Page 55 of Puck Blocked
“I think you hold me up on an extremely unrealistic pedestal. I’m not perfect, Luke.”
“You are,” he says. “When can we do this again?”
“Do what? Watch The Real Housewives?”
“No, this?” He rubs my stomach. “Have a baby.”
I laugh. “How about we get through birthing the first one before you try to knock me up again?”
My body is shifted to another time. A new vision. At the rink. Luke is skating with a little girl, and I’m holding a baby. A boy.
Luke skates up to me. “Hey, Mama, pass him over.”
“Do not drop him, Luke Jameson,” I warn as I clutch the tiny bundle closer to my chest.
“You know I do this for a living, right?” He points to his skates.
“I also watch you hit the ground a lot while earning that living,” I remind him.
“Mama, can we take Sean, pweease.” The little girl looks up at me with eyes so like my husband’s. “I’ll help.”
“Okay, but only for a little bit, Aubrey,” I tell her before passing the infant over to Luke.
I watch, and a smile tugs at my face as the three of them skate off together.
My eyes spring open and all I can see is nothingness again. “I have to go back,” I think aloud. I want that life with Luke, so I have to go back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ithought I had experienced pain in my life. I was wrong. Having my wife die in my arms is the worst kind of pain imaginable. A desperation unlike anything I’ve ever known had me praying, had me offering my own soul in place of hers.
When we finally got to the hospital, Montana’s body was taken from me. I didn’t want to let her go but I also knew I needed to let the doctors save her. I couldn’t do it alone.
She’s been in surgery for hours now. How long does it take to remove a bullet?
A fucking bullet. My wife was shot. The back of my head hits the wall. I’ve been sitting in the same spot since I watched them wheel her off. On the floor, in the hallway where I last saw her. I’ve watched doctors and nurses come and go. But none of it seems to register. I can’t feel anything but the gaping hole in my chest.
She has to be okay. She’s strong. She’s a survivor.
“She’s going to pull through,” Gray says from beside me. He hasn’t left. He’s been sitting here the entire time too.
“She has to,” I tell him. “I can’t lose her.”
“You won’t.” His phone rings, and he looks down at the screen. “It’s Vinny. I gotta take this.” Gray eyes me warily before pushing to his feet and walking down the hall a bit.
He doesn’t have to worry. I’m not going anywhere. Where would I go when the other half of my soul is somewhere through those doors?
My mom and dad have been here for the last two hours, coming to check on me every few minutes or so. Mom clears her throat. “You should come and sit in the waiting room, Luke.”
“I’m not moving. Why is it taking so long?”
“It’s normal for surgeries to take this long,” Mom says, but I can tell she’s holding something back. There’s something she’s not saying. I don’t want to hear it, though. I can’t hear that Montana’s chances of pulling through are slim. I don’t want to hear that she might not make it.
I carried her dead body in here, and then I watched them bring her back. They can save her. They already did.
“Son, don’t give up hope. She’s in good hands and she’s a fighter. We all know that,” my dad says.
“I know,” I tell him.
