“I know he’d love to see you,” Mom said, gesturing toward Dad’s room. Everyone piled in, despite the rule that you could only have four people in the room at a time.
Dad perked right up when he saw that he had visitors. He’d said he didn’t want anyone from the company to see him, just to send their regards. I had the feeling that some of them were going to drop by today anyway.
“It’s good of you all to come and see an old man,” he said. Mom kissed his cheek.
“You’re not old, Walter. Still young at heart.” He put his hand on said heart.
“My heart doesn’t feel all that young right now.” Probably not. Sloane started unpacking the bags. She’d brought Mom a new dress that she’d made “just for fun” and there was food. It was early for lunch, so it was more brunch. We all had brioche French toast, potatoes and orange juice. Well. All of us but Dad. Sloane had gotten him a superfood smoothie and he grumbled, but drank it.
“Now, Walter. You know that you’re going to have to cut back,” Mom said, chiding him like a parent.
“I know, I know,” he said, setting down the empty cup. “There. Do I get extra points now?” She shook her head at him. We were busted only minutes later when a nurse heard too much noise coming from our room and walked in to find it crammed with people.
“Okay, this is so not allowed,” she said, looking at us as if we were a bunch of naughty children. “At least half of you have to get out.”
Dad tried to reason with her, but she crossed her arms and put her foot down. Marisol and Chloe gave Dad hugs and kisses and said they were going to leave and then Sloane followed a little later with Ryder.
“We’ll be down next week for dinner,” she said, blowing Dad a kiss.
He waved goodbye to her and smiled at me.
“Thank you for that.” I couldn’t take credit and told him so.
“They came on their own. I said they should wait, but you know Sloane.” We all laughed. Sloane did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted and didn’t care what anyone said about it.
“Those crazy kids,” Dad said, closing his eyes. He seemed like he wanted to take a nap, so Lucah and I decided to take a walk for a little while and let him rest.
Lucah took my arm and we walked slowly down the sidewalk. An ambulance pulled in, siren blaring and then dying off.
“I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do about the company,” I said. I’d been trying to tell myself to just wait until tomorrow and that I wasn’t alone in dealing with this and that it wasn’t all on my shoulders, but that didn’t help. I just wanted everything to be okay again. To go back to going to my job Monday through Friday and dealing with emails and projects and new product development and stockholders and share prices and all of the things that I knew how to deal with. I always thought that if a crisis like this arose, I would be able to keep my shit together and be a damn adult about it.
“Do you ever feel like you have no idea what you’re doing?” I asked him. He looked at me sideways.
“Are you serious? I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Except when it comes to you. I know that I love you and I want to marry you. Everything else is guesswork.” Wow. He seemed like he always knew what to do. What to say. I’d always felt chaotic and messy in comparison. It was one of the reasons why we worked as a couple, but every now and then it made me feel inadequate at adulting.
“Really? Really and seriously?” I asked. He stopped us and put his arms around me in a hug.
“Really and seriously,” he said in my ear.
“Good. I don’t want to be the only one who sucks at being a grownup.”
He laughed.
“I’m happy to suck with you. Or suck on you.” He lowered his mouth and started sucking my neck. I squealed and tried to get away, but he had his arms firmly around me.
“I vant to suck your blood!” he said in the worst vampire impression I’d ever heard.
“I want to suck your dick,” I said and that shut him up. He pulled back and raised one eyebrow.
“Well, that can be arranged. Maybe not on this street, but somewhere more private. And definitely soon. Really and seriously.” The glint in his eyes put aside my worries for the moment. That was definitely one of the perks of having a sexy fiancé. He made you forget the negative and focus on the positive.
“You make me so happy,” I said.
“I bet you were pretty good at it before you met me,” he said and we resumed walking together. It was starting to drizzle again, but I didn’t care. My hair was going to totally frizz out, but what did it matter, honestly?
“I was happy before I met you, that’s true. But with you, it’s just… better. I have someone to share it with. Someone to be goofy happy with.” I was crazy, goofy happy with him.
“I like that,” he said, and we walked a little bit more, each with our own thoughts.