Page 126 of Fierce-Hyde

“I see it on your social media pages.”

“Oh. I hadn’t realized you were on social media.”

“I’m not. Shelly is,” her father said.

“Who is Shelly?” she asked.

He sighed. “My wife.”

“You’re married?” she asked. Not that they’d ever talked about things like this, but you’d think she’d know if her father was remarried or not. “For how long?”

“Five years,” her father said. “She’s been pushing me to talk to you.”

“She’s been pushing you for five years and now that you might die, you think it’s time to talk to me? To explain things?” she asked, her voice rising.

Yeah, she was no longer calm over this.

“I know it’s a lot for you to take in,” her father said.

“You think?” she asked sarcastically.

“Can you just let me know?” he asked. “Think about it. Five hours could be a weekend trip.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

She hung up the phone and went upstairs to see Raina. Raina would understand more than anyone else.

“That is crazy,” Raina said after she told her best friend. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. My social worker background says to hear him out at least.”

“But your personal side says to kick him to the curb?” Raina asked.

She sniffled. “Yeah. I’m a horrible person.”

“No,” Raina said, getting up to hug her. “You are not. You were just hit with a sizeable piece of news and you can’t be expected to know how to feel about it let alone run and jump to see what is going on.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she said. “There is so much I want to say to him and then I tell myself, is it worth it? Should I do that to someone who might not make it?”

“First off,” Raina said, “you don’t know anything because he didn’t give you information.”

“He didn’t have to. I looked up stomach cancer. It’s not good regardless. Not a long-term prognosis. He’s already saying they told him it’s not good.”

“I’m sorry,” Raina said.

“Thank you. I’m going to think about it for a day or so. I guess I could leave work early on Friday and go down then come back on Sunday before I start Monday. It’s not like Molly is going to fire me. And Jax would understand if I did that. Not fulfill my full resignation time. I just don’t want it to reflect poorly on me professionally.”

“Don’t think that,” Raina said. “You gave more notice than you needed to, right?”

“I ended up giving an extra week,” she said. “I wanted to be helpful.”

“Then stop. And Jax would totally understand. Sleep on it. Go talk to Hyde. Let him know. I’m surprised you came to me first.”

“You’d understand more,” she said.

But when Hyde walked into Raina’s office talking to her about work and then stopped when he saw Tori there crying, she realized maybe she made a mistake again.

“What’s going on?” he asked, rushing over. “Are you hurt?”

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