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I heard him pull in a breath. “Okay. Okay. Thank you, Bristol.”
“Do you need me to call anyone?” I asked quickly before he hung up.
“No. The other boys are here already.”
“Okay. Okay, we’ll be there soon then.” We hung up, and unable to calm enough to go back inside, I paced outside the doors, listening to the interplay inside and hating that I’d have to upset Axel. Taking deep breaths, I crossed my arms around my middle, staring at the door. I had to be calm. I had to be the rock he needed.
He’d been in a great mood, and I’d have to crush it.
To my surprise, that wasn’t what happened. The panelists came out of the gym first. Even as he exited, Axel looked back and forth, clearly searching for someone, his eyes wild. When his gaze locked on me, he beelined toward me as inexorably as if drawn by a tractor beam. He’d been looking for me, worried aboutme.
“Why did you leave?” he asked. His hands clamped around my upper arms as he stared down at me, his face tight with worry. “What happened?”
“How did you know I left?”
“I saw you get up. I saw the phone in your hand. Then you didn’t come back,” he clipped out. “What is it? Marta—”
“No. Not her. Like you saw, I got a phone call. There was an accident. We have to go to the hospital. Your mom—”
Axel was already dragging me toward the front doors, and I ran to keep up while digging my keys out of my purse.
“What happened?” he demanded. Tension strung through him while we practically jogged from the building and out into the cold air, without even grabbing our jackets. I didn’t care about outerwear. I’d text Sadie or Oak or Barke to grab them. I’d have to tell them what happened, anyway.
“I don’t know other than there was an accident on the highway, and your dad asked me to bring you.”
“My mom?”
“He just said they called him, and they haven’t told him anything yet.”
“Fuck, that’s not good,” he muttered.
My lime green car stood out like a beacon in the lot, and Axel sprinted toward it, with me on his heels. For the first time I could ever remember, he went to the passenger side, a sure sign he was shaken up.
I wasted no time climbing behind the wheel then driving us the ten minutes to the Cherish Cove hospital. Before we had gotten halfway there, Axel was on his phone with his brother, Van, after being unable to reach his father.
“Yeah. We’re pulling into the lot,” he told Van after his brother had rehashed everything he knew—twice—the two of them swearing more than normal, frustration overwhelming them both. “We’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“They had Dad go back to be with Mom,” he told me after hanging up. Which meant she was alive. Hopefully conscious.
“That’s a good sign, though, right?” I hoped so. Molly had always been like a mom to me, too. She’d been through so much—this whole family had. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. She had to be okay. The idea of anything horrible happening to her after everything she’d endured was unfair and terrifying.
Axel shoved a hand through his hair, looking out the side window. He huffed a shaky sigh. “We don’t know anything yet—Van and Aston don’t know anything yet. But Aston’s trying to get some info. Someone hit her on the highway, changed lanes right into her and knocked into her car hard enough she skidded across the shoulder and down into the median. Her car rolled. Asshole didn’t even stop.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “Were there witnesses?”
“Don’t know. I can’t believe this,” Axel muttered beside me. He caught my fingers in his hard grip after I put the car in park. “Stay with me.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” I promised, reaching over to cup his face. I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”
He jerked a nod before we both climbed out of the vehicle. His hand clamped around mine again as soon as we met at the back of the trunk. I’d just become his lifeline. I tightened my own grip and glanced over at him while we hustled across the pavement. If he needed a touchstone, I’d be it. I’d be anything he needed.
If the past years had taught me anything, it was how fleeting things could be, how imperative it was to cherish what you’d been given. I hadn’t done that well for the past six years, not with Axel’s family anyway.
But we were back in each other’s lives now. I had Axel. I had his family. They had me.
“I love you,” I told him for lack of better words, not wanting to use trite platitudes. Pausing on the sidewalk, he pulled me into his arms. He breathed me in, shaking, unspeaking.
Tears burned in my eyes, my breath shuddering. Life had given me another chance at Axel’s side. I knew he’d give anything for me, do anything for me. I’d do the same for him. We’d been a team before, and we were a team now. Stronger together. We needed each other.
