AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, no,” she says. “Time’s up, big guy.”
I drop my arms in disappointment. “Fine,” I say, smiling.
She stands up out of bed. “I’m going to use the bathroom and then I’m going to order a bunch of room service and eat myself into a coma.”
I lie back, resting on my hands, as she wraps up in a robe and disappears behind the bathroom door. I close my eyes and take several deep breaths, but my heart never stops pounding. I’m just so...
Happy.
For the first time in my life, things are magically falling into place.
A phone rings. I look toward the bedside table. It’s not the room phone, but a cellphone.
Paige’s cellphone.
“Hey, Paige,” I say, but she can’t hear me over the sound of water running in the sink.
This late in the evening, it might be important.
I slide across the bed, hoping to grab it before they hang up.
“Hello. You’ve got Paige’s phone,” I answer it.
“Oh,” a woman says. “Hello.”
“Hi.”
“Who’s this?”
“I’m Oliver. Paige’s employer. Who’s this?”
“This is Maureen from Lowell Assisted Living in Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m calling because we have an emergency here involving a patient. Is Ms. Landon available?”
I blink at her serious tone. “Yes, she is,” I say. “Please hold for one moment.”
I haphazardly wrap the bedsheet around me as I stand. Before I make it to the bathroom door, it opens up and Paige steps out. Her eyes instantly fall to her phone in my hand and she bristles with annoyance.
“It’s Maureen,” I say before she can say anything. “She says there’s been an emergency.”
Paige’s face turns white. She snatches the phone from my hand and slams the bathroom door in my face.
Okay.
I probably shouldn’t have answered that.
CHAPTER 40
OLIVER
I get dressed as I wait.
Nearly twenty minutes go by with nothing more than a light murmur from behind the bathroom door. Meanwhile, guilt churns in my gut. Guilt for answering her phone when I knew damn well I wasn’t supposed to, but also for looking up exactly what Lowell Assisted Living was.
It’s mostly what it sounds like. An assisted care home for the elderly or disabled, but with a specialty in dealing with patients of acute trauma. The website didn’t go into much more detail than that, other than to call for inquiries.
Paige knows a patient there. Her mother, maybe? I realize I know little about her family other than what she’s said about her father leaving them. I suppose I pictured what I always picture everyone else’s family to be. Loving mothers and devoted children. Not fucked up and broken like mine was.
It pains me to picture Paige’s life as anything other than perfect. She deserves perfection.
