Page 85 of All That Glitters

The lid to the cookie box makes a loud snap in the empty waiting room as I close it. I return the box to my bag and leave the room to find Jameson. Fear isn’t going to keep me from being there for my best friend. I love him too much for that.

Chapter forty

Between The Lines

Jameson Sinclair

I can read Marigold like a book. I know every page, every line. I can see the plot twists before they arrive. So when my best friend, the love of my life, walks into my hospital room, I know that something is wrong. And it’s not just that she’s been worried about me.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, immediately rushing to my bedside.

A smile hitches up the corner of my mouth when I notice what she’s wearing. I reach out and tug on the hem.

“I didn’t know you still had this.”

Her cheeks flame as red as her hair.

“It’s my favorite sweatshirt,” she mumbles, making my smile grow.

“Looks better on you than it ever did on me,” I reply. Her blush brightens further.

“You’re supposed to be telling me how you are,” she reminds me. “I’ve been worried sick, and your parents are too.”

“I’m okay,” I reassure her. “I’ll be even better when they tell me that I didn’t tear anything.”

She winces and glances at my knee propped up in the bed. The nurses have started to alternate heat and ice for pain management. It’s helped, and so has the medicine, thankfully.

“Do you know how long it’ll be before you know?”

I shake my head. “They told me at least an hour, but not to count on that.”

She scrunches her nose in distaste, and I chuckle.

“It’s not like I would be doing anything different anywhere else. Even if they tell me it’s a sprain, I think I'll be stuck like this for a few weeks.”

Marigold grabs my hand and rubs her thumb soothingly along the back. Her being here is already helping me relax in comparison to earlier. It’s easier to face the unknown with her by my side.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to not get to do what you love.” Something in her expression shifts as she utters the last few words of her statement.

I squeeze her hand. “Are you okay? You seem off.”

She looks down at our joined hands.

“It was just scary watching you fall and not being there.”

I read between her words and realization washes over me. She’s upset she wasn’t at the game.

“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” I tell her. “There’s nothing you could have done if you were there. We’d still end up in this same spot.”

I don’t tell her I was distracted in part by her absence. It’s not her fault that someone else tripped me and hurt a knee I shouldn’t have been playing on in the first place.

“I shouldn’t have suggested that deadline,” she says quietly.

My eyebrows rise in surprise. I didn’t expect this so soon. With how stubborn she was being about it, I worried it would take a lot longer to prove to her she was working herself to death.

“What makes you say that?” I ask carefully.

Her eyes flutter shut, and I watch as she takes a deep breath.