by Sara Cate
“We need to call the other kids,” she mumbled, her voice shaking.
“She was so awake last night.”
“I know, dear.”
“I have to go,” I stammer as I storm out. It’s too much to process right now.
Murph is still at the shop when Shelby, the hospice nurse, shows up. She’s a young girl, with kind eyes and blonde curls I would kill for. Ruby and I follow her into the bedroom where she takes Hazel’s vitals while she sleeps and talks to us about her behavior.
When Ruby tells her that she had her last two sips of Ensure yesterday morning, it’s like someone sucks all the air out of the room.
“What.” A cold voice barks from the doorway, and none of us notice as Murph stalks into the room.
“Murph,” I breathe.
“Who is this?” the nurse asks, looking at Ruby with confusion.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he asks, stepping in and looking at Hazel, who now looks paler and more gaunt, like she could simply fade into dust at any moment.
“She doesn't want you worrying.” Ruby puts her arm on Murph’s back, but he steps forward, his eyes on me. By anyone he clearly meant me. Why didn’t I tell him?
“I just found out this morning,” I mutter, the emotion I’ve been suppressing starting to surface. I shove it down again, turning away from him. I can’t let my guard down. Instead I give my attention to the nurse.
“What does this mean?” I ask, redirecting the conversation away from Murph.
“I can leave some morphine, and I’ll be checking in more frequently. Drop them into her mouth when she starts to get uncomfortable. But from here on out, we’re just keeping her from the pain. It won’t be long.”
“Fuck that.” Murph’s cheeks are red and his eyes are drilled in on the nurse.
“Murph,” I say, trying to steal his attention back.
“No. Don’t give me that ‘keep her comfortable’ bullshit. There are things we can do. Feeding tubes. There’s gotta be some experimental shit we can try. We don’t fucking just give up.”
“She’s dying, Murph. It’s not fair for us to keep her in pain for our own selfish reasons.”
Now my cheeks are hot and with that glare of pure hatred that he’s aiming right at me, I could melt under the gaze. Maybe I went too far. Maybe my words are cutting his already raw emotions, but I don’t give a shit. He needs to hear the tough truth of it.
“She signed a DNR,” Ruby says, drawing Murph's penetrating gaze toward her.
“So what.”
“You're being irrational.”
“Legally, there’s nothing I can do if she signed a DNR.”
“You can get the fuck out,” he shouts at Shelby.
“Murph!” Ruby and I yell at the same time.
“What the hell is your problem?” a voice rasps quietly from the bed. We all freeze and look in the direction from where it came. Looking barely alive, Hazel is glaring at Murph with a furrowed brow and angry stare.
“Tell these mother fuckers you’re not just giving up,” he says, and I hear the terrified shake in his words.
“Give us a second, please,” she croaks toward the rest of us. I want to hold her hand, look into her eyes, soak up these last few moments of lucidity before they are gone forever. I’m desperate to ask her why she left me that note, ask her why she would choose me and how I can change her mind.
Instead, I do as she says and walk out of the room, holding onto his eyes as I disappear behind the door.
I don’t know what’s happening in the room, but I know he’s hurting. I can practically feel the pain radiating off of him like heat on his skin. If what Shelby said is true, then it’s only a few more days until she’s gone. Then, the real hell will start.
She can’t even pick up her head, and I can tell it’s taking all of her energy just to lift her arm. The anguish on her face makes me want to scream at that good-for-nothing nurse. She can’t ease her pain or keep her alive, so what the fuck is she even here for?
I can’t bear to sit on her bed. I could hurt her by just putting some pressure on the mattress, but I need to be near her. So I kneel next to the bed and hold her hand. It’s like holding bones covered in cold flesh.
“You’re not giving up,” I mumble. “You’re a fucking fighter. How much did you fight for me? You taught me to be a fighter.”
“I’ve fought enough, Murph. I want to rest now.”
“Fuck that.”
“Fuck you,” she growls. And I can’t help myself, but I laugh. “I don’t deserve to be kept alive on some machine. I want to go on my terms, and you can’t stop me.”
It kills me to let this go, so I rest my head against our clasped hands. “I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. I shouldn’t have left you at all.”
“Don’t say that,” she says. “Murph, I wanted you to live your life. I didn’t want you hanging around here all the time.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that I wasn’t living my life. I was hiding. Grieving alone and secluding myself in my pain, building up walls thicker and stronger than before.
“Do me a favor,” she rasps, and I perk up, waiting to hear her words but terrified of them all the same. I can't start thinking about what life will be like after she’s gone.
“Don’t let Savannah go.”
“Go where?” I ask. I hardly know where Savannah even came from so it’s hard to think about keeping her from going anywhere when the thing that connects us is gone.
“Don’t let her go, Murph.”
“Okay,” I say through a swallow as I see her eyes start to gloss over. She shifts in her bed and grimaces, tears pricking out of her eyes as her arms seize up. The pain owns her. Manipulates her.
“What do you need?” I’m a helpless lump of fucking flesh, powerless against this thing that’s taking her.
“Morphine, you idiot.”
A smile cracks across my face, and my chest is being carved out of my body as I stand up and release her grip from mine. She’s leaving me already.
