Page 2 of Heart Strain

Tears prick my eyes because fuck if I don’t want that. I hate being here all alone. But I can’t make him take his vacation time, and I don’t want to leave Peanut in a kennel. “No.” My voice cracks, filled with so much emotion that I have to clear it to push them all back down. “No, I’m… I’ll be okay. I just wanted to… talk to you, I guess.”

He sighs, and I imagine him rubbing his hand over his face. “Alright, but you better let me know the minute anything changes. I’ll be on the next plane out.”

“Thank you, Gav, that—that means a lot.”

He hums, then pauses for a few seconds before thankfully changing the subject. “So that Isaac guy was hot.”

“Who?”

He chuckles. “Jesus, Holden, you don’t even remember the guy’s name?”

“Who are you talking about?” I rack my brain for a few seconds, then feel myself blush when I realize who he’s talking about. “You mean that Jeremy guy?”

A bark of laughter comes through, making me wince. “His name’s Isaac.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all you have to say about it? ‘Oh.’ You weren’t even close… ‘Jeremy.’”

“I literally met him twenty minutes before I called you.”

“He seemed sweet.” I can hear the amusement in his voice.

“He was a hot piece of ass. I think he put his number in my cell, so I can hit him up again.” I glance up when I feel eyes on me and see an older woman eyeing me like I’m her personal entertainment for the day and she clearly disapproves of what I’m supplying, so I drop my voice to a whisper, “People are staring.”

“That’s because you just screamed about ass in the middle of a waiting room.”

“You started it.”

“Yeah, but I’m at home, in my bedroom, snuggled in my blanket with absolutely zero witnesses.”

“Not true. Peanut is in bed with you.” There’s no way he doesn’t have my dog with him right now.

“Fine. Human witnesses, Mr. Technicality.”

“Better.”

Gavin distracts me for another twenty minutes until I hear Peanut whining at him to take him for a walk, so I hang up the phone and go back to my word search. Gavin made me feel a little better while I was talking to him, but as soon as I hit the end button on my phone, I’m utterly alone again. And that’s when the overwhelming sadness comes barreling back, bringing tears with it. More fucking tears. Haven’t I cried enough already tonight?

Rolling my shoulders back, I shake myself out and blow out a breath. Enough crying. Hendrix is going to be okay. Everything is going to be fine. I pull my long brown hair out of its hair tie and pull the strands that had fallen back up before retying it in a ponytail.

“Holly?”

I tense when I hear the old nickname that I’ve always hated. Hearing it makes my stomach knot. But seeing that I haven’t heard it in over nine years, I figure there’s a woman named Holly in the waiting room with me, so I don’t look up. Holly is probably the bitchy woman that’d been giving me the stink eye before.

“Holly?” the soft, deep voice says again, and this time I have to look.

I do a double take before my eyes widen in surprise. What the hell is James Fox doing here? We were friends—kind of—in high school, and I haven’t seen him since we graduated nine years ago. Why is he at the hospital right now?

He steps closer to me with the saddest look in his pretty green eyes, then sits beside me in the empty seat. Entirely too close for comfort since I don’t know him anymore and there’s plenty of empty seats around us. “Hey, Holly.” He rubs his eye and I notice that he’s wearing scrubs. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.” To my complete shock and horror, his eyes fill with tears, and I panic.

“Oh god. No.” I shake my head. “Please tell me he made it through surgery? Please.” My voice is strained and shaky as my own eyes fill with tears.

James’s eyes widen a little. “He’s still in surgery, as far as I know.”

Taking a shaky breath, I put my hand over my mouth and nod. “Do you have an update for me, then?”

He shakes his head and leans back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. “No one told me you were here or I would’ve come down sooner. I was in the other waiting room down the hall.”

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