Page 271 of By His Rule

“What if they don’t let me?” he asks nervously.

“I don’t give a fuck. Make them. Do whatever you have to do to be with him.”

“Okay,” he whispers.

“We’ll get you to him,” Noelle promises from a distance.

“I’m packing, okay? I’m coming for you both.”

I run in and out of my bathroom, grabbing bottles. Fuck knows if they’re the ones I need or not, but they’re bottles nonetheless.

In less than ten minutes, I’m racing back down the stairs to meet the Uber I’ve called to the airport.

I don’t have a flight. I have no idea when the next one is. But I’m not sitting around here waiting when Wilder and Hendrix need me.

Fuck the rest of the world. They are the two most important people in mine, and they need me.

64

LORELEI

“You’ve what?” Tatum barks down the line as I run through LAX with my suitcase bouncing around behind me.

I’ve been on a flight for just over four hours, and other than the messages I received when I put my cell on when we landed to let me know that Wilder is in the ER but stable, I have no idea what the hell is happening.

“I’ve just landed in LA.”

“The hell, Lor?”

“Wilder had a bad tackle at the game. He just…he was just lying there, Tate. I thought he was dead,” I cry as I dodge an older couple in my quest to get out of the fucking airport.

Noelle is waiting for me on the other side with my car. Hendrix is in the hospital with a concussed Wilder.

He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay, I repeat over and over.

But it doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes.

“Shit. Is he okay?”

“Concussion, apparently. I’m going straight to the hospital now.”

“Do you need anything?”

I shake my head, forgetting that she can’t see me.

“Lori?”

“No, I’m okay. Everything is okay.” I hope.

“Good. That’s good.”

“What?” I snap, knowing her well enough to know that she’s holding back.

“It’s just…Kian is freaking out.”

Shit.

My stomach knots.