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Colton shook his head. “No. Everything happened so fast. And we were trying to stop the bleeding on Armie’s head until everybody got here. The accident dispatch came on over the loudspeaker and we just let her call everyone she had info for.”
Both boys looked like children then. Not the teenagers that had seemed close to being men when they’d left. Walker looked at them and saw them as they’d been in second grade. And his heart went tight thinking of Armie, who he imagined that way too.
“Okay. We’re going to drive you over to the hospital. Let me just find out which one.”
Frankie was already talking to a paramedic and had the information at the ready. They had permission to drive both boys, since neither of them were in emergent need of medical care at that point. But they did agree they all needed a thorough checking over.
Frankie put her hand over his. “Walker,” she said. “Why don’t you let me call their parents? You drive. I’ll handle that.”
She got the info and started making calls, and he had to tune it all out while they drove on.
Because his own past trauma was rising up to meet the present trauma pretty violently, and he was trying to keep them all safe.
By the time they got to the hospital, Armie was in surgery.
They waited in the ER lobby for a while until they could take Colton and Sky into their own rooms to get checked out.
Sky had a minor concussion, and the laceration on his head needed a butterfly bandage, but his arm was probably only sprained, which given the state of the car seemed like a miracle.
They decided to keep Sky overnight for observation, and when he was admitted to his room, Walker stood at the foot of his bed with Frankie beside him.
Sky was dozing, and Frankie put her hand on Sky’s foot. “I’m so glad he’s okay.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
Frankie wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest, and Walker just let her hold him. Because he needed her.
“I’m going to stay here tonight,” he said.
She nodded and turned to kiss him on the lips. “I’ll talk to Armie’s parents. I saw them outside. I’ll let you know what they say. Just... I’ll see you at home okay?”
He sat on the hard bench he would be sleeping on tonight. The last time he’d done an overnight hospital stay was when Sky had appendicitis. He had been terrified then too. It had been right after Anna had died and everything felt precarious and terrible.
His son was okay. He was exhausted. But he had no serious injuries. Walker knew that, but he couldn’t shake the what-if inside of him.
And as he sat there, the crushing realization hit him. He was never going to have that bar phase. Because he was never going to not be Sky and Carter’s dad. This was his life, and it was who he was.
There was no retirement.
It wasn’t going to change for him, or rather, he wasn’t going to become an entirely different person. These weights, these concerns, would always be there. There was no carefree party life awaiting him. And he didn’t think he wanted it anyway. He wanted his family.
He tried to imagine more of this. More of this hideous, painful love.
Frankie with a wedding ring. Frankie having his babies. They’d have dark hair like she did. He swallowed hard, trying to ease the heaviness in his chest.
Love could be so damned painful.
But he would rather have the pain than lose it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THENEXTMORNING, Frankie got up and drove straight to the hospital, where Sky was thankfully already being discharged.
She’d spent the night awake, dry-eyed. Her mind had been spinning, her heart beating too fast. But she’d made some decisions. Hard decisions, but ones that had needed making.
“How’s Armie?” Walker asked when they got into the car.
“He’s fine,” she said. “I mean, he’s going to be fine. They had to do some surgery to get the bleeding to stop. But he’s stable now. He’s probably gonna be here a little while.”
