Page 126 of Trusting You

32

Carter

I’m a bitch.

There’s a sick lurching in my belly every time I step forward, out of Locke’s hospital room, and into the group of people waiting to see him.

“How was he?” Ben asks, flying out of his chair.

“Is he doin’ okay?” Asher asks beside him. He lifts off the wall where he was menacingly leaning, crossing his tatted arms.

“Did he seem alert?” Easton asks, standing in the middle of the waiting room, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

These three men barrel down on me. At any other time and if I were any other woman, I might’ve shrieked and run away.

“I yelled at him,” I say instead.

“You what?” Ben asks. Asher’s brows jump.

“I yelled at him for being so stupid,” I repeat, then burst into tears.

“Oh, boy,” Asher says.

“It’s…don’t worry…” Ben says awkwardly.

Easton comes up next to me and squeezes my shoulder. “Totally standard. It’s the only way we usually communicate with him, too.”

I turn and bury my face in Easton’s leather, sobbing. “He can barely breathe in there, and I’m making him explain what happened, bringing up Lily as if he isn’t beating himself up about it, and you can see it, see the guilt all over him and how much he blames himself, and there I am, yelling that he’s an asshole—”

“There, there,” Ben says behind me. He offers an awkward pat in the space where Easton isn’t rubbing my back.

“This is stressful on all parties,” Asher pipes in. “Wait’ll his sister unloads on him.”

“Yep,” Ben says. “He’s gonna have more bruises than he came in with.”

“Hear that? Your yelling was nothing,” Easton assures. “His family will strip his skin off.”

I raise my face from Easton’s chest, my cheeks hot in certain places and sticky with tears in others. “His f-family? As in more than Astor?”

“Yeah, Astor and their dad are stuck on the FDR. Some kind of car pileup.” Ben glances at his phone. “Believe me, I’m hearing about it.”

“He has a dad?” I say it before I think it through, breaths still hitching.

“Uh, yeah,” Asher responds, but he’s regarding me in a where did this chick come from sort of way.

“Locke doesn’t talk about his family very much,” I say as an explanation. And, I remember, neither do I, so maybe I deserve the lack of information. But it’s curious his dad hasn’t met Lily.

“Probably with good reason. After his mom—”

A cutting look from Ben shuts Asher up.

“Anyway,” Asher says instead, “you’ll meet Papa Hayes soon.”

I’m not pondering it too much. Now that I’ve collected myself, all I want to do is get back to Lily.

“Text me when Astor’s here?” I ask Ben. “I’m going to be with Lily.”

“‘Course,” he says before pocketing his phone. “You’ll probably see Astor before I talk to her. She’s going to pick Lily up.”