“You tapped that too, Damien?” Reeve asked.
“That was a long time ago, and I’m definitely not interested now.”
“Cool. All right. I’m headed out. Make sure you check on her every hour.”
Zeus jumped up on the bed and cuddled up with me. “Zeus, I love you.” My head fell back into my soft pillow and I relaxed my tender head.
That night, I didn’t sleep much. Damien woke me up every hour to check on me. He was very attentive and always made sure I was okay before I went back to sleep. He had really made me feel special.
Sydney
I felt someone nudging me, and I slowly opened my eyes. Damien was sitting next to me holding my phone in my hand, which I now realized was ringing.
“Here, babe, your phone is ringing.”
Looking around the room, I noticed we were in the dark. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. “What time is it?”
“It’s five in the morning.”
Uh, oh. No one ever called me this early. I took the phone from him, looked at the screen, and saw it was a Detroit area code. I was hesitant to answer it thinking it could be Wes. But I pushed my luck.
“This is Sydney.” My voice was still groggy. And my throat hurt from all of the throwing up I’d done.
“Hello, Sydney Summers?” The lady replied.
“Yes, this is she.” Who the hell could this be?
“This is St. Peter’s Hospital. You’re step-father has asked us to call you. He was brought in by ambulance with chest pains and suffered from a heart attack as soon as he got here. He’s in critical care at the moment...”
I placed my hand over my mouth as my eyes filled with tears. “Is he going to be okay?”
“We’re monitoring him now and doing everything we can for him. But before he had his heart attack, he had asked for you to be here. At the moment, he’s being prepped for open heart surgery.” The woman on the other end of the phone was trying to be as sweet as possible. I’m sure it was hard for her to deliver this kind of news to loved ones.
My heart sank for him. We hadn’t been that close, but it still didn’t mean that I didn’t want the best for him and for him to be all right. “I’ll be on the next flight out,” I said before I even thought about what the repercussions would be if I saw Wes.
The thought of going back home scared the hell out of me. I prayed that Wes would behave given the circumstances. If I had any problems, I would be surrounded by people at the hospital, and I could always call for security. My body shivered thinking about it and I chilled to the bone.
I would go there to make sure he was going to be all right, and then I would leave on the next flight out. There was no way I could stay there and possibly have a repeat with Wes. His texts had been coming more frequently, and they were extremely creepy.
Setting the phone back down on my nightstand, I looked at Damien. His face was etched with concern and curiosity.
“Where are you going?”
I explained to him what was going on with Dale.
“I’m not letting you go alone. I’m going with you.” Tears were still streaming down my face, and he gathered me in his arms and kissed me on the top of my head.
I untangled myself from his embrace and looked up at him. “You don’t have to go with me, Damien. I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“Nonsense. First of all, you shouldn’t even be going anywhere with the condition you’re in. And secondly, this is what friends do. They help one another out in the time of need.” He paused for a moment. “If something ever happened to one of my family members, I wouldn’t want to be alone.”
“I can always have Bee meet me there so I’m not alone.” In all reality, I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell Bee I was there. She would want me to stay longer, and I only planned to make this a quick trip. Maybe stay one night and then come back the next day.
“I’m going and that’s final.” He looked at me, espresso to jade.
“Oh, all right.” I took my hand and placed it on my head. It was so tender to the touch. “Ouch, my head really hurts.”
“Are you sure you should be going?” He looked concern.
“Yes, positive.”
He grabbed Zeus from under the blanket and then got up off the bed. “I’ll take out Zeus, and then get us some plane tickets. You go get showered.”
“Oh, shit, what am I going to do with Zeus while we’re gone?” I hadn’t even thought about him. I was such a bad mom.
“I got it covered. I’ll call one of my siblings to see if they can stay for the night.” He settled Zeus on the ground, grabbed his phone out of his back pocket, and started texting like a madman.