Page 136 of What If I See You

“It hurts to laugh,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, sorry about that big guy. I’ll watch my mouth from now on.” I lean down and kiss his forehead and then connect my forehead to his squeezing my eyes closed. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Gage.”

“Griffin?” His voice is a little stronger the more he talks. I look down into his worried eyes.

“Yeah bud?”

“Where’s Mallory? Is she…” His eyes glisten. “Is she okay?”

Wow.

The concern in his eyes.

He really loves her.

My little brother is in love.

I can see it all over his face.

Mom takes Gage’s hand and nods her head. “Mallory is good, Gagey.” She pats his hand. She’s just fine. She had a few bumps and bruises. The ambulance took her to the hospital by our house so her parents are with her now. I talked to her mom a bit ago and she’s going to come visit you tomorrow, okay?”

Gage relaxes against his pillow with a huge sigh of relief and nods silently.

“How do you feel, Son?” Dad asks Gage from the foot of the bed, his hand on Gage’s leg.

“Tired. And my belly hurts.”

“Yeah,” Dad nods. “It’s going to hurt for a few days, but the doctors said you did a great job. They said you were a champ.”

“And they fixed my arm.” Gage lifts his heavily wrapped arm a tiny bit but Mom is right there to remind him not to move it so it can heal.

He turns his head back to me studying me for a minute, his brows pinching.

I bow my head glancing at myself and then back at him. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not wearing your jammy pants,” he says. “You’re always wearing jammy pants when I’m in the hospital.”

My shoulders fall as guilt washes over me. I should’ve pulled some out of my bag before I threw my backpack at August.

“You’re right, I’m not. I didn’t know you were going to?—”

“He didn’t, but I did!”

Layken steps inside the room, her chest heaving telling me she must’ve run through the building to get here. The vision of her in my cinnamon roll pajama pants and team hoodie makes my chest swell and my breath catch as she shows herself off to my brother.

Gage’s smile grows tenfold as he beams at the love of my life. “Layken!”

Out of breath, she places a gentle hand on Gage’s leg and says, “I came as soon as I could.”

And then her eyes slide to me and I’m biting the inside of my cheek to not cry my eyes out as I step over to her and lock my arms around her, holding her tighter than I’ve ever held on to anything in my whole damn life.

“Layken…”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LAYKEN

He holds me in a vise-grip, lifting me off my feet, a relieved sigh coming from inside him as he breathes against me.

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