Page 83 of Shattered Dreams

“Where’s Kai?” he asks the moment we walk into his room.

“Surgery,” Cal answers before pulling a chair over to the side of Mav’s bed. “The surgeon should meet us here soon to let us know how it went.” I watch as Mav visibly relaxes. I wish I could. Knowing Kai’s alive isn’t enough. I need him to stay alive.

I take Mav’s hand in mine and squeeze. He turns to me and smiles weakly.

“So, what’s the damage?” Willa asks, plopping herself on the end of his hospital bed.

“Six stitches in my forehead, mild concussion, and bruised ribs. They were worried about swelling in my brain, but it’s gone down. I need to stay overnight for monitoring, just in case,” Maverick answers.

“What happened?” I whisper.

Maverick’s warm brown eyes meet mine and start to fill with tears. “I don’t know. Kai and I were talking about therapy. I got so mad at him for trying to talk me into something I don’t want to do. Then I remember hearing a crash and glass shattering.” Mav swallows and wipes at his eyes. “Then I woke up here.”

I nod, and Willa squeezes his leg.

“What if —” Mav chokes on a sob. “I said some shitty things. What if he —”

Hot tears drip down my face, matching the ones on Maverick’s.

“Don’t,” Cal says firmly. “He’s going to be okay, and then you can argue some more.”

“Mr. Griffin?”

We all turn to see a woman in green scrubs and a hair net standing at the foot of Maverick’s bed.

“Yes?” Cal asks with a tremor in his voice. The confidence he was pretending to have a moment ago has vanished.

“Mr. Irons is out of surgery. We repaired a punctured lung, severed artery, and some smaller internal bleeding. He has a torn bicep that will need to be surgically repaired once he’s more stable and we’re confident he could withstand the procedure. He also had several deep lacerations that we stitched on both his arms and his face. We’ve given him two blood transfusions, and he’s currently in recovery.”

“When can we see him?” Cal asks immediately.

“He should be moved to the ICU within an hour. I doubt he’ll wake up soon. He lost a lot of blood, and his body needs the rest to heal. I would estimate him being responsive in twelve to thirty-six hours.”

“He’s going to be okay?” I ask, my voice thick with barely contained emotions.

“The next twenty-four hours are imperative to his recovery. As long as everything goes well, he should make a full recovery.”

That was a non-answer, but I’m willing to take it anyway.

“I’ll send the nurse in to retrieve you once he has a room.ICU only allows one visitor.” She doesn’t wait for a response before she’s back out the door.

The next hour creeps by slowly. I keep my grip on Maverick’s hand, which he doesn’t seem to mind. Willa and Cal fill him in on how the meeting went. My eyes are glued to the door, waiting for someone to take me to Kai. We didn’t discuss who the one person to go to his room would be, but they’re nuts if they think it won’t be me. It feels like my whole heart is outside of my body and somewhere else in this hospital.

The moment the nurse appears to take one of us to Kai’s room, I’m jumping out of my seat to follow her. Cal and Willa tell me to give him their love and to text them with updates. I promise I will as I’m halfway out the door.

“The ICU has a small room attached to all the patient rooms where you can sleep,” the nurse tells me as we walk into the unit. I thank her, knowing full well there’s no way I’m going to be more than a few inches away from Kai.

The tears that I thought had dried up return the moment I lay eyes on Kai. He’s pale against the white sheets, his dark hair a stark contrast to the pillow. He has cuts and bandages along both his arms and the left side of his face. He’s covered in bruises where I can see his skin, and I’m sure it’s just as bad where I can’t. Cords and tubes connect him to multiple machines.

“He looks worse than he is. Most of those cords are just recording his vitals. His color should return by morning,” the nurse assures me before leaving me alone in with him.

I take a seat in the chair that’s already next to his bed and carefully take his hand in mine. The slow beep of themachine above his head lets me know his heart is beating steadily.

“You scared the shit out of me, Kai,” I say with more anger than I was expecting. “You can’t leave me. Not now and not like this. We’re supposed to get old and yell at the kids on our lawn. Or retire to some tropical island.” I sniff, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my shirt. “You promised to sleep next to me every night for the rest of our lives. This isn’t it. Not yet.”

I lay my head next to his leg and keep my hand in his. I close my eyes and pray to whoever will listen that he wakes up.

I woke up a few times to nurses checking Kai’s vitals or lab techs, drawing blood, but so far, I’m the only one who’s woken up.

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