by Parker, Ali
“Allison works at a family bank,” Raina remarked. “I thought we could meet for a coffee sometime.”
“When I’m back at work,” Allison cut in. “I’m off on family medical leave for the foreseeable future. Thank God I was there long enough for the health insurance to kick in.”
“Hey, you know we have your back for that, no matter what,” I assured her gently.
She nodded. “Sorry, it’s just hard for me to wrap my head around that,” she confessed. “I’ve been doing so much by myself for so long, it’s strange to accept that there are other people around willing to help out.”
“Well, we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere,” Raina promised her.
Allison smiled at her, and I was so glad to see that these two women, who I’d never imagined would be so important to me, were getting along with one another.
“That means a lot,” Allison replied. “And I promise I’m going to be better about asking for help. I know I’ve not been the hottest about it lately.”
“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Raina told her, and she took a sip of her coffee and pulled a face. “Okay, maybe I’ve been spoiled, but this coffee is gross, right?” She laughed.
We all took a sip, and we all agreed.
“Well, I brought something else down from the cafeteria too,” I remarked, and I pulled out the pudding cup that I had picked out for Nico.
“Talk about a nutritious breakfast.” Raina giggled.
“It’s for him, in case he wakes up,” I explained.
Allison shook her head. “I can’t believe you knew what his favorite flavor was.” She laughed. “That was a damn good guess.”
“Hey, I have a little kid of my own around,” I reminded her. “I know that anything that’s even adjacent to chocolate is usually the best bet.”
“It’s the only kind he’ll eat,” Allison said.
I set it down on the bedside table and patted Nico’s arm.
“Come on, honey, you’ve got a treat from your daddy,” Allison cooed gently. I froze for a moment. It was the first time I had heard her refer to me as his daddy, and it was kind of a shock.
“Sorry,” Allison apologized at once. “I didn’t mean... maybe that was too much.”
“No, not at all,” I assured her. “It’s just going to take some getting used to. That’s all. I love the idea of being his daddy. I haven’t been anyone’s daddy before.”
“To be fair, I’m not sure that he could wrap his tongue around either daddy or Harry, so there’s likely not going to be much of a difference.” Allison laughed. And as though roused by the sound of his mother, Nico finally started to come to again.
“Baby?” Allison gasped, and she watched as his eyes flickered open. He blinked a few times and then looked around blearily at everyone. I squeezed his tiny hand. He was here. He was back. That was all that mattered.
“Oh my God,” I murmured, and I looked at him. My heart was full, even though I knew there was still a long way to go for him yet.
“I’ll get a doctor,” Raina announced, and she got to her feet and came back a few moments later with a doctor in tow.
“Wonderful to see that he’s awake,” the doctor remarked as she came into the room. She crouched down next to the bed to take a look at him.
Allison and I reluctantly backed off and exchanged worried glances.
After a few minutes, the doctor straightened up and ushered us toward the door.
“It looks like it’d be best for him to stay in for the rest of the day,” she explained. “It won’t be too much longer after this, but the last thing we need right now is to rush him out.”
“That’s fine,” Allison replied at once. “I’ll stay as long as it takes.”
“Me too,” I cut in. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“That’s good,” the doctor said. “He could probably use the entertainment and company. I’ll leave you to make your arrangements, and we can take it from there?”
“Of course,” Allison replied, and she headed back into the room to be with her son.
I glanced in after them and saw him reaching for the pudding cup that I had brought him, bringing a smile to my face. And then I turned my attention back to Raina.
“Do you want me to drive you back into the city?” I asked. “I don’t mind. I can take you to the apartment or the office.”
“You stay here and be with your son,” she told me, and she took my hands. “I’m going to give you some space for a while.”
“But I drove you up here.”
“I can call my brother to give me a lift back,” she replied. “He owes me. Don’t you worry about it. I have this under control.”
I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. I would have made it through this no matter what, but having her by my side had cushioned the blow. She hugged me back and I knew that she wanted nothing more than to stay, but she knew she had to give us some space to get this under control. I didn’t want to inflict any more of this on her anyway. She needed a break.
“Take care of yourself,” she murmured to me. “Because I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I replied, and we continued hanging on to each other for a long moment.
All of this was hard, hellish, but it was a little easier to take when she was right there next to me. She made me feel like it was actually survivable, and that, right now, was invaluable to me.
“I’ll see you again soon,” she promised, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek before she turned and walked away from me.
I watched her go and then turned my attention back to the room that my son was in. Time to settle in to take care of a no doubt cranky two-year-old who likely couldn’t wait to have an explanation as to why he wasn’t at home already. I was going to need more pudding cups.
A whole lot more pudding cups.
Chapter 62
Raina
Sunday had been a hell of a day.
