Marco chuckled, smacking me on the butt when I passed him. I carried my coffee with me to the back, finishing it as I stood staring out the window at my native land below. I hadn’t seen this landscape in so long that it felt foreign to me.
I wondered what that meant, whether I’d ever be able to call it home again. Would I ever belong down there again? It was scary to think I might not, but then I heard Marco’s voice as he chatted to the pilot and decided not to worry about it.
Worry about one thing at a time. Kyle comes first.
With that in mind, I drained the last of my coffee and went to take a shower. The cubicle was nicer than the one in my apartment, and the water pressure was even better. I smiled under the spray, shaking my head at it at the same time.
One of the fluffiest towels that had ever touched my skin waited for me in the cabinet. Marco had even had the foresight to leave out a change of clothes for me.
I ran my fingertips along the fabric of my favorite comfortable pair of yoga pants. Then I grinned like a maniac when I saw he’d paired them with a stylish but supremely soft black cardigan and matching flat pumps. I swear, he has to be the only man in the universe who would have thought so far ahead. And to have grabbed my favorite comfort wear under the amount of pressure we’d been under when he’d packed.
Once I was fully dressed, I went in search of said man and threw my arms around him. “You’re the best.”
Words I’d never said to him or any other man—except for Kyle, but he didn’t count in this instance—sat on the tip of my tongue. But this was so not the time for that.
He hugged me tight against him. “Only for the best.”
Our embrace was broken off when an air hostess I honestly hadn’t even realized was on the plane brought trays of food out to us. We’d only just shoveled the last bites in when the plane’s wheels touched the ground. Guess the tray-table rule only applies when it’s not your own plane.
As we disembarked, my stomach turned when the gravity of the reason behind my visit back here filtered in again. I barely saw anything of the place I used to call home on our way to the hospital.
Thankfully, Marco didn’t seem to mind my silence and only offered his support by taking my hand. I must have told him which hospital Kyle was in because before I knew it, we were pulling up outside its doors.
He gave me a quick kiss before the wheels stopped turning, as if he could sense I would bolt as soon as we stopped. Kyle’s friend had texted me the room number, and I blindly ran through the corridors in search of the right ward.
My rubber soles squeaked against the floors, but no one stopped me. Hospitals and airports seemed to be the two places where all odd behavior was completely normal.
When I made it to Kyle’s room, there was a young man sitting on a chair outside. I assumed it was his friend, but his head was rolled to the side as he slept. I wanted to thank him for waiting for me, but I didn’t want to wake him.
Carefully pushing down on the handle to let myself into the room, I opened it slowly so as not to disturb either of them. Kyle, however, was awake.
He blinked in surprise when he saw me. Then his face split into a wide grin and he opened his arms. “Baby sis! I didn’t believe it when Drew told me you were coming. How did you get here so fast?”
“My boss flew me over.” Tears glistened in my eyes as I went to my brother, gingerly climbing onto the foot of his bed.
He huffed out a breath, motioning for me to come closer. “Get in here, Addy. God, I’ve missed you.”
As soon as he wrapped his arms around me, I burst into ugly, heaving sobs. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Don’t ever do that to me again.”
I felt him grinning against the side of my face. “I’ll be sure to let the old ticker know to behave from here on out.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Apparently, it’s common. It wasn’t as serious an episode as they first thought. I’m going to be fine. I just have to eat my leafy greens and what not.”
“Kyle.” I bumped his arm very gently. “This isn’t something to joke about.”
“I know.” His tone was more serious, and I released him to look into his deep blue eyes. “I’m sorry you came all the way over here for nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. I could never have stayed there knowing you’d had a freaking heart attack.”
My brother lifted one of his blond eyebrows at me. “We’re not referring to it as that. It was an episode. That’s it.”
I surveyed every inch of his handsome, familiar face. His eyes were a little red, and his skin was a little clammy, but I’d expected much worse.
He leaned forward. “What are you looking at? I don’t have that many new wrinkles, do I?”
“You do actually.” A relieved laugh bubbled out of me as I hugged him again. “You scared me.”
We caught up for a few minutes before I remembered Marco was outside somewhere. “Shit. I forgot about my boss. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Kyle’s head jerked back. “Your boss is here? As in the boss you work for in Italy, thousands of miles away?”
“Yeah, I told you he flew me over.”
He frowned. “I didn’t think he’d flown himself over with you.”
“He’s a good guy. Just be nice, okay?”
“I’m always nice.” He scoffed before motioning to the tube in his arm. “Go get your boss. I’ll be here.”
I rolled my eyes at him but climbed off the
