Toxic Bad Boy(43)
“Wait!”
She stopped, green eyes questioning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I assured her, pulling away and picking my shirt up off the carpet. “I just....”
“What?” She picked up her dress, holding it over her nakedness.
“I think we should wait,” I eventually said, not wanting to tell her the real reason for my hesitation.
Her face relaxed, her eyes shining with emotions I couldn’t return. “You are so awesome, Caleb. We don’t have to wait, but it would be more special, right?”
Yeah, I’m really awesome for not having sex with you while pretending you were the girl I really wanted. “I should go.”
“Okay,” she whispered on a grin. “Call me tomorrow?”
I kissed her, feeling like a jerk. “Of course.”
She walked me to the door, accepting another kiss as goodbye.
I got in my car and just sat there for a long time.
It would get better.
If not with Norah, then I’d move on with some other girl.
Gianna couldn’t own me forever.
Norah was a great girl. Pretty, interesting, sweet, even if she was aware of all those things. There were lots of girls out there.
But none of them were as perfect for me as my Gianna.
Gage’s Gianna, I reminded myself harshly. She didn’t belong to me anymore.
I read her text message from earlier, I’m sorry I hurt you.
Then make it go away!
I was fooling myself if I thought I could ever get over her. She did own me forever, had carved her name into my heart.
And just how I’d always known it would be if I lost her, I couldn’t fucking breathe without her.
For the first time, I allowed myself to cry over the loss of air.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.”
-Margaret Cho
GIANNA
My dad and I were eating the casserole I’d made Thursday night when his cell phone rang. “Don’t know who this is,” he muttered before answering.
His expression went alert as he listened to whoever was on the other line and he shot out of his chair. “Where did you say?”
I set my fork down, my heart racing. Something was very wrong for my normally calm dad to act this way.
“I’m on my way.” He hung up, running a shaky hand through his hair. “We have to get to the hospital. Your mom and Chance were in an accident.”
I grabbed my purse from the entry table in the foyer and hurried behind my dad into the garage to his car. “Are they all right?”
He peeled out of the driveway seconds later. “Your mom was okay enough to ask a nurse to call me, but I’m worried because she didn’t call me herself.”
We didn’t speak most of the way to the hospital, each freaking out in our own head. And it was a long time to worry. The hospital was closer to my mom’s house and it took over a half hour to get there on the freeway.
My dad dropped me off outside the emergency room. I would find out where they were and what was going on while he parked the car. I pounced on the first nurse I ran across. “I need to find my mom and brother.”
She pointed to the triage desk. “They’ll tell you over there.”
The two nurses sitting behind the desk were busy, so I slapped a palm down on the counter to get the closest one’s attention. “My mom and brother were in a car accident.”
“Names?” she asked sedately, as if I’d just ordered a fucking Happy Meal.
“Julie Morrison and Chance Thorpe.”
Long fingernails clicked on the keyboard while her eyes slowly scanned the computer screen. I felt like yelling, Hurry the heck up!
Click. Click. CLICK. CLICK! CLICK!!!!
“Please. Are they okay?”
Her lips pursed. “Julie Morrison has been taken for an MRI. Radiology is on the second floor.”
My dad slid to a halt at my side, barking at the nurse, “Chance Thorpe?”
Behind her glasses, her eyes rolled to him, then back to the screen in front of her. After a slow series of clicks, she said, “He’s been moved to the pediatric ward. Third floor.”
“That was fast,” my dad muttered, guiding me to the nearest elevator and stabbing at the button impatiently.
“I want to check on your brother and then I’ll meet you in radiology.”
I’d planned on heading to pediatrics first. I loved my mom but that was my baby brother who was possibly hurt. “How about I check on mom and meet you in pediatrics?”
He nodded, taking a deep breath. I got off on the second floor, following the signs and arrows to radiology. If my mom’s injuries were serious, I’d have my dad come down to speak with the doctor. My flip flops slapped against the white linoleum floor. I turned a corner, seeing Scott where he sat bent over in obvious worry.