Liability (Suncoast Society #33)(66)

“And her parents?”

“I’d rather not talk about her parents.”

He snorted. “Assholes?”

“Complicated.”

“Fair enough.”

The way he said it, sounding almost like Mason, nearly broke Cole’s heart.

“Let’s go back out there so I can talk to her,” Corbin said. “Kim’s her name?”

“Yes, sir.” Cole slid the door open.

He stopped, sadly smiling. “Heh. Explains something else, then.”

“What’s that?”

“A few weeks ago, I was jokin’ with him. Told him he needed to get a puppy or a pet or something, and I thought he’s gonna wet his pants how hard he laughed, and he said, ‘Got it handled, Dad.’ Guess he meant Kim, huh?”

Cole cast a loving look back at the man in the bed, then his gaze settled on Tilly, who wore a smirk.

“Guess he did, sir.”





Chapter Twenty-Five


Kim was sitting with Corbin’s arm around her shoulders and going through another weepy stage when Louise and Hank Schorfield entered the waiting room a little after noon.

Corbin spotted them first and reached across Kim to poke Cole in the thigh to get his attention. Corbin tipped his head toward them.

Cole stood, recognizing them from pictures at Mase’s condo. Louise led the way, her hazel eyes twisting Cole’s heart and tearing it from his chest. Now he knew where Mason got those.

He stuck his hand out. “Hi, I’m Cole Singleton. Mason’s boyfriend.”

“Hello.” She shook with him. “My husband, Hank. You must be the man Mason told us he was dating.” She glared down at Corbin. “Hello, *.”

Corbin smirked up at them. “Long time, no see, cunt. Hank.”

She glared down at Kim. “At least this one looks legal.” Hank reached out to touch his wife’s shoulder, but she shook him loose.

Cole remembered Mason mentioning the two had a contentious relationship, but…holy hell.

Corbin hooted and grinned up at Cole. “Oh, please, let me tell her? Please?”

Across the way, Tilly snickered. Landry leveled a dour gaze at her. “I’m sorry,” Tilly said. “I like the old coot. I can’t help it.”

Kim was, fortunately, oblivious to all of this. Between her exhaustion and grief, she wasn’t paying any attention.

Cole opted to try to divert the conversational train. “Um, Mrs. Schorfield, this is Tilly. She’s a family friend, and a nurse. She’s helping us all negotiate—”

Tilly slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh, and Corbin and Landry didn’t help things any by laughing with her.

“—our way through this.”

“Sorry,” Tilly said. She stood and shook hands with the woman. “I’m sorry. We’ve got a baby at home, and none of us got any sleep last night, and I’m sort of punchy when I’m sleep-deprived. Tilly Cardinal-LaCroux and my husband, Landry.”

Cole tried glaring at her but Tilly avoided eye contact with him. Then again, maybe that was better, because maybe she was trying not to laugh.

I know Mason will laugh about this when I tell him.

That thought nearly took his knees out.

Not so much that thought, exactly, but the one that followed on its heels, that he hoped Mason would be able to understand him and get the joke.

That was a bucket of cold water on his emotions.

Cole had Kim stay behind with Corbin and Landry while he went back with Tilly and Louise and Hank, as they’d told Cole to call them. Tilly’s mode turned somber and professional as she gave them the same run-down she’d given Corbin, including the fact that they just didn’t know what Mason’s prognosis was going to be, and the wide range of possibilities for the outcome.

They were standing around Mason’s bed, Louise dabbing at her eyes when she softly spoke to Cole.

“Did you know he came down to have dinner with us a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yes, ma’am. He told us.”

She forced a smile as she patted Mason’s right hand. “I’d tried to fix him up with a friend of ours. I didn’t know he was dating you then.” She finally looked at Cole. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to disrespect you.”

He hoped she felt as charitable about the situation when she learned the full truth. “It’s all right. It’s…complicated.”

“That’s what he told me when I called him the next day.” She shook her head. “Honestly. I’m a modern woman. I don’t want to watch whatever you two do in your bedroom, but I love my son.” She turned her focus back to Mason, her husband draping his arm around her shoulders.

Tilly and Cole were standing at the end of the bed. Tilly grabbed his upper arm and held on tight with a death grip, her lips now pressed together in a thin, tight line. Then she rested her face against his shoulder like she was trying not to cry.

“Oh, please,” she whispered. “Let me tell them!”

“Bad girl, no cookie,” he whispered.

That only made it worse, Tilly now choking and snorting and trying to make it look like she was crying, and failing miserably.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”