CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
My heart pounds in my chest as I rush through the hospital doors. There’s a lot of noise and movement as nurses and doctors in scrubs rush around the room. Panicking, I search for anyone that can help. My eyes land on a woman at the nurse’s station and I quickly move in her direction.
She looks up at me calmly as she smacks on a piece of gum and the motion irritates me.
How can she be so calm right now when it feels like my world is crumbling in pieces around me?
“I’m looking for Chase Rivera,” I tell her.
She looks me over, taking in my mused hair that I couldn’t stop running my hands through in the long drive over. Her lips turn down. “What’s the relation?”
I blink, her question catching me off guard. “I’m his girlfriend,” I tell her, gesturing for her to hurry the hell up.
She shakes her head, “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any patient information unless you’re family or an emergency contact.” She doesn’t sound the least bit regretful despite her words and I clench my fists.
This bitch-
“Are you Ivy?” The soft words are asked by an unfamiliar voice and I turn to find a woman standing behind me. Despite her long, black hair being disheveled and her bright blue eyes being red and watery, she’s gorgeous… and familiar.
I continue to study her but my mind comes up blank as I take in the tall, thin woman. “Yes,” I finally say since she seems to know who I am even if I can’t return the sentiment.
She nods, swiping a hand at her eyes. “I can take you to Chase.”
I don’t care who the fuck she is if she can help me find the man that I haven’t stopped worrying about since I got the call from Jamille. She turns on her heels, not offering me any further explanation and I follow her, my feet moving quickly to keep up with her blistering pace.
She moves over to the elevator and hits a button. Her eyes move to me and she studies me as she pulls her dark cardigan closer around her body. The elevator seems to take forever but it finally arrives and I follow the woman in.
She hits the button for the third floor. It sinks in that this strange woman could be leading me anywhere, but I don’t care. Not when there’s a chance that she could be leading me to Chase.
The elevator is filled with silence as she continues to wipe at her eyes and I look away. I won’t let myself cry, it’d be admitting that things are bad when I’m still hoping that it’s nothing serious. Maybe the man accidentally sliced his foot open chasing down a perp.
The thought sounded delusional even to me, because I know that whatever is going on is serious. Jamille hadn’t known any details when I’d talked to her on the phone, only saying that she’d gotten a call from Nathan looking for me. I’d instantly regretted blocking all the guys number while I took time to think our relationship over.
The elevator doors open with a ding and the woman leads me down a surprisingly quiet hall. We pace by a nurse’s station and multiple rooms. She stops at the door marked 304 and pushes the wooden door open.
My heart stops in my chest the second my eyes land on Chase in the hospital bed. His eyes are closed and there’s a needle sticking out of one of his wrist. He’s wearing a hospital gown and I catch sight of a white gauze sticking out from under the neck of the gown.
I gasp as my knees go weak and I have to grab onto the wall to keep from falling.
“Ivy.” Warm hands wrap around me as tears start to stream down my face. The familiar smell of Nathan’s woody cologne fills my nostrils.
“What happened?” I ask, looking up at him through blurry eyes.
“Some perp stabbed me,” The words come from behind me and not from who I expect. I turn in Nathan’s arms, finding Chase’s eyes now open. “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he says halfheartedly. “Really, I didn’t need this much fanfare, but I suppose I was overdue for my ego to be stroked.” He gives a half smile but it looks weak and I let out another sob.
“I’m okay, Ivy,” Chase tries to reassure me, but when he tries to move to set up, he winces before collapsing back against the bed.
Pain fills my chest and Nathan squeezes me tighter. “He’s okay,” he whispers and the words sound much more reassuring than when Chase tried but I still can’t help but to look at the man in worry. “He lost a little blood but they did a transfusion and stitched him up.”
Chase’s eyes light with amusement slightly as I watch him and I try to figure out how in the world he can find any humor while he looks half dead. His gaze moves to the side and he tries for another smile. “Well… this isn’t the way that I expected for you to meet her, but this is Ivy, ma.”
At his words, I finally look at the seats by the window of the room. Emmet is sitting in a seat with his hair pulled into a sloppy bun and his eyes red rimmed. His gaze is settled on Chase. The seat next to him is filled by a beautiful woman with curly dark brown hair and piercing hazel eyes. She watches me closely.
Finally, she stands and I take notice of how she looks better than anyone else in the room. Her shoulders are set and her eyes are clear, free of tears or stress. Her colorful gown coasts the ground as she makes her way over to me. Finally her lips stretch into a smile. “Of course it takes drastic measures for my son to finally introduce me to the woman that he’s been seeing.”
My eyes widen and I look at Chase, finding him watching on with a smile “Drastic measures is an interesting way to describe it.”
The woman shakes her head and her eyes fill with the same mischief that I’ve seen in her son’s eyes for months now. “I told them he’d be okay. My boy is too stubborn to let a simple knife wound take him down,” she says and when her warm eyes meet mine I can tell that she’s trying to reassure me.