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Why was he always being so nice? And helpful. And hot. He never stopped being hot, and it pissed me off that I still noticed.
It made it so hard to stay mad at him. Especially after he’d flown all this way at the drop of a hat. I’d called him late last night and he’d managed to get on the first flight out of LAX at six o’clock this morning. It was barely noon, and he was already here. That counted for something. Hell, it counted for a lot.
“Where’s the baby?” he asked after a moment.
“With Denise. This is no place for him.”
“No, definitely not.” He put his hands on both my shoulders. “Find me the person I need to talk to, and let’s get Aunt Meg that surgery.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I pulled the administrator’s card out of my pocket and called her, asking her to come down to the room.
“Have you eaten anything today?” Zeke asked as we settled in the visitors’ lounge just down the hall from Meg’s room.
I shook my head. “I can’t. My stomach is in knots.”
“As soon as I talk to this woman, we’ll get something to eat.”
“I don’t want to leave Aunt Meg.”
“She’s sleeping, and you need to keep your strength up.”
I wanted to protest but I was too tired. I hadn’t slept last night at all, sitting by Aunt Meg’s bed until after midnight and then coming back at seven. It was hard to leave Jeremy with Denise again, but she’d been a godsend and I needed to be with Aunt Meg as much as I could.
Zeke spoke to the woman from the accounting department, filled out some paperwork, signed something, and then turned to me. “Ready to go eat?”
“Yeah. I guess.” I was shocked that was all it had taken, but money spoke volumes apparently.
I let him lead me out of the hospital and toward what I assumed was a rental car. It was a big SUV of some kind and I climbed into the passenger seat, letting my body relax against the soft leather. It felt so good to sit somewhere comfortable.
God, I was tired.
The last few days had been stressful, so it was nice to let someone else take over for a while. Lately, it felt like I was in charge of everyone and everything: my life, my job, my baby, my aunt. Not to mention the house and everything that went into running it. Adding the situation with Meg’s insurance on top of it all had been more than I could handle, so I didn’t know how I’d ever thank Zeke for coming like this. Hopefully the doctor would reschedule the procedure quickly now that the hospital had a guarantee for payment, and I could breathe again.
“What do you want to eat and where should we go?” he asked, pulling onto the street.
“There’s a place that has breakfast all day not too far from here,” I said. “I suddenly feel like pancakes.”
“I could eat pancakes,” he said. “Just guide me in the right direction.”
* * *
Ten minutes later we were seated at a small booth in the back of the restaurant, and I had a steaming cup of black coffee in front of me. I took a sip and sighed happily.
“You’re a big coffee drinker?” he asked, sipping his own cup.
“It started in college, and I picked it up again after Jeremy was born.”
“Long nights, huh?”
I unconsciously yawned before clapping a hand over my mouth. “Yeah, he’s still not sleeping great.”
“Is that normal? I don’t know much about their schedules at this age.”
“Well, it’s different for all babies. In our case, he’s a big, healthy boy, but simply not a great sleeper. The doctor says it’ll get better. We’ll start him on a little cereal soon and that might help. They think if he’s fuller, he’ll sleep more.”
“You can’t start the cereal now?”
“There are a lot of different opinions on when to start them on solid food versus just formula. My pediatrician says we can start when he’s five months, but I know people who started at two months. There’s research about their stomachs not being able to handle it, stuff like that. I’m just going to listen to our doctor because doing my own research was a very unhelpful rabbit hole.”