I yawned as I made my way into the clinic Monday morning, and I was glad to be back at work. I had wondered if I was going to make it, not sure if I was going to be too tired to even bother with turning up today.
If I’d had surgeries to do, I wouldn’t have bothered coming in at all, way too exhausted to think about letting myself near anything that needed me to wield something sharp. But luckily, it was mostly just check-ups and admin, and I could handle that.
I had called Harry a few times over the course of the day, to check in on how things were going with him and Nico and Allison. I was glad he was able to be there to keep the two of them company, though I wished that I could have been too.
At a certain point, though, it was just clear that I was getting in the way. I wasn’t his mother, and I barely even knew the little guy that well, and I didn’t want to pile more stress on top of him when things were already so tough for everyone.
Reed had come by to give me a lift home, and he’d come into the hospital to say hey to Harry. In the process, he had met Allison and Nico, and I could have sworn that I saw the barest flicker of something between Allison and him.
Maybe it was just my sleep-deprived mind filling in the gaps, but I could have sworn the way he smiled at her was a little more intent than it had to be.
Harry had been away talking to the administrators. He wanted to see about upgrading the children’s wing of the hospital when he got the chance, Allison told us. She sounded a little shocked but totally fond of the idea. I supposed if anyone had a right to want better for these places, it was her. She spent enough time in them.
I gave her a hug before I left and told her that I hoped everything went as well as it could. When she smiled at me, it seemed genuine. I knew I had nothing to worry about with her, not that I had been letting my brain go down that path anyway.
“I don’t know how you handle any of that,” Reed had remarked to me when we had been in the car together. I had tried not to think too much about what had been going on. It was too heavy and to
o frightening to imagine what could have happened if things didn’t go the way that we needed them to. If it had been just Nico or just Allison, then it would have felt a little easier to handle, but with both of them at once, it was hard to see the way out the other side.
“We just do,” I replied firmly. “We have to. It’s the only choice we have.”
I slept in the car for the rest of the ride back to my place, and I tried to catch some sleep on the couch but spent most of the time tossing and turning instead, unable to think about anything other than Harry.
I wished I could be there for him in that moment. I wished I could go to him and make everything better, lift that weight from his shoulders, even just for a while. No man should have to suffer through everything that he had been through over the course of the last few years.
But he didn’t seem much interested in complaining. That was one of the things I loved so much about him. Even when the world tossed all this at him and told him to find some way to deal with it, he would just buckle down and do it.
He never thought twice, never thought to stop and feel sorry for himself. He was too focused on making sure that the people he loved, the people who mattered most to him, were okay and that nothing was going to happen to them.
It filled me with such love for him, to see a man who cared so profoundly for the people he loved. I knew that people like him were rare, people who gave their love so freely and with such passion, even after everything they had been through.
And I had made a promise to myself as I had left the hospital, that I would never take that for granted. I would never make him doubt giving his love to me, too. I was always going to treasure it and take care of it and do everything I could to show he was right to choose me to share it with.
I had called a few times, and we had spoken, and he had sounded optimistic about what was happening with Nico, which was a relief. I knew this must have been weighing so heavily on him, but he was keeping his head up and not letting it get to him.
“We’re bringing him home tomorrow afternoon,” he explained to me, through a yawn. “I’m going to help Allison get him set up back at the house again, and then we can take it from there.”
“Do you want me to come out and help you?” I asked.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “You focus on your stuff, okay? I’ll let you know if we need you, though.”
“Please do,” I told him, and I meant it. “Send my love to Allison, okay? And to Nico.”
“I will,” he replied. And I knew he meant it.
I wished I could have been there with them when they brought him home, if only to support Harry, but I knew that I had to let Allison set the pace with this one. If I hadn’t been with Harry when he’d gotten the call, I wouldn’t have even been at the hospital with him. She deserved to have a say over who turned up in her son’s life or didn’t, especially when he was struggling so much with his illness.
Still, as I sat there in the office, I couldn’t help but wish I was with them instead. I would have done anything to make it known that I would help them out through this, through all of it, but I knew that it wasn’t my place and that it never would be. I had to let this happen without me.
I had ordered Nico a toy online, just a little stuffed wolf to remind him what a fighter he was. I had made sure that it was free of any artificial dyes and totally hypoallergenic, but I would still double-check with Allison before I actually gave it to him. I didn’t think that the little boy would have much use for flowers.
Rita had been running around like crazy, trying to keep things together for me while I let my insomnia-addled brain do the best it could. I had no idea how she could handle all of this on top of having her little boy, but she told me that there wasn’t a thing she couldn’t take on.
“When I think about that poor woman and her son,” she remarked, shaking her head. “God, I would just do anything to make the load a little lighter on her, you know? I can’t even imagine what she must be going through. It must be agony.”
“You’re so kind, Rita, you know that?” I told her.
