Page 31 of House of Scarlett
She shrugs. “It was a calculated risk, and I had nothing to lose. If he didn’t care, I was never going to tell you, but since he did carevery, very much, now we’re in a completely different situation.” She pauses and pitches forward to check the door. “By the way, the nurse said earlier that they’ll check you out this morning and assess your progress. If you’re doing well, there’s a chance you could be going home this afternoon.”
“Knock-knock ...” Harlow’s voice comes out a whisper from the hallway. “Is anyone—”
“She’s awake. Come on in,” Flynn calls out.
Harlow slips inside, shutting the door behind her with a giant vase of wildflowers.
“Oh, thank God! You’re okay!” She drops the vase on a ledge with a thump and rushes toward me. “I was so worried about you! I’m sorry I couldn’t be here last night. Jimmy had a meeting with a client in Vegas, so we hopped on a jet and swung out for dinner, and didn’t get home until six a.m. I haven’t even been to sleep yet.” Harlow covers the yawn escaping her lips as she leans down to gently hug me.
“Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me.”
“Of course I came as quick as I could. And I didn’t bring roses. That’s what being a best friend is all about.”
I laugh,carefully, and lean back in my hospital bed. “As you can see, I’m fine. I’ll be going home later today.”
“And Legend took the night shift and watched Scarlett sleep.”
Harlow’s eyes go wide. “What? He was here?”
Flynn catches her up quickly, summarizing how she scared the hell out of him and got him to the hospital, and how he apologized to me and told me he’d show me he was serious.
Harlow’s eyes are filled with tears when Flynn finishes. “I’ve never been so happy for anyone to need their appendix removed ever! He just needed the fear of God in him. Monroe is going to freak out. I have to text her. She’s at an away game with Nate.”
“She went to an away game?” I ask, my tone bordering on shocked. “She hates leaving the city for anything to do with the team or baseball.”
Harlow’s face creases into a weird mask that tells me immediately that something’s wrong.
“What is it? What happened? Is Monroe okay?”
Harlow glances at Flynn and then me. “Double vault?”
“Absolutely,” I say, then quickly explain the double-vault concept to Flynn.
Harlow waits for Flynn to nod her agreement before she continues. “Monroe thinks he’s cheating. She’s trying to catch him.”
My head plops back on the pillow. “Hell.”
“Shit,” Flynn whispers. “Really? That’s a bummer.”
I turn to Flynn and Harlow. “This isn’t the first time. This is also not the first time Monroe could be totally and completely wrong about Nate cheating. Remember when she barged into that restaurant where he was having a meeting with Jimmy, thinking he was with a woman?”
“God, it would’ve been funny if it weren’t so sad. I don’t know how Nate’s going to take it either. He’s about at the end of the line when it comes to trying to get Monroe to trust him.”
We need to talk some sense into Monroe before this gets out of hand. “We’ll talk to her this week. Try to get her to see reason.”
A line forms between Harlow’s brows. “If that’ll even work. I don’t know. So, what do they serve for breakfast in this joint, or are we ordering in?”
Flynn gives her a wry glance. “Oh, we’re definitely ordering in, and you’re paying.”
* * *
All through breakfast and then lunch, I kept stamping out the tiny ray of hope that continued to grow in my chest that my dad would come walking through the hospital room door with a balloon and a teddy bear, like he did when I had my tonsils out when I was seven. The memory is hazy, but it happened. So what if he didn’t stay very long, and he and my mom were arguing by the time he left? He still came.
Scraps.That’s what I’m willing to take from my father, and I’m not too proud to admit it.
But he doesn’t show up. He doesn’t even call or text. Nothing. Not a single attempt to check on his only child after surgery. The hole in my heart gapes, but I pretend I don’t care and paste a smile on my face to greet the surgeon who stops in to check on me.
And when the doctor exits the room, after pronouncing me free to leave after I’m discharged, I can’t wait to get the hell out of the hospital and away from the proof that my father doesn’t give a single damn about me.
