Mrs. Jennings. I really like the sound of this.
We take the elevator down to the basement, walk down a long corridor, and get into another one to go up one floor. When we step outside, the heat is suffocating. The bellhop and another employee load mine and Leah’s luggage into the back of my SUV and bid me goodbye before they shut the trunk door. After setting my GPS, I groan at the time it’s going to take me to get to Charlotte. Traffic is going to be a bitch.
“The things men do for love.” I sigh and head out of the parking lot but not before I glance at the swarm of photographers camped out in front of the hotel. I almost feel sorry for them, especially with how hot it is outside. Almost.
By the time I arrive in Charlotte, it’s late so there’s no choice but to wait until morning. My original plan of showing up at her door and falling to my knees has been scrapped and a new one set in place. Thanks to Eli’s super sleuthing, he discovered that Leah is at work just like her mother told me she would be, which could make things a bit more difficult. But thanks to Eli, my business manager, and my very deep checkbook, I’m hoping to pull off something rather epic.
When I arrive at the hospital, I call Chuck. He’s the orderly shift supervisor and has agreed to help me, along with his wife who is a nurse on Leah’s floor. Chuck meets me outside and ushers me into one of those non-descript doors people often wonder where they lead to. The one I’m in, leads down a very long hallway of concrete blocks.
We walk, turn down a hall, go through a door, walk some more, another door, turn, and turn again. By the time we get to the last door, there is a lone hospital bed waiting for us in which Chuck tells me to lay down on it. I do as he says and while my heart beats rapidly, to the point I’m certain it’s coming out of my chest, he pushes me through another door. I’m forced to close my eyes because the overhead lighting is going to make me pass out. It’s like strobe lights only you’re the one moving.
Every so often, someone says hi to Chuck or asks him to do something once he’s done moving his current patient. One even stops and asks what I died from because I have my face covered. Chuck saves the day with, “he doesn’t like the lights and I don’t want to clean up puke.”
He finally pushes me into a room and closes the door. The soft click is a relief, although I’m still slightly nervous. I don’t know how Leah’s going to react when she sees me. The thought of losing her for good terrifies the shit out of me. I sit up and drop the sheet from my face and find a woman staring at me. Her mouth opens, closes, and opens again until Chuck tells his wife to knock it off. She shakes her head and gets to work by hooking me up to a fake IV, puts an oxygen thing in my nostrils—talk about uncomfortable—and makes me put on the gown so it covers my shoulders. After Chuck wraps my head in a bandage, he tucks me in, sets the bed at an incline and Chuck’s wife turns on all the machines.
“They’re set to demo mode. By the time I get Leah, they’ll be beeping. She’ll rush in to check your vitals,” she says.
“Great, thanks.”
They leave, leaving the door open. For a minute, I watch people walk by. They peer into the room out of curiosity, which I don’t understand. Like, what are they expecting to see, someone dying? A leg suspended from the air?
“Leah, new patient in 302,” I hear Chuck’s wife say. I close my eyes and wait until I hear someone enter the room. Papers are being flipped and I moan. As if on cue, the monitors start beeping and then she’s by my side.
“Mr. Jones, I’m Leah. I’m going to be taking care of you. It seems . . . what the heck?”
I open one eye to barely a squint and see her looking behind the machine. Her hand touches my wrist, where the IV is and mutters a curse word.
“Why is your IV not right? What the hell is going on here?”
“Well,” I say as I start to sit up and pull my head bandage off. Leah steps back and places her hand over her heart. “I’m not really injured.”
“What the…” Mouth gaping, she stares at me and then glances around the room, looking shocked. “What the hell are you doing here, Greyson?”
I finish taking everything off and slip out of the bed. I stand there, a few feet from the woman I love and hold my hands up. “I know I’m the last person you want to see, I get that. But I wanted you to hear my side of things before you write me off for good. You see, back in college, your brother and I went head to head, a lot. Naturally, a rivalry formed. We would jab at each other every chance we could. About two years ago, we found ourselves at the same party, but we keep our distance, until Bryan bumps into me. One time, it’s an accident, but to do it repeatedly, it’s bullshit. He wouldn’t stop so I snapped and told him I was going to fuck his sister, so he’d leave me alone. Thing was, I had only heard of you, hadn’t really seen you until the next tournament. There you were, rooting him on. I thought the universe was playing a cruel joke on me because one look at you and I was done for.