Page 68 of Frat House Fling

Pulling my robe tightly around me, I crept to the door and opened it.

Ian stood there, dressed in jeans and a tight green t-shirt.

“Ian?”

“Hailey,” he said, sounding almost surprised to find me here. In my own room. In the middle of the night. What on earth was going on?

Then I got a closer look at his haggard face. “Are you all right?”

“Theo took a sleeping pill, so I can’t wake him, and?—”

My blood ran cold. “He overdosed?”

“No, of course not,” he said, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “He just hasn’t been sleeping well since he won that contest, so I can’t go to him, and Grant’s not in his room. I don’t know where he is, and?—”

I reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He blinked and it seemed like it took a great effort for him to focus. “It’s John, my advisor. He had a stroke,” he managed to get out, his face ashen. “Will you come to the hospital with me?”

“Of course.” I said without hesitation.

I drove, which I hadn’t done in months. Ian sat next to me, staring out the window, his forehead lined with concern.

After a few attempts at light conversation, I gave up and concentrated on steering his SUV through the dark streets. I let him out at the ER entrance and then went to park the car. It was a good thing the lot was relatively empty because I wasn’t used to trying to park a car this big.

As much as I wanted to support Ian, I couldn’t help slowing down as I approached the entrance to the emergency room. I hadn’t been inside a hospital since my grandpa died. That hadn’t been here. He’d passed at a much smaller facility in Sloane’s Summit where the nursing home was. But still, I couldn’t help thinking of him at every step along the way.

Ian was at the reception desk, and the tired-looking woman behind it was giving him directions. He waited when he spotted me. “They’ve got him in imaging now. We can wait upstairs in the ICU waiting room.” He headed toward the elevators but then stopped before we reached it. “You don’t have to stay. It might be a long night.”

“I’m staying.” I moved around him and pressed the elevator button.

On the fifth floor, we found an empty little waiting room with padded chairs and a few loveseats. Ian stopped, as if even such a simple decision was too overwhelming at the moment. So I sat down on one of the loveseats and then he joined me.

“I’m sorry this happened,” I said.

“Me too.”

“Do they know how bad it is?”

“It doesn’t sound good.” The look of worry on his face nearly broke my heart. “The imaging will tell them if it’s an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke.”

I didn’t know what either of those words meant, but he apparently did, judging by the sadness in his eyes. I wondered if in this situation, it was worse or better that he had basic medical knowledge. He wasn’t in med school yet, but he was majoring in biology, and I’d seen the medical texts he kept on his desk.

A new thought occurred to me. “How come they told you that?”

“I guess so I would understand the seriousness of it.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Aren’t there privacy laws?” After all, though Ian was very fond of his advisor, he wasn’t family.

Ian looked older as he twisted his body to face me. “I’m not proud of this, but I named-dropped.”

“What?”

He sighed, looking tired in a way that had nothing to do with the lateness of the hour. “Over on the other side of the buildingthere’s a cancer center, built and funded by the Forsythe family. All it would’ve taken was one phone call to Bennett, and the staff here would’ve told me anything I asked. Turns out I didn’t need to make the call—just the threat of doing it was enough.”

He sounded so miserable that I took his hand in both of mine. “Well at least now they’ll keep you informed.”

He shook his head. “I was a bully down there, throwing my weight around. I never wanted to be that kind of person, but maybe if you’re surrounded by people like that, you eventually become one of them.”

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