“You’re family. You know I think of you as my own daughter.” She was going to make me cry if she kept talking so I just thanked her again and went back to my office so no one would see the tears forming in my eyes.
It took a few more minutes to get myself back together again and I realized I still had to go see Violet. That should be fun.
Her office was down the end of the hallway, on the opposite side as mine. I knocked, since her door was closed, but she called out to me to come in.
I didn’t know what I expected, but her office wasn’t that different from mine. Not too many pictures, or clutter or useless crap that a lot of other people seemed to need around them at all times. She had a few plants, and some generic watercolor prints, but that was about it.
She was typing on her computer, and didn’t look up.
“Hold on one second, I just have to finish this thought.” She typed a few more words and then looked up at me with a smile.
“Hi, Rory.”
“Hi, Violet.” There was another pause as I wondered if I could sit in her extra chair or if I should just stand there because this was just a quick question.
Violet seemed to realize that she hadn’t offered a chair.
“Oh, please, sit down. Sorry about that. I was thinking about something else.” I sat down and she put a smile on her face.
“So, what can I, um, do for you?” It didn’t feel like the right thing to say, but I said it anyway.
“This is kind of embarrassing, actually. I feel absolutely weird asking you about this, and feel free to tell me if this is completely inappropriate, but I just wanted to make sure that Lucah was okay? I noticed he was on this list of absent employees.” Every day, an email was sent around to everyone listing the absent employees, and those that were on vacation. It saved a lot of them from getting massive amounts of email when they weren’t there to check it.
“Oh.” It didn’t seem that . . . inappropriate, I guessed. She probably didn’t have anyone to ask, and she knew I would know the answer.
“He’s fine. Just, um, dealing with some things.” Maybe she could read between the lines. I almost wished she would have told me what she wanted to ask me ahead of time so I could have texted Lucah and asked him if it was okay to tell her. I mean, what was the protocol here? What would he want her to know?
“Say no more. I’m going to guess it involves that brother of his. Ryder was always trouble, even when he was barely a teenager.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling at the same time. “I’m sure he’s probably told you some of the stories.” Yes, he had. Also, could I go now?
“Anyway, I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t in a car accident or something. We might not be together anymore, obviously, but you never stop caring about someone, even when you break up.” How much caring were we talking about here? I almost wanted to stay and ask her, but I needed to get back to work so this day could be over, so I could go back to the hospital.
“No, he’s fine.” I wasn’t going to elaborate. If Lucah wanted to tell her later on, he could do it himself, but for now, it was not really her business.
“Oh, good. Sorry about this being so weird, but I don’t have his number anymore, and I didn’t know who to ask about it.”
“No, it’s fine. I get it.” Not really.
I left Violet’s office and went back to mine not knowing how I felt. But I went back to work anyway.
Dad never did catch up with me, so I’d have to wait to see him the next day, or call him later. That was probably good, because I could talk to Lucah about what I should and should not discuss.
I counted down the minutes until I could leave. I had everything packed and ready to rocket out the door, and I probably would have punched anyone in the face if they’d come to me with a crisis at five minutes to five.
No one did, and I ran out of the office so fast, people probably thought I was on fire. I paid the cabbie extra to get me to the hospital faster, and he did.
I ended up getting too impatient for the elevator, so I ran up the steps, arriving on Ryder’s floor sweaty and out of breath.
What I found when I walked into Ryder’s room was not what I expected. It was pretty much almost exactly as I left it, only this time Lucah was tuning a guitar, April was fussing over Ryder’s pillows and he was minus a few of the IV lines.
And I nearly crashed into Sloane, who had two trays of coffee.
“Best friend,” I said reaching out to take one of the trays from her.
“Hey, I figured you were going to get here around now. How as work?” Never mind that.
“How is he?” She smiled.
“He’s doing much better. He didn’t try to kill himself, we don’t think. He just took too many pills.” That seemed a little bit too convenient an excuse, and I wasn’t buying it, but I would hold off judgment for now.
“Sunshine,” Lucah said, beaming at me. He didn’t look any more rested, but he seemed a lot more cheerful.
“Where did the guitar come from?” I said, handing out the coffee as Lucah got up to give me a kiss.
“Tate brought it. He had one at home and figured we could use a little music.”
“Kill me, please,” Ryder said from his bed.
“Not today,” April said, making sure his one remaining IV line didn’t have any kinks in it.
“How was work, Miss Clarke? Did you miss me?” Only every other millisecond. No, that was a lie. I’d missed him EVERY second.
“It was not as fun without you. How’s everything here?”
“Pretty much what you’re seeing. Nurses have been in and out, checking and testing.”
“Please kill me,” Ryder said again. “If one more person asks me if I’ve pooped today, I’m going to lose it.” It appeared Ryder wasn’t a model patient, but that didn’t surprise me. Men were horrible when they were invalids.
“Hush,” April said. Sloane came in behind me and Ryder’s eyes went immediately to her. Drawn to her. She wasn’t as spruced up and fabulous as last night, but he didn’t seem to care. And she stared back just as much as she handed out coffee.
There weren’t enough chairs, so I sat in Lucah’s lap, April took the other chair and Sloane sat on the edge of Ryder’s bed and absentmindedly rubbed his feet. He closed his eyes and lay back, moving the bed so he was more horizontal.
“Where’s Tate?” I asked as Lucah took my hair down and ran his fingers through it. It was pretty gross since I hadn’t showered, but he didn’t seem to mind.