“The fuck? Someone wants you bad,” Jagger’s gaze fixes on me.
When I flip the phone over and see that it’s Drew, I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one where you’re going over the edge of a roller coaster, or down a hill in a car super fast. You know the one. I’m light-headed and hands that are normally steady as hell are suddenly shaking. Scrolling through, I see he’s called me thirty times in the last twenty minutes.
Something is wrong.
Bad wrong.
Without a thought, I slow the wrecker down, flipping on the hazard lights, and pull over to the side of the road. My phone is vibrating again and this time I answer.
“Hello?”
My voice is so hoarse, I barely even hear it. “Talk to me.”
“I’m at the hospital.”
The shaking in my hands magnifies, almost to the magnitude that I can’t hang on to the phone. Somehow I keep it from slipping. “Why?”
“Mandy called looking for you because she woke up feeling off. When I told her you were doing repos and you weren’t available, she freaked out. Usually she’s not so far up your ass when you aren’t available. I immediately knew something was wrong. The shake in her voice and her clipped tone had me already grabbing my keys. When I got there, she was doubled over in pain, and I rushed her here. She had a miscarriage, Dalton.”
Crushed.
My heart is broken, my spirit tattered.
“Why didn’t you call me as soon as you got her there?” I cry.
“She told me not to.”
Always wanting to deal with everything on her own. It’s a problem we’ve had throughout our marriage, but right now I need to be with her. All I want to do is push my hand through something hard, but I hold my reaction back. Me breaking my hand won’t help anything. Swallowing roughly against the mountain in my throat, I choke out my intentions.
“I’ll be right there.”
Jagger sits quietly beside me, almost as if he’s afraid to poke the bear. Truth is, I’d be afraid to poke me too. He doesn’t ask when I make a U-turn (probably the worst one I’ve ever made) and head toward the hospital. There’s no shout when I blow through a red light and then a stop sign, arriving at the emergency room entrance. All he does is push me out and hop over to the driver’s seat.
My feet move quickly, causing me to stumble as I wait for the automatic doors to open. Putting my arms out, the doors open, and I fall flat onto the floor. The pain doesn’t register as I push myself up to my feet.
Drew is right there in front of me when I glance up. “Where is she?”
“They’ve taken her in for surgery.”
“I didn’t get to tell her I love her. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Where’s Walker?”
All the questions are running through my head, and I wonder how I’m supposed to deal with this. What is the protocol?
“He’s with Mom and Dad, he didn’t see anything. So he’s fine.”
But am I? Are we?
“And she knows you love her.”
But does she?
Sometimes I wonder.
Chapter Two
Dalton
Heaven Hill Christmas Party
Last Week of December
Walker has been by my side all night. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for his mother. She looked at me once, and she’s done her best to avoid me ever since.
“When are you comin’ home, Dad?”
It’s the question I’ve asked myself every day since we came home from the hospital. When do I get to come home?
But we’re broken.
We’ve been half-broken since Travis died, and when we lost the baby, whatever was holding us together splintered into a million tiny pieces.
“Soon.”
It’s the answer I continually give him whenever he asks. The truth of the matter is, I don’t know. I keep waiting to get served with divorce papers, but Mandy - she’s still wearing her ring - I saw it tonight.
She may think she’s given up on us, but I haven’t. I’ll keep fighting until there’s no more fight left in me.
“When is soon?”
He’s as sick of hearing it as I am of saying it. “We can’t rush these things, Walker. We’ll know when it’s time.”
Fuck it, I finally take a drink of the bottle of beer I hold in my hand. It’s been taunting me since I grabbed, but as I tell my son a bunch of shit I’m not even sure I believe, I have to drown out the acid rising in my throat. Part of me wants to rage, scream at God, and ask him why he did this to us. Why can’t anything ever be easy?
For real, I’ve fought my whole fuckin’ life, and I’m getting tired.
Tired of trying to prove to people I’m worth fighting for.
Fuck, I cough, holding back the sob that threatens to escape from my throat.
Justice and Harley run by grabbing Walker, there’s no telling where they’re going, but it gives me a moment to myself.
Nobody in this place is watching out for me, no one besides Drew. He’s always been the one to have my back, no matter what’s going on. He may be Mandy’s twin, but he’s my brother too, and he’s always proven that to me.
Even in the past weeks.
Silently, I slip out onto the back porch, putting the bottle of beer on the railing. It’s cold, like I expected it to be, but sticking my hands in my jeans, I search for my pack of cigarettes and lighter.
Once I have them in hand, it’s only a few seconds until I have it lit and I’m inhaling, feeling the nicotine wash over me, calming my nerves. My nerves have been shot since the day we all found out about Travis.
Since then, I haven’t slept a full night and I haven’t had a day that was fucking normal.
It’s only gotten worse since Mandy had her miscarriage.
Taking a seat, I take another hit off my cigarette and another drink of my beer.
