I placed the coffee cup down on the table. Leaning forward, I drew my hands together and tapped my index fingers against one another as I replied.
“The spirit of his request was not that I marry a bimbo, Albert. He wanted me to be happy.”
“Please!” Albert scoffed as I finished speaking. “Since when have you ever been happy with anyone but yourself, Grey?”
He leaned forward and folded his hands together on the table in front of him. A veneer of sweat reflected on top of his bald head.
“Come on, Grey,” he sneered. “Everyone here knows you’re not capable of such a thing. Happiness? With one woman?”
I glared at Albert and thinned my lips. It took every bit of restraint I had not to lay into him.
“Albert, out of respect for him, I’m not going to discuss this with you or anyone else here. I’ve said I’ll fulfill my commitment to him.”
My answer provided him no satisfaction. Instead, he turned his attention towards the attorneys and began to argue against the terms of the will again. Soon, the others joined in and a chorus of complaints filled the conference room. But rather than engage with them, I stared past them through the large windows of the conference room into the lobby of the law office.
As I watched people milling about, my mind wandered. Somehow, I had to convince Maddie she was wrong for rejecting me. She was young and emotional at times, yes, but she wasn’t foolish. Maybe it was possible I’d done a shit job of getting my point across. Hell, I’d never asked anyone to marry me before. It’s not unreasonable to suppose it would come off with a goddamn bump or two along the way.
After all, we had a child to consider.
I drew my focus back to chaos of the voices around the table. What a sorry excuse for a family I had. The only one worth a shit to me was gone. There was nothing for me here.
Maybe my grandfather was right.
Exhaling, I stood from the table and snapped my jacket at the elbows after straightening my tie. The room fell silent.
“Albert,” I said, as looked down at him. “Go to hell.”
With that, I turned and began to walk away. As I did, the uproar started all over again. Profanity-laced tirades from every freeloader in attendance echoed off the walls of the conference room as I exited. Fuck it. All of this shit would get worked out as soon as I could talk to Maddie once again.
And that’s exactly what I intended to do. This time tomorrow night I’d be back in Los Angeles. I wasn’t taking ‘‘no’ for an answer from her anymore.
GREY
Two thirty-three in the morning.
That was the time staring back at me on my alarm clock as I reached for my phone. Through half-open eyelids I squinted at the number on the caller ID.
Katy.
“Shit…” I grumbled. “Now what the fuck.”
Six hours later, I once again arrived at the hospital in Los Angeles. And although she’d called to get me there, Katy refused to speak to me when I saw her, blaming me for what happened. The doctor wouldn’t tell me anything other than the obvious. He offered up a handful of condolences and encouragements to ‘keep trying’.
Maddie survived, but wasn’t conscious.
Katy took me to Maddie’s room. Scowling at me before she turned to walk away she said, “No one’s allowed in to visit right now. This might be a good time for you to think about what you’re going to say to her when she wakes up.”
I frowned at her as she scolded me. Shaking my head, I turned my attention away from Katy and peered inside a small window on the door to Maddie’s room. As I did, I heard Katy walk off without so much as a word. It was just as well. I didn’t feel like getting into some goddamn thing with her right now.
Hell, maybe that’s the reason she left. Maybe she didn’t want that either. She was being emotional and ridiculous about this but there was right around zero chance I’d convince her to see things from my point of view. I suppose when your best friend has something like this happen, it’s normal to lash out and want to lay blame.
And, as it seemed so often these days, I was the obvious target. Never mind the fact this sort of thing happens all the time all over the world. Leave out the notion of what I might think about it. I’d just buried my grandfather and now this? I resented the fact Katy showed me so little courtesy or sympathy. She wasn’t the only one concerned about Maddie. And for her to flat out accuse me of causing Maddie to lose the…
Fuck it.
In any case, nothing mattered to me right now except Maddie’s well-being. The good news was, aside from the obvious trauma which brought her here in the first place, she was going to be okay with time. Soon enough, she would wake up and we’d have to talk about what happened and what it meant going forward.