So, I needed people to stop fighting with me and simply do what I said.
12
Leslie
“Go to sleep, Rori girl. Go to sleep and have sweet dreams. May you always find your place, and may the sun shine in your heart. Go to sleep, Rori girl. Go to sleep and be safe. Go to sleep, Rori girl. And Lord, please keep her safe.”
I sang the song I made up for her on the dot when she was only three months old. As I cradled her hand within mine, flashbacks of her first-ever hospital trip bombarded my mind. She hadn’t been much more than twelve weeks old, and I had heard her wheezing from across the room. I got up and sprinted over to her crib, only to find that her lips were blue and her eyes were bright and wide with panic. Sinus issues had already taken over, and she had so much mucous build-up that it was impeding her ability to breathe.
We spent almost a week in that damned place trying to get her lungs to open up and her airway to expand.
“You’ve got this, sweet girl. I know you do,” I whispered.
I stood and kissed her pale, sweating forehead. She hadn’t come to since her procedure, at least not enough to hold a coherent conversation. The doctors said it would be touch-and-go for a little while since she had somehow, beyond all stretch of the imagination, inhaled a pea. Suri felt the worst about it. She remembered Rori coughing and retching to try to get the pea up, but she thought it had come up because once the coughing was done, Rori continued eating.
But apparently, one lone pea had slid down into her lungs and lodged itself into one of the air sacs and couldn’t get back out.
I heard a shuffling noise from across the room, and I whipped my head up. As I made my way back to my perched position on the edge of Rori’s hospital bed, I questioned so many things. Like, why Trey had come searching for me in the first place. And why in the world he had decided to stay and sleep in some sorry excuse for a chair in the corner instead of heading back to the comfort of his massive mansion. It wasn’t as if he were family or anything. All he was doing in that corner was snoring and shifting around whenever his ass fell asleep.
Then again, the sight of him still over there was a bit endearing.
I’ll have to thank him big-time for this one.
“Especially if he’s serious about paying,” I murmured to myself.
The room that the doctors had settled us into had to be one of the most pleasant hospital rooms I’d ever been in. The room was easily the size of my kitchen and living room combined. It had a three-cushioned couch over by the window that Suri occupied while she slept, and Trey was in a rocker-recliner off to the side. The en-suite bathroom had all of the attachments and hook-ups of a regular hospital bathroom, but it had to be—at the very least—three times as large as any bathroom I’d ever seen in traditional hospital rooms.
And don’t even get me started on the bed they had Rori in.
The damned thing was almost more comfortable than the bed she had at home.
I have to thank him for this.
“I feel you staring.”
Trey’s voice ripped me from my trance, and that was when I realized I had been staring at him in the first place. I blinked and tore my gaze away, pulling myself out of the recesses of my mind. I cleared my throat and looked around the room, trying to find Suri in my moment of absolute embarrassment.
But, she wasn’t on the couch like she had been a couple of hours ago.
“Where’s Suri?” I asked.
Trey groaned as he stood from his chair. “She had to go home. She’s got work in the morning.”
I blinked. “Oh.”
He looked down at his watch. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing you’ve got the week off because, at this point, your lack of sleep would impede your ability to function on the job.”
I furrowed my brow. “The week off?”
He walked toward the bathroom. “I said what I said.”
I smiled softly. “Thank you, Mr. Cat—”
He waved his hand into the air as he slipped inside. “Bah, don’t mention it.”
I watched as he closed the door behind him, and I felt myself still. Trey was easily one of the strangest human beings I’d ever come across. Yet, he had more heart than anyone I’d ever come into contact with. He painted himself as this hardened, angry, spiky creature from hell, but deep down, he had a kind and giving soul that only wished to help.
I wondered why he covered it up with such a rough exterior.
