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Jesus, fuck, Sunshine. Don’t read more into it than it is. He’s a kind man, that’s all.
“Are you okay?”
I shake my head, uncertain as to why I can’t mutter once again that I’m fine.
Brent keeps my hand clasped in his as he pushes the table out of the way and stands in front of me.
The tears begin to fall the second he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to his chest. I do my best to sob silently, but the pain is so acute, I can’t manage it. His strong hand rubs up and down my spine as my body convulses with my pain.
He doesn’t pull back and demand to know what’s going on. He just holds me, comforting me with his strength and lack of words.
I should probably pull back. I’ve never acted so unprofessionally before in my life. It doesn’t matter that he’s half a century younger than most of my other patients. He’s still a resident. I’m still getting paid to care for him, and this is crossing a line.
I bolt for the bathroom the second knuckles tap against the door.
“Just a second, please!” Brent calls out, giving me enough time to close myself quietly into the bathroom.
I swear if I lose my job today, I may go insane, but honestly, it would just be the cherry on top of the shit sundae I’ve been dealt in the last twenty-four hours.
“Hi there.” I hear Rachel’s voice. “Mr. Campbell ended up with your dinner, and I figured you might have ended up with his.”
“I was just coming to find someone,” Brent says, the lie slipping easily from his lips.
“Who dropped it off?”
“Don’t know. I was in the restroom. How about we trade?”
Rachel tries to make small talk, but Brent reminds her that Mr. Campbell is waiting for his dinner.
“She’s gone,” he says, his voice so close that I can picture him standing right on the other side of the door.
My face flames with embarrassment when I step out of the bathroom. I can’t even meet his eyes as I step around him and haul ass out of his room.
No one pays enough attention to me to bother asking why my eyes are puffy and wet as I finish helping with the dinner service. I should really stay through to midnight like I’m supposed to, but I don’t have any clue how I’ll be able to face Brent after what I just did.
I check my phone so many times I’ve lost count, but I still haven’t heard back from my attorney’s office. Seeing that it’s after five, I realize I won’t be hearing from him today. It just means tomorrow I’ll have to show up at the office. I can’t spend another day without my son.
Chapter 16
Bishop
I wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I used the phone to order a fucking pizza. Maybe the older folks here are okay with the bland food that’s being served. Hell, maybe it needs to be bland for hundred-year-old digestive systems, but I’m not used to chewing cardboard. The orange on my tray was the only thing I was able to eat, and I only did that because the doctor was right about needing laxatives, and oranges have a lot of fucking fiber.
“Even your thoughts are starting to sound like the old men that were arguing over chess earlier,” I mutter.
I can’t stop thinking about Sunshine and the pain she was going through earlier. She told me the night before while I was in the bathroom getting ready for my shower that she had an emergency. She didn’t offer any information then, and she didn’t offer any earlier either.
With the way she bolted out of here after the tray mix up, I didn’t expect her to come back, but she showed up at six sharp like she always does.
I’m sitting in my bed, because it gives her access to the single chair in the room. I have a million questions, and I want to help her fix whatever her problems are. She wouldn’t even have to ask, and I’d offer anything I had.
I fucking hate seeing women cry.
It broke my heart to wake up and minutes later see tears running down Rivet’s cheeks.
I’ve been manipulated with tears before. My biological mother was famous for them. At an early age, I became an expert on reading people and determining whether someone was using manipulation or if they were truly hurting. Anguish rolled off Sunshine earlier, making me consider she had a death in the family or she’s going through a horrible break-up. She’s shattered, and even as I watch the side of her face now, her eyes are the kind of red that tells me she has spent a lot of the last day crying.
“I won’t rat you out if you want to go home. I’m not planning on doing anything but just sitting here until I crash.”
