Page 200 of Vegas Heat

Christine walks out a moment later. Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s crying because she had to leave her daughter’s side or if it’s because something’s wrong with Gabby.

Troy doesn’t say a word to her as he walks through the door Christine just walked out of, and I follow close behind him as the front desk woman walks us back to Gabby’s stall.

“This is unacceptable,” Troy mutters to the poor woman. “Get my daughter into a private room.”

“Sir, she’s being discharged as we speak. You’re lucky I was able to pull enough strings to get you back here.”

I just keep my mouth shut and my eyes focused down on the floor so I don’t accidentally see anything I’m not supposed to see.

“Daddy,” Gabby says when he peeks his head around the curtain. “Don’t worry, I’m totally fine.”

I walk in behind Troy, and Gabby’s eyes seem to soften a little as they land on me. She gazes at me for a long beat, and I can see plainly for myself that her words are true. She really is totally fine. It’s like we have some silent conversation in that split second—one where she tells me everyone is making way too big a deal out of this, but she’s still grateful we all showed up for her.

I love you. I say the words in my mind, and I hope she can read them the way I can read what she’s saying to me.

One side of her mouth tips up in a smile for a moment before her father points to her arm and booms out his next words.

“You’ve got a needle in your arm! You’re not fine.”

“I stood up too fast and hadn’t eaten all day, and the librarian found me passed out on the floor of a little private room. She freaked out and called an ambulance, but I swear, I’m fine. I don’t even need to be here. I just want a cheeseburger and a big cup of water,” she says.

“Why didn’t you eat all day?” Troy demands, and I just hang back quietly as I look at her on the bed. She looks a little pale, a little tired, and as beautiful as ever—no worse for the wear considering where she is. Still, Troy’s right. She’s got an IV in the back of her hand, and seeing her here like this does something to me.

Something strong and powerful. Something fierce and emotional.

It’s love, plain and simple. It’s the type of love I’ve never felt before, and I already knew that about the two of us, I already knew that these feelings were different and intense and forever. But this seals it. Whatever’s happening in my chest right now, between the relief I feel at seeing for myself she’s okay and the way her eyes found mine the second I walked in, I’m filled with love in a way I never even knew existed. It’s like a wave that washes over me, like a bubble that surrounds me, like a new fire that swims in my veins.

The question now remains.

What the fuck am I going to do about it?

CHAPTER 43: GABBY

I’m embarrassed more than anything. I’m smart enough to know I need to eat, but I got so caught up in my work and staying away from my mother that I spent too many hours in one place.

And wouldn’t you know it? My emergency contact is my mother.

She called my dad, and I’m not sure how Cooper showed up here, but something shifted inside me the moment he showed up.

He showed up, for one thing.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had someone’s unconditional support the way he showed up. He didn’t have to. He’s busy with the draft. But he got here quick. He made sacrifices to be here.

My mother didn’t always show up for me. She couldn’t. She blamed having to work hard to afford things for me, forus, and the timing didn’t work out for her to be there for things like my National Honors Society induction or my volleyball games. On top of that, I grew up believing I wasn’t good enough to have my father’s unconditional support. I’ve only slowly grown accustomed to it over the last three years.

But as Cooper gazed at me when he walked in and I felt all the love he has for me even with my dad standing in front of him, that thing that shifted for me was the strange feeling of knowing my relationships will always fail if I don’t resolve that fear inside me like Iwon’talways have that unconditional support.

In some strange way, Cooper showing up today seems to have started healing that wound. I want to talk to him. I want to be alone with him.

But I’m not sure how to get my dad out of the room. I don’t want to hide it, but lying in a hospital bed hardly feels like the right time to break the news to my father that I’ve fallen for his best friend.

A man who doesn’t look much older than me wheels in a cart with a computer screen on it. “How would you like to pay for today’s services?” he asks.

“Are you kidding me?” my father yells at the poor tech who probably doesn’t get paid nearly enough to deal with this. “Out in the hall. Now. She doesn’t need to be worrying aboutpaymentat a time like this!”

My dad follows the young man out to the hall, and he pulls the curtain around my stall closed as he exits. I can still hear him in the hallway. The curtain isn’t soundproof, and Cooper offers a small chuckle as he steps toward me.

He quickly presses his lips to my forehead. “I love you.” He whispers the words, and I gaze up at him with total adoration as love seems to explode within me.

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