She managed a smile. “I think I’m just sending out hope to the universe that something like this will never happen to me,” she admitted.
I hugged her tightly. “Nothing like this will happen to you,” I promised her. And I knew it wasn’t something that I could say with utmost certainty, but I was sending up prayers and gifts and bribes to whoever was paying attention to make sure that Nico recovered totally and that I never had to deal with any child in my life living like this again.
Just as I was finishing up lunch, Harry came through the door to the clinic. I had been eating at the front desk to cover for our receptionist, and I couldn’t help but smile when I laid eyes on him.
“Hey,” I greeted him before dabbing the last of the sweet chili sauce from my lips and coming around the desk to give him a kiss.
“Hey,” he murmured back.
When I pulled back, I could see just how exhausted he was. His face was written with this hopeless tiredness that looked as though it ran down into his bones. It wasn’t the kind that coffee or caffeine could touch. It was that great, aching weight that seemed to follow him with every step he took.
“Long night?” I asked, though that seemed like a hopeless attempt to sum up what he was dealing with.
“Long night,” he agreed. “But it’s over now. Nico’s back home again. I think that’s all that matters.”
“And he’s doing a little better?” I asked fretfully. I knew that I shouldn’t have been pushing so hard, but I just needed to know. When I thought of that little boy all caught up in that cluster of IVs, it made my heart ache. I wasn’t even his mother, and I felt this keen urge to protect him. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for the people who were actually his parents.
“He’s doing a little better,” Harry replied, and he covered his mouth as he yawned. “Sorry. I’m wiped. I’m going home after this. I just wanted to see you first.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” I told him, half-scolding. Things were hard enough for him without him spending his time bending over backward to be here for me. I was always going to be here for him. He needed to know that. And although he still looked as gorgeous as ever, it was clear that he needed some serious rest to undo the damage that this weekend had wrought on him.
“I wanted to invite you to dinner in person,” he told me. He took my hand and smiled, and there he was again. My man, the man I loved, the man who wanted nothing more than to romance me and make me feel like the most important creature in the world.
“Just to my place,” he explained, and there was an apologetic tone to his voice, as though that wasn’t just what I needed right now.
“I would love to,” I promised him at once. “What do you want me to bring? I can cook something up for you if you’d—”
“No, it’s fine,” he assured me. “The housekeeper made some stuff for us while I was away, and I just want to spend some time with Winnie and you and pretend that this all never happened in the first place.”
“I think I can get behind that for an evening,” I agreed.
He kissed me on the cheek, and for a moment, he just leaned his head against mine. “I can’t wait,” he murmured to me, his eyes closed.
“Me neither,” I agreed, and then I pulled back to shoot a playful glance at him. “Hey, buddy, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t fall asleep here. You need to get home and get some rest, okay? I’ll come by as soon as I’ve finished work. You want me to pick up Winnie, or...”
“No, Yara’s got her,” he replied with another yawn. “But you’re right. I’m dead on my feet. I’ll catch you later, okay?”
“Catch you later,” I agreed, and I waved him off—and found that I was already looking forward to seeing him again the first chance I got.
Chapter 63
Harry
I sat there on the front step, my head tipped back, absorbing the
last of the evening sunshine, and I let some of the tension of the last couple days lift from my shoulders.
I couldn’t believe that I had actually made it through. It had been a hell of a weekend. Nico was back at home now with Allison, and that meant that I had no reason not to get back to my own real-life once more.
That said, my mind was still with them. My brain was still tracing the space that they had left behind. I wished there was something I could have done to make things easier on them, but I knew that the best I could manage was giving them the space to settle in and heal and get back to reality.
Allison had promised me that she would let me in as soon as she thought there was space for me, and I was going to let her set the pace on that.
Meanwhile, I was going to try to get back to the reality of my real life. It felt strange to be back here with Winnie and Tink after everything that had happened, but the good kind of strange. The best kind. The only kind that actually mattered.
I watched the two of them run around the front yard, Winnie dropping to roll on the ground with her furry best friend every chance she got. We hadn’t gone into too much detail about what had happened with Nico, but she could probably sense that there was something seriously amiss. She had always been a smart girl, and God only knew that she had lived through enough as it was to be able to tell when something was seriously wrong.
Yara had been a princess with her, as she always was, but there was some stuff that you just couldn’t keep from kids, especially not kids as bright and smart as my Winnie. I wished she didn’t have to go through this alongside the rest of us, but this just seemed to be the way it had to go. She would survive it. She was a strong little thing, and I needed strong in my life right now.
Speaking of. A huge smile spread across my face as soon as I saw Raina’s truck turning into the driveway. I had been to see her at work earlier that day, or at least I was pretty sure I had. I had been so out of it that I had hardly been able to remember talking with her, let alone actually organizing anything. But now that I’d had a little sleep and was starting to feel a little more human, I was ready.