I took my seat and the first item on the agenda was to introduce Violet and welcome her. She got to make a little speech, which was everything the Board could possibly want to hear. There was a round of applause and I snuck a look at Lucah, but his face was blank. I shouldn’t have been so weird about Violet. Now he was probably afraid that I would take anything he did, even smiling at her, the wrong way and freak out about it.
Well that was ridiculous. I wasn’t some needy clingy girl that would do that. Except I had, when Violet had first showed up.
I turned my attention away from Violet and back on the meeting, but the next thing on the agenda was Lucah’s presentation. He stood up and moved to the laptop connecting his presentation to the projector. He was most definitely trying not to look at me. His eyes would sweep the room and skip right over me. But I was watching him.
The actual content of the presentation wasn’t what captivated me. It was how he talked about it. The way his eyes lit up and he smiled and gestured, and the way he walked as he made the presentation. I wished I could have taken my eyes off him to see what everyone else thought, but I couldn’t.
I’d helped him pick out that suit this morning. I’d buttoned his shirt, and made sure his tie was straight. Just a few hours ago, my fingers had been in that hair, my lips had kissed that dimple in his chin.
He WAS mine. He had been for a long time. And I was his.
When he finished, I wanted to get up and give him a standing ovation, but that wouldn’t have been a good idea, so I just watched him pack up his laptop and answer any questions. There were plenty and he fielded them without hesitation, even making everyone laugh a few times. My redheaded charmer.
I wished there were some way to get a message to him, so I tore off a corner off my notes (which were empty because I was too distracted by him to take any) and wrote you were awesome with a little heart and folded it up under the table. He had to walk behind my chair to get out of the room, and as he did I held out the note and he grabbed it. He threw a look over his shoulder at me. There he was. That was the man I’d woken up to this morning, and the man I would go home with tonight.
Because he was mine.
Saying it in my mind gave me such delight that I wanted to stand up and announce it to everyone, but I couldn’t.
The rest of the meeting was about making some new investments to grow the company. Personally, I didn’t think it was the right time, and I said as much, but my thoughts were lost in the sea of male voices. The meeting got heated and we ended it with nothing resolved, and an agreement to pick it up again at the next meeting. I had a brief fantasy of calling them out on their scheme to get rid of my father, but I knew going forward without proof, or not letting Dad handle it first were both bad plans. So I kept my goddamn professional mouth shut.
Violet nabbed my arm as I was leaving.
“Is it always like that?” she said. “That got intense at the end.”
“You put a bunch of men in a room and make them talk about money, and that’s the result. It’s the same if you asked them about politics or religion. You’ll get used to it, I promise. They all have to get themselves heard multiple times before anything gets decided.” She walked with me back to my office.
“Men like to be heard,” she said as we paused at my door.
“Yes, yes they do.” I’d been dealing with it my whole life. Lilia was motioning at me as she talked to someone on the phone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I think I need to deal with that.”
“Sure, absolutely, see you later.” She smiled and walked back down the hall to her office. Huh. She seemed like she wanted to talk to me about something, but Lilia was still frantically waving at me.
Poor thing had an irate caller who had somehow gotten through the switchboard. It happened every now and then that a crazy got through. This one was worse than most. She put the guy on hold and explained the situation. I told her to put him through to me. This guy had picked the wrong woman to mess with.
I told him as much as he ranted and raved and started going off on how women didn’t belong working on technology and I should get in the kitchen, and so forth. I let him have it in the calmest, nicest way possible. And when he started cursing at me, I wrote down his number and then hung up.
“You okay?” I went out to check on Lilia and make sure the asshole hadn’t upset her too badly.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Her eyes were red and her nose was definitely running. “It would be completely wrong and illegal to hack into his computer and introduce a worm that would eat his hard drive, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, I have no objections, but I think we’ve had enough run-ins with the law lately. Not that you’d get caught,” I whispered so no one would overhear and then get both of us into deep trouble. Even joking about committing cybercrimes was like making bomb jokes in front of the TSA. You just didn’t do it.
“I definitely wouldn’t get caught, but it’s probably childish and vindictive. Oh well, a girl can dream.” I made a mental note NEVER to get on Lilia’s bad side. I wondered how many ex’s had their computers mysteriously crash.
“Next time that happens, put them right through to me. If they want to be jerks, they can do it to me, or my voicemail.”
“Thanks. And please don’t tell anyone about the crying and the hacking.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She finally smiled and I went back into my office. I would definitely not mess with her.
“I feel like I should give you a round of applause for your fantastic presentation, Mr. Blythe,” I said as soon as Lucah and I could talk freely.
“I’m glad it was to your satisfaction, Miss Clarke.” He was beaming. I loved seeing him so proud of himself.
“But there’s one thing I’m not too happy about.”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t tell me anything about it, Mr. Secretive.” I poked him in the ribs and he put his hands out to protect himself.
“I thought about it, but I didn’t want you stressing about it, and I knew that would stress me about it, and I kind of wanted to surprise you. Are you mad?” It would take a lot more than that to make me mad.