Once I call for the nurse, I watch as she shows Ruby how to drop the morphine into her mouth under her bottom lip. Shortly after, Hazel’s body relaxes into the mattress.
“How long?” I ask, without looking at her. The young woman stops next to me on her way out. Her mouth is set into a hard line as she looks up at me.
“A couple more days.” Then with her shoulders held high, she walks out of the room and toward the front door where Ruby is waiting to show her out. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she mumbles back to me, and I know I should apologize too, but the words are stuck in my chest and refuse to be spoken.
Savannah and I are alone in the living room when they walk outside, and I feel her eyes on me. Without saying anything, I walk over to the liquor cabinet and find the bourbon I drank last night. I pour a glass for each of us, then hand her one as I walk back out to the patio. She follows, and the space feels loaded. Like the way we touched each other last night is still lingering in this space.
She sits on the patio chair opposite from me, and there’s something in the way she’s watching me that has me on edge. Like she’s hiding a secret, but it could just be my warped mind at the moment. I’m desperate for another distraction.
With my elbow propped on the patio table and my head resting in my open palm, I watch her. We don’t say a word for a long time.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m imagining what those big lips of hers would feel like around my cock. If I wanted to ease some tension, would she get down on her knees for me right out here in broad daylight?
I’ve gotten her off (almost) twice. It would have been twice if she hadn’t freaked out last night and ran away.
“We don’t have to go tonight if you don’t want to,” she says finally.
My head snaps up. “Go where?”
“The gala…”
Oh fuck. I forgot about that stupid gala, and Hazel was insistent about it.
“I need
to go,” I grumble. “Not that I fucking want to, but those assholes need to know my face, and they need to know that I’m not going away. They want to shut me down, and without Hazel to scare them away, I have to make an appearance.”
“Well, if anyone’s going to scare someone away,” Savannah says as she leans back to take a sip of her whiskey.
“Ha-ha,” I reply dryly.
She smiles at me with those full lips and round cheeks, and maybe it’s the whiskey, but the sight sends a flood of warmth to my chest.
The gold sequins dig into my flesh when I sit down. It would appear that Hazel was at least a size smaller than me when she wore this dress, but it does prove just how timeless her fashion is. I feel sexier than I’ve ever felt. My hips are hugged tightly in the fabric looking rounder and sexier than in a simple gown.
Murph is waiting downstairs, and he keeps yelling for me, so naturally I’m going to keep him waiting. Putting on the finishing touches of makeup and giving my hair another run through with the curling iron. When I look in the bright mirror of Hazel’s dressing room, I can't help but admire how I look. My eyes seem to shine when I really put the work into my makeup, and this sea air seems to be working wonders for my skin. Hugo would have never let me leave the house looking like this, even if I was going with him. Now I’m desperate to flaunt this body, just because I can.
Putting on my lipstick, I can’t help but think about how fucking sexy Murph looked on the patio today, staring at me like I was his next meal. If only he knew what was going on in my head, the things I wanted to do to him right there in broad daylight.
My heart skips a beat and my eyes nearly roll back in my head thinking about it.
Goddamn it, I need to get my head straight.
After slipping on the strappy heels, I walk down the carpeted stairs as slowly as possible just to piss Murph off even more. I won’t lie. I’m excited to see his reaction. I want to see his jaw drop when he gets a glimpse of my ass in this dress.
“The sooner we get there, the sooner we can lea—” he calls up at me, but his words are stolen when he sees me. His eyes drop immediately to my hips. There it is.
He’s sitting on the brick rise around the fireplace, scrolling through his phone when he glances up to see me. He has charcoal gray slacks and a jacket with a red button up, open at the collar revealing the tattoos peeking up from his chest. His hair is combed back with something keeping it in place, and it’s the vision of him that almost stops me on the stairs.
Everything about Murph is overwhelming. His presence, his commanding voice, and even his appearance. Like trying to stare at the sun, he deafens my other senses. And right now, I want to do more than look at him.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I stop just out of arm’s reach. “Let’s go.”
He clears his throat, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves, and walking me to the car outside, his hand on the small of my back. Ruby is resting in her room, and at this point, I’m glad. The tension between me and Murph has tainted the air with a haze of desire that is so delicious I’d hate for another person’s presence to ruin it.
On our way to the golf club, I watch him driving one of Hazel’s old cars with a sense of power that is intoxicating. I have to look away and remember that there will be people here at this gala who want to ruin Murph’s business, the business that I am about to own.
And sell.
I swallow down my nerves.
“Stop biting your nails,” he mumbles under his breath with enough conviction that I actually listen.
“You’re so bossy,” I answer as I take my fingers away from my mouth.
“That’s Hazel’s dress?” he asks, eyeballing my chest and hips again.
“Yeah, but she didn’t have the hips I do.”
“She gave it to you for a reason,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road.
“What does that mean?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on him.
He shrugs and glances at me again. “It means you fill it out.”
The corners of my mouth lift into a smirk.
