Rev It Up (Black Knights Inc. #3)(75)
“You gave him enough,” Jake told her, sadness and remorse making his heart feel as if it weighed as much as a B-52 bomber.
“I hope so,” she whispered. “I hope I was a good wife to him in the time we had together. I’ve always—” She stopped and hastily wiped away the last of her tears when the doctor strolled into the room with a clipboard under one arm.
***
Vanessa kicked off her ridiculous high-heeled shoes and raced down the smoky hall, digging into the cleavage of her halter top to pull out her room key.
In her excitement, she dropped it on the floor and nearly split the ass of her miniskirt bending to pick it up. Straightening, she fumbled with the lock and finally burst into the hotel room with, “You’re never going to believe this!”
“Oui.” Rock sat by the window, gazing down at his phone as if he’d never seen it before. And even watching him do something as simple as thumb off the device, the tendons in his forearm shifting under his tattoos, made her need to catch her breath. Or maybe it was just the fact that she’d run up the four flights of stairs instead of taking the ultraslow elevator that had her lungs working overtime. Yeah, that had to be it. “Who told you?” he asked. “Was it Becky?”
“Huh?”
“That Franklin is Snake’s son? I just got off the phone with Steady who found out from Ozzie. Apparently there was a big to-do at the hospital last night involvin’ blood, brawls, and bombs of the big-honkin’ secret variety.” He shook his head in disbelief. “So which grape on the Black Knights’ gossip vine spilled the beans to you?”
She was totally confused, and it wasn’t just the alliteration and mixed metaphors. “Nobody. It was obvious the other night when I saw all three of them together, but that’s not what—”
“Is that what you meant with that whole cryptic statement about all of us keepin’ secrets from each other?”
“Yes,” she huffed, tossing her platform stripper shoes aside. “But that’s beside the point. Listen, I was downstairs getting clean towels when I ran into Candy who said she saw Johnny come in last night!”
Rock had spent quite a bit of time over at In the Mood Lounge after the first night when he’d questioned the bartender and the guy said he remembered seeing someone who matched Johnny’s description. But Rock had turned up a big ol’ handful of nothing on that front. And you can bet Vanessa was more than a little happy to be the one to net them some actionable intel.
Girl power!
“Come in where?” Rock demanded, jumping from the chair. “Here?”
“Yes!” She excitedly hopped from one foot to the other. “He’s staying here. Right here in this hotel!”
***
“Your phone is out of batteries now too, damnit,” Michelle cursed from the passenger seat of her Hyundai Elantra, clicking off Jake’s iPhone. She winced and glanced into the back seat to make sure her son hadn’t heard that little slip at the end.
The last few days had seen her vocabulary deteriorate considerably.
Thankfully, Franklin had his headphones on, watching the movie playing on his iPad, his soft cheeks absent their usual rosy glow and his little eyes smudged by dark bruises.
We’ll be home soon, she silently promised him, reaching back to pat his knee.
He smiled at her so sweetly, lifting the sleeve on his T-shirt to proudly display—for the twentieth time—the press-on tattoo Jake had given him, and her poor, battered heart melted all over the place.
She winked and pointed at the tattoo, giving him a thumbs up like she’d done twenty times before, and he giggled before returning his attention to the movie. His pale face wrinkled when they inched over a speed bump in Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s underground parking garage, causing her to glance at her watch.
It was almost time for another dose of pain medication.
“I’m sure there’s a good reason why she isn’t here,” Jake said from the driver’s seat, pocketing the change the parking attendant handed him before pulling past the gate and taking the ramp up to street level. There was still a cloud of tension hanging between them, but after their come-to-Jesus talk he was no longer giving her the silent treatment.
Which was a good thing.
She had enough to worry about without his whole cold-shoulder act adding to it. And for the first time in a really long time, she began to believe there might be hope for the two of them.
Oh, not that she thought there was any room for a relationship. Because Jake would never forgive her…
Heck, after seeing the look on his face out when she first told him what she’d done, the shock that’d instantly morphed into rage that’d quickly slid into a sickening kind of anguish, she had a hard time forgiving herself for the pain she’d caused him.
But even if there wasn’t room for a relationship, maybe there was room for an understanding.
She would continue to hope so. For her son’s sake.
Jake flicked on the blinker, and they exited onto the packed city streets. A line of yellow taxis waited by the hospital’s main doors, and The Corner Bakery advertised their daily panini special on a chalkboard easel in the middle of the sidewalk—which reminded her that she hadn’t eaten. Jake had come back earlier in the afternoon with a bag of hamburgers after dropping off his motorcycle at her house and picking up her car, but she’d been too busy listening to the nurse and jotting down notes about medication schedules, maintaining stitches, and food restrictions to eat anything.