Page 20 of Resisting You

Chapter Five

“Calm me down.”

“Okay. What do you need?” Lane’s voice was soothing and soft. It was exactly what Frey needed.

He felt like he was about to lose his mind because although he knew that a broken bone wasn’t something his son couldn’t heal from, he hadn’t seen his son in a hospital like this, facing surgery, since he was a baby. And that trauma would never go away.

“Frey,” Lane said after a beat.

“I’m in the hospital.”

“I’m assuming not for work,” Lane said, his voice a little more tense now.

“Rex had a bad fall and snapped his collarbone. Dr. Dickhead says he needs surgery.” He snapped his jaw shut. That name didn’t seem particularly fair right then. Not with how calming Renato had been and the fact that he signed, which was…yeah, he had no idea what to think about that.

Lane coughed from shock. “That man’s going to do surgery on your son?”

Frey might have laughed under any other circumstances, but he actually wasn’t afraid of that. Renato was one of the best surgeons in the region. He trusted his son’s life to him. He just didn’t like him very much.

“Yeah. It seems like it. He needs a couple pins and—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. “I’m freaking out, Lane. I’m going to lose it. I can’t see him in the hospital. I can’t do this again.”

“Breathe,” Lane ordered. “Bowen grabbed our car keys. We’ll be there in a few, and we can sit with you while he’s back there.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’m definitely going to be assisting this surgery,” Frey said on the verge of hysteria. He turned and tucked his ass on the little desk in the nurse’s nook with a busted terminal and pressed his forehead to the wall.

Lane sighed. “Oh, hon. They’re not going to let you do that. You know that, right? And if you start making demands or threats…”

Fuck, Lane was right. He was getting ahead of himself as panic crawled up his throat.

“Can you just not,” Frey snapped, then checked himself. “Sorry. I-I know I can’t actually be there. I just feel like I’m going to lose it. The last time he went under, everything changed. Those medications—his little heart…”

“That treatment also saved his life,” Lane said. Frey heard a car door slam in the background, and he felt a small punch of relief. “And this isn’t heart surgery, okay? He’s strong. He’s healthy. And you’ll make sure he’s got staff around him who know ASL, so?—”

“Dr. Dickhead is conversational,” Frey said, still in shock over that piece of news.

Lane hummed. “Interesting.”

“What does that mean?” Frey demanded.

Lane chuckled. “Just that it’s interesting. Look, hang tight, okay? I’m going to pawn my kid off on Adele, and I’ll let him know what’s going on, then Bowen and I will be there.”

“Bring me a coffee? One full of sugar and all that other crap?” he half whined.

Lane sighed. “Of course. See you soon.”

Frey dropped the phone, and it was only then that he heard a commotion down the hall, and he realized it was coming from where he’d walked away. His shoes squeaked on the linoleum as he turned the corner a little too sharply, and his gaze zeroed in first on two uniformed cops and then on Oz, who was being pinned to the wall by his shoulder.

Renato was standing a few feet away in front of the second cop, who was holding a finger in his face. “…back down and let us do our job. We’re responding to a complaint, and we can’t do our job if you don’t let us. We have no problem arresting you.”

Frey came to a skidding halt two feet from the officer addressing Renato. “What the actual fuck?”

“We don’t need another nurse—” the cop started.

“My son’s in there,” Frey said. He could hear Rex crying, and his heart threatened to shatter. “And that’s his mentor,” he said, pointing a finger at Oz, who looked like he was about to faint. “So someone explain what the fuck is going on right now.”

“We got a call about potential child abuse,” the officer said, narrowing his eyes at Frey. “Were you with your son during the incident?”

Frey blinked at him. “Child ab—who the fuck reported that?” He turned to Renato. “Seriously? You seriously called the cops?”

---