Library

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Gage

If California traffic had one enemy, it was me. And if California fucking traffic had no enemies, then I was fucking dead.

The amount of times Xavier had joked with me that a ‘California mile’ was actually five disguised with a hat and a trench coat would’ve given me enough money to buy myself a full week’s worth of groceries.

All those times I’d called him out for his over exaggerations and yet here I was, a damn fool for not trusting my very un-sarcastic boyfriend from giving me a harsh reality check in the form of being stuck in jam packed traffic after getting off of a red-eye flight that had me gnawing at the skin around my nails for the entire four and a half hours that it took to get over here.

A damn fool. That’s what I was.

By the time my rideshare finally pulled into Mercy General, I was about ready to tear my hair out from all of the stress. Travel had never been my favorite, and doing so when a loved one was laid up in the hospital on a ventilator made all of that ten times fucking worse.

I’d loosely been texting Dexter since he’d called me, thankful for the small updates he’d been giving me so that I wasn’t losing my ever loving mind with worry that I was going to arrive to a cadaver already toe-ticketed inside of the morgue downstairs.

Xavier was up on the third floor. There was no actual timeline for him waking up or being taken off of the ventilator but his brain activity was very healthy despite his dangerous dip in oxygen levels.

With my heart in my throat, I took the elevator up while sending Dexter a quick text that I was here. I hated the not knowing everything about all of this. While the good news was good, the bad news is what scared me the most.

Xavier being in any kind of coma freaked me right the hell out. Even if the doctors were hopeful that he would wake up soon.

What if he didn’t?

What if I was walking into a situation where I was actually saying goodbye to him?

I was never going to be able to handle something like that. I’d shatter into a million pieces if I didn’t go home with Xavier still alive.

To my surprise, when the elevator doors opened up, Dexter was standing there waiting for me. He perked up as soon as he spotted me, lifting himself away from the wall to meet me in the middle of the hallway.

“Hey...” I said, my hands itching to reach out and hug him. Despite us only knowing each other a short while, I still felt a connection to Dexter. My brothers liked him, my boyfriend adored him. Therefore in my mind, he was already family.

“Your flight go okay?” he asked.

I blew out a breath in response.

See, the thing about getting a last minute flight wasn’t that the prices were astronomical or that the seat you got assigned to you was of course at the very back of the plane next to the bathrooms. No, the worst part was that taking a red-eye meant you had half the passengers sleeping peacefully and the other half being absolute and downright weirdos.

My luck, I’d been seated between two.

“I made it,” was what I finally settled on.

He nodded in response and then pivoted on his heel to lead me back down the hallway. Nurses and doctors moved all about the floor, coming and going in and out of rooms that we passed by. There wasn’t so much of a frantic energy to the place as there was a purposeful one.

Which actually made me feel a little bit better. With no codes being called, that meant that everyone here was stable. For now.

Dexter stopped in front of a room that was kitty corner to the nurses’ station, the door already propped open.

He led me inside with a wave, stepping back so I could enter before him.

My heart leaped into my chest when I caught sight of Xavier on the bed. His eyes were closed with a tube shoved down his throat. On either side of him were a bunch of monitors that beeped softly, tracking all sorts of things that I couldn’t exactly wrap my head around at this point.

No one else was in the room, thankfully.

“They said he’s going good,” Dexter said from behind me, his voice soft. “I know it looks bad from here.”

Yeah, that was an understatement. But I appreciated the sentiment regardless. Dexter was a pretty aware guy, even for just seventeen. I think he got that from his dad, honestly. That man could read you like a damn first grade level book.

My feet carried me over to his bedside. As long as I ignored the giant tube coming out of his mouth, he looked like he was peacefully sleeping.

“I should’ve brought flowers or something,” I joked, my voice sounding hollow. “This place is so drab.”

“I think there are some bouquets down in the gift shop,” Dexter supplied.

He really was such a sweet kid.

Nodding, I scooped up Xavier’s hand into mine, squeezing it lightly so that I wouldn’t disturb the IV-line taped to the top of it. His hand was warmer than I was expecting, relieving the tension that had been building inside of my chest just a little bit more.

Leaving in a flurry earlier had both scared the twins and made them want to come with me. I’d barely gotten them to agree to staying behind and looking after the house while I jetted off to California for the foreseeable future.

I felt guilty leaving them behind, or at all, with them having such limited time to spend with me before they both had to leave for their respective careers again. No matter how many times they’d reassured me while they drove me to the airport, I still felt bad.

This wasn’t exactly what either of them signed up for when coming home to visit me right before the holidays.

Leave it to Xavier to play hero and cause us all to be scared to death.

“Dexter,” a woman’s voice called from the doorway. “We brought you some food from the—who the hell are you ?”

I dropped Xavier’s hand instantly, whipping around to see a blonde haired woman glaring at me as she held a tray of cellophane wrapped food. Behind her, a man with glasses also ducked into the room, stopping short at seeing me just as she had.

Oh fuck.