“No, I’m not mad. But did you really think that I would get so stressed out about your presentation?” I might have been a little nervous for him, but I wouldn’t have gone all the way to freak out level. I had too many other things to do that for.
“No. This time I was the one who was scared. But it didn’t show?” I had no idea what he was talking about. The only thing I saw up there was confidence, so I told him that.
“You’re a little biased, don’t you think, Sunshine?”
“Even if I am biased, if you were nervous, I would tell you that. When have I ever tried to spare your feelings by lying to you?” That he knew of . . .
“Ah, true.”
We didn’t talk about the weirdness with Violet. It seemed that neither of us wanted to bring it up, so we just let it go, instead talking about performance anxiety and various presentations we’d made in high school that had not gone well.
I handed Lucah my bag and my coat and knocked on Sloane’s door, but she wasn’t home from work yet. I was going to make much more of an effort to spend time with her from now on. I could divide my time. It wasn’t fucking rocket science.
I texted her asking if she wanted to hang out when she got back, but she said it was going to be another late night. She’d decided to host a fashion show featuring her new lingerie line, and now had thrown herself full-force into planning it. There went my idea to spend more time with her. I’d been along for the ride when she’d planned other shows, and it wasn’t a fun ride. More like one of those that spins and puts you upside down and scrambles your brain until you can’t see or walk straight when you get off it.
I was about to ask Lucah what he wanted to do for dinner, but he was on his phone and his face was so pale that his freckles stood out even more than usual.
“Okay. Thank you. I’ll be r
ight there.” He hung up and had to reach out to hold onto the kitchen counter.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ryder overdosed. He’s in the hospital.” I had a moment of shock, but it passed quickly. I’d been expecting this, somewhere in the back of my mind. Ryder was headed for a crash, and here it was.
“Which hospital?” I said. Lucah jumped at the sound of my voice.
“Mass Gen.” He’d set my purse down next to the door when we got home, so I grabbed it, making sure my cellphone and wallet were still in it.
“Let’s go,” I said, holding out my hand. He roused himself out of his moment of shock and took my hand as I led him down the hall and to the elevator.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, using my other hand to rub his shoulder. I’d never seen Lucah so silent.
He looked down at me and pulled me close and took one deep breath.
“I hope so.”
The cab ride to the hospital was one of the worst I’d ever taken. Lucah sat in stony silence, but the hand I was holding shook. I paid the fare and we got out, going into the Emergency entrance. Lucah still seemed unable to speak, so I asked the nurse at the desk where Ryder Blythe was.
“Are you family?”
“Yes,” I said. “This is his brother.” The nurse looked at Lucah.
“I’m his brother,” he finally said, his voice cracking. “I’m his brother.” I thought he was going to pass out, or fall over, but he braced himself on the desk and inhaled sharply through his nose.
The nurse told us where to go and gave us directions I tried to remember, while towing Lucah along. He stumbled like a zombie, nearly crashing into a nurse who pushed a cart from room to room. I got lost once and had to backtrack, but eventually I found the right hallway.
“That’s his room,” I said, pointing to the one with the numbers four-two-three on the door. Obviously he could see that was Ryder’s room, but I still felt the need to say something.
“Lucah?” He was still so pale.
“This is my fault.” I thought maybe I’d heard him wrong, because he couldn’t possibly be blaming himself for this. “This is my fault.”
“Let’s just go in and see him, okay?” This didn’t feel like the right time to address Lucah’s self-blame. We could deal with that later, after we assessed the damage.
A soft beeping was the only sound in the room, apart from the squeaking of Lucah’s shoes on the linoleum as we slowly walked toward the solitary bed.
Ryder was either asleep, or passed out; an oxygen tube in his nose, and several lines strung their way to hanging bags of different liquids. The man I’d seen the other day was gone, replaced by a broken, deflated version. His skin was gray, and his cheekbones nearly poked through his skin.
Lucah stared at his brother. Just stared. And then he fell to his knees beside Ryder, taking me with him. I nearly cracked my skull on the metal edge of the bed, but I was able to catch myself before that happened.
Ryder’s eyelids fluttered and then opened.
“Lucah?” His voice was rough and cracking, like he had laryngitis.
“Ryder.” Lucah lifted his head and reached for Ryder’s hand.
“I’m . . . sorry.” Ryder whispered and then coughed.
“It’s okay, don’t try to talk. It’s not important, okay? It’s not important right now.” Ryder nodded and closed his eyes again, and soon his breathing slowed and deepened and he was asleep again.
Lucah rose to his feet, taking me with him again. We both turned when a knock sounded on the door.
“Are you his brother?” a nurse with a dark bun and pink scrubs said in a hushed voice. Lucah nodded. “He’s been asking for you. How about we go out in the hall and talk?” This time Lucah was the one going first, with me following.
The nurse took us down the hall into a little room decorated in bright colors and filled with overly stuffed chairs.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Lucah and I each sank into one of the chairs. These were the kind of chairs that you gave people bad news in.
