand in hers. Her red hairby box, not nature though she swears it is,is pulled back into a low ponytail and her brown eyes are cold and icy like they always are when they’re directed at me.
“Umm traffic,” I whisper, before letting my eyes fall to Parker.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly overcome with emotion. He’s fine, he is expected to make a full recovery and yet I feel like the dam is about to burst. Maybe it’s guilt over cheating on him. Cheating on him at probably the exact moment he was getting in an accident. Everything going up in flames both physically and metaphorically. Only he didn’t know that I’d struck a match and decided to set fire to our relationship.
Fuck,I am a terrible person.
It was easy to avoid this thought when I was around Jacob. I wasn’t terrible. I was a woman in love and he was back in my life. I can’t be faulted for being in love, right? Things happen.
But you cheated. You’re a cheater and that you can be faulted for.
Now that he’s across the country and Parker is staring at me with those brown eyes that usually shine nothing but love for me, I feel like absolute shit.
And now I have to break up with him?
Well not now. Fuck no, not right now.
Laura sighs and casts a glance toward Parker. “Honestly, Audrey would have never,” she mutters under her breath but I hear it and I narrow my eyes at her. The narrative that I was simply Parker’s rebound after he broke up with his long-term girlfriend is one I’ve heard before and while it stings slightly less now, it’s still a bitter pill that she believes that he is only with me out of convenience or to fill the void of loneliness. I mean I guess you could say Parker was my rebound as well but he didn’t know that and even if he had knowledge of Jacob at all, I would never allow anyone in my life to infer that to him.
I am so glad I no longer have to worry about her as my mother-in-law.
“You should have been here hours ago,” Parker speaks and I frown at the scolding in his voice. Savannah told me she started calling you at three a.m. east coast time which would have been midnight California time. Since when are you asleep at midnight? And you sleep with your phone under your pillow… foremergencies,” he speaks and his tone is laced with accusations. I can hear the question in his voice though he doesn’t explicitly ask. “So where were you?”
