Page 52 of Levi

“Wait to shower until I get back.” Levi winks. “I'll help you get clean.”

“I know you, and you'll do exactly the opposite.”

“I've never heard you complain,” Levi says as he stands up and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I'm going to go grab shoes. I'll be right back.”

With that, he's gone, but I can feel the guys both watching me. It feels like little laser beams in the side of my head, and no matter how hard I try to fight it, I find myself forced to look their way, if only to confirm.

“Hi,” I say nervously.

“What have you done to him?” Jax jokes.

“What do you mean?”

“He's…happy. But like, the good kind of happy.”

“Isn't all happy good happy?” I ask.

“Nah. Some happy doesn't stick around. This is the kind of happy I can tell he wants to keep.”

“I think what Jax is trying to say is he's different with you. In a good way—we like it,” Asher says with a smile before turning to look past my shoulder.

“Ready to go?” Levi asks, and before I can process what was said, they’re out the door, leaving me with my thoughts and my conflicting emotions, wondering what the hell sort of mess I just got myself in, and do I want to get out of it?

I'm starting to think I like this little mess.

CHAPTER21

LEVI

“Good morning,”I say with a smile as I walk through the front door of Pine Ridge Nursing home.

“Good morning, Levi, you're here early,” Nurse Holly says, checking her watch like she's shocked I made it here before ten a.m.

That makes two of us sweetheart.

Only the best of the best for my nana, and a big part of that is sweet Nurse Holly who always makes sure everyone is taken care of. She even takes the time to call patients’ families more often than most, just to give us updates.

It's always been one of my favorite things because the updates weren't too frequent, and they were usually just to tell me there were no changes lately.

Until recently.

In fact, I'm here earlier than normal today all because of a phone call with Holly the other day. I would've come sooner, but unfortunately most of my life has to revolve around hockey. But I'm here now.

Holly warned me that her memory seemed to be slipping a little more than usual, that she was repeating herself a little more frequently and asking odd questions about things she was once considered damn near an expert on.

I mean, Holly told me Nana had to ask her how to play bingo, and that’s something she’s done weekly for at least the last ten years. Holly said that although she tried to play it off, she could see the fear and unsteadiness in her eyes.

But time to see for myself.

“Yeah, I know it's early, but we have a later practice today, so I figured I'd use my morning efficiently and come see Nana, and all of you ladies of course,” I tell her, shooting her my biggest smile, and she just laughs me off.

“Oh boy, if only I was forty years younger, you'd probably get me with those lines and that smile,” she jokes before straightening up a bit. “I will say, I’m glad you're here today. It's a much better day than we have seen since you were here last week…but I think you’ll still be able to see what I’ve been noticing. She’s just…off, almost like she seems lost.”

My heart sinks, the reality that I'm not going to walk down that hall and find my nana laughing with her friends, going back and forth with Delilah until they both forget what they were even arguing about and then going to raid the kitchen for cookies together.

I'm well versed in what Alzheimer's looks like. I got to know my great grandpa, my nana’s dad, when I moved in with Nana. He lived with her for a while, until he faded away, and it was so hard watching him lose himself to this terrible disease. My nana always said the hardest part about her dad dying wasn't him actually dying—it was the time leading up to his passing when he was trapped in his body, lost and confused, when all he ever wanted to do was be with his loved ones.

I never quite understood just how heartbreaking that could be, how helpless you would feel watching everything fall apart and knowing there's not a damn thing you could do to stop it.

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