Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
* * *
The car service dropped me off in front of the hospital, and I beelined for Taylor’s room. I’d stopped on the way to get flowers and clutched them in my hand now with all the confidence and bluster I’d ever needed in my life.
I was almost to Taylor’s room when I saw a figure walking toward me from the other end of the hallway. I could tell immediately that it was English. Her steady gait, the way she clutched her hands in front of her as if to hold herself together, the wave of energy she gave off that said she was the most powerful person in the room. She’d always had that energy. Even when it wasn’t remotely true. But she’d earned that confidence, and no one could take it from her. It just was her.
She saw me then, and her lips pulled down. A sight I’d seen many times before. Before we were something. And now, I hated it. This was the after. I didn’t want to elicit that response.
“Hey,” I said, reaching the door before her and stopping.
“Thank you for the flowers. You can go,” she said curtly. Her eyes glanced anxiously toward the closed door.
“They’re for Taylor.”
“I assumed,” she said, biting her lip as if to keep herself from saying anything else.
“I… just wanted to see her.”
“And talk to me,” she finished.
“Yes. Of course.”
She shuddered at the words and crossed her arms over her chest.
When she didn’t say anything, I barreled forward. “I told my mother about the lacrosse games.”
Her eyes blinked back up at me. “That was smart of you.”
“We just had a press release at the fields. The parents were into it. I’d thought they’d hate it as much as I did. But I guess everyone wants to see their child on TV. My mother came. She approved.”
“Great,” she said hollowly. “I hope it’s enough for her.”
She said nothing about me. And she hadn’t uncrossed her arms.
I opened my mouth to try to say something else. To apologize, to fucking fix this somehow. But that was her job. I was the train wreck, and she fixed me. I’d thought I was just getting the hang of trying to fix her. But I didn’t even know where to begin to fix us.
I closed my mouth just as the door to Taylor’s room was wrenched open. Both of us jumped as if a gunshot had gone off. But it was just a giant of a man standing in the door. He glanced between us. Me standing there, holding the flowers, and English looking wary and uncomfortable.
“Hey, Bug,” the man said. “Why don’t you go back inside with your sister? She’s asking for you.”
“Okay, Dad,” she said in what sounded like surprise. She stepped toward the door.
“Take the flowers. Taylor will like them.”
English reached out and removed the flowers from my hands. “Thank you,” she said and then walked past her dad and into the room.
Leaving me alone with her father. He was a large, imposing man with dark brown hair peppered with silver and bright blue eyes that I’d recognize anywhere. They were the exact same shade as English’s. He wore a faded Dodgers T-shirt and Levi’s. He wasn’t what I’d expected. English had said that she hadn’t grown up in the nice side of LA. But I still hadn’t been able to conjure that she had grown up with a normal life when she was so extraordinary now.
“Son, I think we should have a talk,” he said, closing the door behind his daughters and gesturing down the hallway.
“All right,” I said evenly.
We walked a few feet away from Taylor’s room, and then he stopped as if deciding that was sufficient.
“I’m Joe. Joe English,” he said, holding his hand out for me.
I took it and shook, startled by the power in his grip. “Court.”
“Yes, I know a little about you. Bug told me that you two were going through a rough patch.”
A rough patch. Was that what she’d called it? Or… were those his words?
“Yes, sir,” I said, manners appearing out of thin air. “We are.”
“Now, I don’t know all the details. Frankly, I don’t need to know them all. But I do know my daughter. I know that she’s strong-willed like her mom. She’s hardheaded like me. And she doesn’t trust very easily. She got that all on her own by being burned over and over again by the people who claimed to care about her.”
“Yes, but—”
“I wasn’t finished,” he said, holding up his hand. “Her trust is fragile. And once you break it, you just have to give her time to figure it out on her own.”
“I understand,” I said hoarsely.
“I don’t think you do. If you push her, she’ll buckle down. And then there’s no coming back from that.”
I stared up at him, understanding finally blooming. He was talking about himself. He’d broken English’s trust by cheating on her mom, by leaving them. And when he’d tried to put it back together, it had just hardened up into bulletproof glass. Even now, he couldn’t get through it. Years and years later. What chance would I have?