Why didn’t I figure that Dexter hadn’t come alone to the hospital?

The kid was seventeen with no driver’s license. Obviously, he’d be here with his mother and... stepdad?

“Uh,” was all that came out of my mouth.

“This is Gage,” Dexter said, waving a hand at me. “Dad’s boyfriend.”

Instantly, my face heated up.

Oh, man...

I’d never had that whole ‘coming out to your parents’ experience since by the time I’d figured out that I was down and dirty for the same sex, mine were long gone and buried in the dirt. The closest I’d ever come was bringing a boy home to my brothers and introducing them both to him as my ‘special friend’ until they were old enough to start calling me out on my bullshit.

But here, with Dexter presenting me to his mother as her ex’s significant other, gave me a good slap of reality to what that all might’ve been like. The embarrassment that no straight kids would ever feel. The anxiety over potentially being rejected. The fear that hatred would follow.

All of this was a mix of emotions that I hadn’t been expecting to feel, let alone confront, once I stepped off that plane and into the horrid desert heat.

“O-Oh.” His mother cleared her throat. “Um... how did you know he was here?”

“I called and told him,” Dexter said.

“ Why would you do that?” His step-dad frowned.

To his credit, Dexter simply answered him with a very bored, “Because they’ve been dating for a year and he deserved to know.”

When both adults turned to look at me again, all I could think to do was plaster a, hopefully, pleasant looking smile on my face. “It’s nice to meet you. Uh, sorry for the conditions.”

Dexter’s mother, Kate, sighed. She looked worn, like she’d been up all night talking to the doctors and taking care of Xavier. I didn’t want to assume much, given that my... opinion of Kate wasn’t the greatest.

However, she did bring Dexter down here to see him. So...

Maybe she wasn’t a total lost cause.

“Gage...” Kate mumbled, not exactly looking at me. “How long are you planning on staying?”

I shrugged.

Not really the most solid of answers but the truth nonetheless. I was determined to stay here until the man lying on that hospital bed—the love of my life—finally opened his eyes. Leaving any sooner would just cause me to have a massive meltdown while I stressed about him never waking up again.

She sighed again. “All right... Well, I’m Kate. This Dan, my husband. You already know my son?”

“Uh…” Glancing over at Dexter was no fucking help as he only gave me a ‘you’re on your own’ kind of shrug. “Yeah... Xavier and I... we introduced our kids to each other when things got serious. So...”

Not a total lie.

Plus, if Xavier, or Dexter, hadn’t told her about the college thing yet, I wasn’t about to spill the beans in the middle of a hospital room with a man hooked up to a damn ventilator in the background.

“You have kids?” her husband asked, running his gaze up and down me. “How many?”

“Two? Well, okay. They’re not my kids. They’re my younger twin brothers, but we have a pretty big age gap so I consider them mine since I’ve been raising them by myself for close to a decade.”

Both Kate and her husband looked shocked to hear that, along with a little bit impressed. I suppose maybe to a secular couple, hearing something like that was quite admirable. Taking on the task of raising kids that you didn’t birth yourself got me all kinds of praise, even if I never asked or wanted it.

Coming from a religious couple, that kind of shit was downright celebrated.

Or at least from what I’ve heard. I was not exactly a connoisseur of religious upbringings.

“How old are they?” Kate asked.

“Nineteen. One of them enlisted and the other is working on a horse ranch.” I grin. “I’m quite proud.”

To my surprise, Kate’s expression softened.

She didn’t say anything to that, just simply nodded before turning to Dexter to offer him one of the sandwiches on the tray and a small bottle of juice she’d grabbed for him. Her husband walked around her to settle into one of the chairs over by the window, unwrapping his own sandwich in his lap.

Ugh, this was so awkward. I kind of wished Dexter had warned me his parents would be here before I’d shown up. Then again, maybe he knew better than to let me get into my head about it and decided that blindsiding me was the better way to go about it.

Or maybe I was reading way too far into this entire situation. Kind of like I usually did with everything else.

“I’ll eat in a bit, mom,” Dexter said, setting his sandwich down on the windowsill. “Gage wanted to go grab dad some flowers from the gift shop, so I’m going to go show him where it is.”

Kate looked like she was ready to argue but then glanced over at me and deflated almost as quickly. “All right... Just be back here in half an hour. Gage, I want your phone number.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” I pulled out my phone to exchange numbers with her, aware that Dexter was hovering close by.

Once we were all set, I flashed her another smile and then headed back out into the hallway with her son tagging next to me. Halfway to the elevator, I looked back to see Kate leaning out the doorway, watching us both like a hawk.

I kind of felt bad that she was so paranoid. Though, I guess knowing what I knew now with what happened to Dexter, I couldn’t exactly blame her.

So, instead of feeling the kind of annoyance I usually would whenever Xavier brought Kate up, I waved to her and lifted up my phone, gesturing to it with a thumbs up.

Her shoulders seemed to sag at that, a small nod following before she ducked back into the room.

Dexter pressed the button for the elevator, watching me closely. “She means well... I think.”

