Hard Beat(81)

“I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“How’s Beaux?” My hesitation must clue her in immediately, because before I can respond, she continues. “Tanner, is she okay?”

“Fuck, Ry.” My breath comes out in a whoosh as I try to find the words to tell my sister, the one person I’ve always tried to be a good role model for, that I fell in love with a married woman. What is she going to think of me now? “They think she’ll be okay… It’s gonna take some time but not as bad as I feared… but… my head’s all messed up…” I let my words trail off, anguish as prevalent as the uncertainty in my voice.

“Well, of course it is,” she says, misunderstanding my comment. “You just took a blast —”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Talk to me.” Her simple statement means so much to me right now since I feel so very alone.

“How did I not know she’s married?”

“What?” I can envision from memory the look that’s probably on her face.

“I got here to the hospital, professed my love for her as she’s lying there, and then her husband’s fist met my face.”

“Oh shit,” she murmurs, those two words expressing what I feel perfectly. “You had no clue?” The shock in her voice fires so many emotions within me because of course I don’t want my sister to be pissed at me for something I had no control over.

“No, Ry. None. And a part of me thinks something is hinky here. Like she took this job to escape him.”

“Tanner…” She draws my name out in disbelief.

“I know, but I fell for her, Ry… and not just because she was there. We fought like cats and dogs at the beginning, but I really fell for her. She challenges me and makes me laugh and is a really good person and… damn…” I sigh because even as I’m telling my sister these things, I know she already hates Beaux for hurting me. “She was so closed off about her past, so adamant that it was bad and you know me, you know what a good instinct I have when it comes to people, so I’m just…” I force myself to stop rambling and try to hear myself through Rylee’s unjaded ears.

“Telling the truth is easy. It’s deceiving someone that’s hard work.” Silence fills the line as her words resonate with me. “Trust your gut, but just don’t be blinded by love when it’s founded on mistruths from the start.”

“When did you get so wise?” It’s my attempt to stop the advice I need but really don’t want to hear.

“The same time you got so handsome,” she says, a line we’ve exchanged a hundred times over the years that brings a small slice of normalcy to me right now when nothing seems normal.

“Ha. So that means forever.”

She laughs, but I can tell she’s trying to do me a favor in doing so, to lighten the mood some so that we hang up on a good note. “Tan?”

“Yeah?”

“I believe that you didn’t know,” she says softly, understanding how important that is to me. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Once we hang up, I wander the grounds, unable to sit any longer in a waiting room and unwilling to walk away without some answers. Although I’m not sure how I’m going to get any since I’ve been banned from the third floor. I’ll find a way. Somehow.

Next I buy some coffee from a cart on the grounds but don’t even taste it as I sip it, my mind lost in turbulent thoughts and my chest aching from so much more than the blast. Rylee’s words come back to me occasionally, drag me back to reality when I’d much rather be lost elsewhere. I ignore Rafe’s texts and his apologies that he can’t give me more, and his questions about why I’m so invested when I hated her from the get-go.

I can’t speak with him right now or he’ll see right through my transparent emotions.

At some point night falls and forces me to realize that my nomadic wandering has pushed me to the point of mental and physical exhaustion, my body still recovering and needing to rest. As I trudge toward the main building, I realize for the first time that my doubt is winning out over hope. The whoosh of the entrance doors greets me as I head on autopilot to the elevators to take back my chair in the second-floor waiting room.

A part of me wants to waltz onto the third floor like I don’t give a f*ck who’s there and see her again. The idea finds purchase in my mind as more and more people pile on the elevator around me.

“Floor?” an elderly lady asks me since I’ve been pushed on the opposite side of the car from the controls.

“Three, please,” I respond without hesitation, because sometimes you just have to fight for the girl. I was blindsided before, didn’t tell John to go to hell, and right now I’m primed to do just that, because until I hear from Beaux’s lips that she doesn’t want me, I’m not going anywhere.

I exit the elevator car with several other people and walk with them right past the nurses’ station where the same nurse is still on duty. I keep my head down when I approach Beaux’s room, yet I notice a flurry of activity that makes my heart fall because I immediately fear that she has taken a turn for the worse. Not caring about anything but her, I rush to the doorway, only to be met with the sound of her voice.