“Your brother overdosed on what we believe was a mixture of pills, all of which he was prescribed. At this point we’re not sure if he was trying to commit suicide, or if he was trying to get high. We pumped his stomach and we’re going to keep him here to watch him for forty-eight hours. I assure you, he’s not in any kind of legal trouble, because no illegal drugs were found on him. Once he’s doing better, we’re going to do a psychiatric evaluation to make sure he’s stable enough to go home and doesn’t need any additional treatment. Do you have any other family that you might need to contact?” She said all this with a soft, but clipped voice, as if she’d said it so many times she could just copy and paste our names in the speech.
“Our parents are dead.” The nurse didn’t seem surprised or shocked by this information.
“Tate. You should call Tate,” I said as gently as I could.
“Tate. My other brother Tate.” The nurse nodded.
“Okay, well why don’t you call him. We also have some paperwork that we need you to fill out, and someone will be by to talk to you about that as well.” She looked from Lucah to me and back before she patted his arm and left us.
I didn’t want to bother Lucah, or upset him, so I didn’t say anything.
“Do you think he was trying to kill himself?” he said after a few moments of quiet.
How did I answer that? Lucah and I had discussed Ryder at length. What he’d done, his screw ups, his failed relationships, all of the bad things. But I barely knew anything about him, really. Other than his record of terrible decision-making.
“I can’t answer that, Lucah. We don’t need to talk about it right now, okay? Let’s just take one moment at a time. Do you want me to call Tate?” Lucah nodded and put his head in his hands.
I took my hand from his, and it felt awful, as if I was abandoning him, but I needed to call Tate without Lucah overhearing. I stood just outside the disgustingly cheery room and called. April answered, and I could hear the girls chattering in the background.
“Hi, April, this is Rory. Um, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m at Mass Gen with Lucah, and Ryder’s here, and he overdosed on pills. They’re not sure what happened exactly, but he’s here and we’re with him.” I tried to go on, but April gasped.
“Oh my God. We’ll be right there. Tate! Tate!” she yelled, muffling the sound, but I could still hear her panicked voice. And she hung up.
I put my phone in my purse and walked back into the room. Lucah still had his head in his hands, but his body shook.
I crouched down in front of him and reached for his hands. Tears dripped down his face and his nose and onto our hands. He cried silently, that kind of cry that’s so painful you couldn’t even make a sound if you tried to.
“Oh, Lucah. I wish there was something I could do.” I gripped his hands and tried to avoid crying myself. He was always being the calm, stable one for me. Now it was my turn.
He gasped and tried to breathe, but it had become too difficult for him to manage.
“Lucah.” I repeated his name until he raised his head and looked at me. “Inhale . . . exhale.” I talked to him until he listened and started breathing normally again.
My Lucah was broken, and there was next to nothing I could do to fix it.
“I can’t do this again. I won’t survive it, Rory. I just can’t.” He rested his head on our entwined tear-drenched hands.
“You’re not going to have to. He’s strong, like you. You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met and I see that more every day I’m blessed to spend with you. You’re an extraordinary person, Lucah Jacob Blythe.” I kissed his head and squeezed his hands. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he whispered. “Thank you for being here.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I belong with you.” Whether that was in the penthouse at a hotel, or a hospital room decorated like it was a place of happiness instead of a place of sicknes
s and death.
Lucah took another breath and moved to get up. I stood with him, my knees feeling bruised from kneeling on the hard floor.
“Do you want some coffee? I can go get you some.” It would give him some time alone with Ryder. I also wanted to call Sloane. She needed to know what was going on.
“That would be wonderful, thank you. I’m going to, uh, call Tate back and see how long it’s going to take them to get here.” He gave me a tight hug and kissed my mouth before walking back toward Ryder’s room.
I called Sloane first.
“Hey, I can’t talk right now. What’s up? Ouch! Fucking pins.” I considered not telling her and hanging up, but when she found out later, she would be upset. Really, really upset.
“Ryder overdosed on pills. Lucah and I are here at the hospital. He’s going to be fine, he’s sleeping right now, but they had to pump his stomach.” The sounds of Sloane’s studio hummed in the background, but from her I heard nothing.
“Sloane?”
Nothing.
“Sloane.”
She inhaled sharply.
“Which hospital?”
“Mass Gen.”
“Room?”
I told her.
“Sloane?”
The call ended. I immediately tried to get her back to make sure she was okay, but she didn’t pick up. Shit. I wished there was a better way I could have done that, but there really wasn’t. I just hoped she could get herself into a cab and get here without incident. We didn’t need another person in a hospital bed. I tried her again, but it went straight to voicemail, so she must have shut her phone off. I took a deep breath and then went to find the nurses’ station and some coffee.
I was about to give up on the great coffee search when I saw a nurse emerge from a room at the other end of the hall with a steaming cup. I dashed forward like I was being chased by a murderer and found the tiny room with a sink, a coffeepot and a fridge. Jackpot. Someone had just made a fresh pot, so I poured two disposable cups’ worth and added powdered creamer to mine but left Lucah’s black. We were going to be patronizing this room a lot, for as long as Ryder was going to be here.