When we pull up to the golf club, the valet opens the door for me, and I step out, feeling immediately out of place. We don’t belong here. I want to crawl back into the car and drape something over my exposed cleavage. The sexy pride I felt over my hips in this dress is gone. What if they think I look too trashy? What if they know my secrets? What if this gets back to Hugo?
Then, I feel Murph step up next to me, and my arm links through his instinctually. Suddenly, I don’t feel so nervous.
He glances down at me, his face blank, but the intense connection between us gives me courage to keep walking into the building.
There’s a man in a suit standing by the door, and I can see him tense as we approach. He looks like he’s ready to fight when Murph moves to walk right past him. The man puts out an arm, and I’m almost hoping he makes us leave so we can just go home.
“I’m sorry, sir. This event is by invitation only.”
Murph’s face takes on a hard edge as he glares at the valet. “We have an invitation. We’re here for Hazel Whitaker.”
The look of recognition instantly registers on the man’s face. There’s surprise there too. Without hesitating, Murph pulls out the invitation and hands it to the other man. He stares at it, obviously disbelieving.
A beautiful woman approaches as the man looks at the invitation. With her long blonde hair, blood red lips, and Louboutin heels, she saunters up to Murph with an air of confidence I will never possess. I immediately tense up.
“Good evening,” she says as her perfectly manicured hand lands gently on Murph’s arm. “I’ll take them in, Thomas.” Without another question, the man at the door hands the invitation back to Murph, and the woman guides us in. I watch disbelieving as she loops her arm into his like I wasn’t even there. It all happens so fast that I’m left defenseless.
“We were so sorry to hear about Ms. Whitaker’s failing health. She did let us know she’d be sending the two of you here, and I wanted to make sure I caught you at the door before the wolves get you.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, his brow showing his skepticism.
“Oh fuck, where are my manners?” She blurts out while we’re still far enough away from the crowd. “I’m Tia Quentin. Mayor Quentin’s daughter. I always loved Hazel, and she was the only person I ever wanted to hang out with at these things. She and I used to sneak out the upstairs balcony and get high.” She let out a cute giggle, but I’m still too intimidated by her to let myself relax. When I look at Murph, I see that his mouth has lifted into a small smirk at the corners, which is his version of a smile.
“Anyway, her partner called me to let me know she wouldn’t be able to come and was sending you two instead. I’m supposed to show you the ropes and prepare you for what you’re about to walk into.”
“And what’s that?” Murph asks, shoulders squared.
“The vultures are ready to scavenge. They want that shop of yours, first of all. And once they get that, they’re ready to make off with the rest of Hazel’s real estate. She’s got her hands in everything in town, and she’s the only reason this whole town isn’t as insufferable as this fucking golf club. So, you know…” she puts her hand on her hip, winking at Murph. “You have an ally.”
“Well, thanks,” he says, and my heart plummets to my gut.
“Anytime,” she says squeezing his arm harder. I really don’t want to like this girl, but her charisma and down-to-earth charm make it very hard. She lets his arm go and begins to walk into the fray, motioning for us to follow.
Before Murph walks away, he turns toward me, extending his bent arm for me to take it, and I do, gripping his thick jacket in my hands.
When we enter the ballroom, I can feel all of the eyes on us. We could not look more out of place. Maybe it’s in my head, but I swear people start whispering with each other as we pass through the crowd.
Murph moves his hand behind my body and rests it again
st my hip, pulling me closer to him. It helps to ease some of my tension. I can’t help but keep my head down, hiding my face from anyone who might try to recognize me—just in case Hugo’s reach has extended this far.
When we stop by the bar, Murph looks down at me, his fingers brushing the bottom of my chin as he lifts it and puts my face in view of his. “Head up,” he says quietly.
Heat floods my belly under his stare, but I do what he says.
I don't trust one of these fuckers, not one. Not even the perky blonde who apparently had Hazel on her good side. I could feel her trying to separate me from Savannah, and it only made me hold her tighter.
In that gold dress, every second that I didn’t have Savannah panting in a dark corner of this building was a fucking shame. It was a goddamn miracle we even made it to the gala. I wanted to pull over so many times on the way here, in perfect misery from my cock nearly busting out of these tight-ass slacks.
But I’m glad we made it. Not because I give a shit what these fuckers think, because I don’t. It’s just important for me to stake my claim and make sure no one thinks they’re getting near my shop—or this beauty in the gold dress.
Tia, the mayor’s bombshell daughter stands next to us, pointing out everyone without being overtly obvious. I spot a few familiar faces. People Hazel knew. People I know from the shop. People I know through Rafe. I hate every single one of them.
“I just have to say,” she says toward Savannah. “Your dress is stunning.”
“Thank you,” Savannah mutters, trying to hide her face again. She’s not the timid type, so I don’t get why she’s trying to cower all of a sudden. “It was Hazel’s.”
“Oh my god, I love it,” Tia squeals. “Hold this one close, Murph. Someone here will snatch her right up.” Her eyes stay on Savannah’s face as we all take a drink.
Savannah is visibly uncomfortable.
“Are you new in town?” Tia asks, carefully.
“Sort of,” she answers. “I don’t get out much.”
Tia’s eyes land back on my face, like she’s trying to decide something, but I don’t pay her much attention.