I glanced over at him. “Tough crowd?”

He rolled his eyes. “You have no idea. This is her being good.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m ten times worse with the twins.”

“Forgive me if I don’t actually believe you,” he said right as the elevator doors popped open.

Grinning, I waited for him to get in first before following after and letting my body sag against the metal wall. Damn, those airline seats were no joke these days. When the hell did they get so small ?

“Thanks for calling me, by the way.” I said.

“No need to thank me. I do kind of want you to stick around, so I figured letting you into the family drama was a good start.”

“Aw, does that mean Dexter approves of me?”

He shot me a look. “Well, if I want to go to LSU, I should probably make friends with the locals.”

I laughed. “It’s a good school. I’m not going to knock it. Besides, I definitely wouldn’t hate if you and your dad moved closer to me. The traffic out here sucks.”

Dexter snorted. “Yeah, try living here.”

When the doors opened up again, I had to shuffle to the side to make room for the onslaught of people pushing their way into the small, cramped space. Both of us managed to slip out into the lobby, barely missing us being trapped behind the closing doors and being skated up to whatever floor was next on the chopping block.

The front lobby to Mercy General was nice, if not a little boring. Though, I supposed as far as hospitals went, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

Dexter waved for me to follow him, leading me down the main entryway to a large gift shop that was located right as you walked into the hospital. Thankfully, it was much quieter trapped behind these glass walls.

I spotted the flowers toward the back of the shop—located in a small corner that had a bodega-like set-up with a few buckets of premade bouquets and then a few that had loose stems you could put together yourself.

I opted for the loose ones, grabbing a pre-cut piece of decorative cellophane to wrap the stems in.

Dexter hovered next to me, nodding in approval or shaking his head with each flower I held up. Together, we put together a nice looking bouquet that was both colorful but not too flashy for a ‘get well soon’ sentiment.

“Nice,” I said, holding it up while Dexter tied a piece of twine around it.

He smiled at the flowers, leaning in to breathe in their scent. “I think he’ll like them.”

“Me too. Would you believe me if I said I never got someone flowers before?”

Dexter snorted. “So dad will be your first? You should tell him when he wakes up. He’s a secret sap.”

“Secret or covert?”

That had Dexter smiling again.

We headed up to the register, getting in line behind an older woman and her husband who was holding her hand. The sight was sweet, reminding me of all the sappy love stories I couldn’t help to daydream about whenever I thought of Xavier.

Which was often to an embarrassing level.

One would think that after a solid year, I would’ve gotten over the butterflies by now.

“Were you serious about living with dad?” Dexter asked.

Turning to him, I raised a brow. “Only if he wants to.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Why haven’t you already?”

“He didn’t want to leave you behind and not see you.”

“What about after I’m gone?”

I shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m trying not to be pushy.”

“But you want to be,” he guessed.

Holding back a groan took monumental effort. See, knowing Xavier, I knew exactly where Dexter got his smarts from, as well as his keen eye. What I didn’t like was when it was turned on me .

“Did he bring up the marriage thing yet?” Dexter asked. “I told him to.”

Balking, I said, “Dexter. Leave the matchmaking up to the adults.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “What’s four months going to change? I’ll still think the same way, you know.”

“What, that you want me and your dad to get married?”

“I want him to be happy .” He sounded annoyed as he spoke. “He needs to stop focusing all his energy on me. What’s going to happen when I go to college? I don’t want him dropping dead like a fly because he no longer has a purpose anymore.”

I loved hearing that Dexter cared about his dad just as much as Xavier cared about him. Not that I had any doubts that deep down inside, their bond had yet to be totally shattered despite Xavier’s constant worrying that he’d fucked up beyond repair.

Seeing Dexter just as protective over his dad was a welcome sight, one that I hoped Xavier got to see one day. It would at least show him that trying to mend this bridge was worth it in the end; that getting sober and taking back his life had gotten him his son back.

And wasn’t that a goddamn beautiful thing?

Taking the chance, I reached up to ruffle his hair in the way I always did with my brothers. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a sour patch kid?”

He batted my hand away, though his expression was more bemused than anything. “What’s that even mean?”

“First you’re sour,” I said, reciting the commercial. “Then you’re sweet.”

“Funny,” he said, fighting hard to not crack a smile.

“I really am, aren’t I?”

Once we got up to the counter and paid for the bouquet, we wandered around the shop for a few more minutes before braving the crowds and heading back up to Xavier’s floor. By the time we arrived, Dexter’s stepfather was passed out in his chair while his mother scrolled on her phone, popping her head up as soon as we entered.

She eyed the flowers in my hand warily but said nothing when I placed them down onto the bedside table to Xavier’s left hand side. They looked nice against the rather drab colored room, bringing a little bit of life to the place despite the somber mood.

Dexter dragged a chair over for me to sit in, pulling his own right alongside mine.

“And now we wait,” he mumbled to me, settling back into his chair.

I sighed in agreement.

Hopefully, not for long.

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.