“Um, Dad, a lot has happened since you got hurt.” I was uncertain of how much I should say.
“Hurt? C-Cocksuckers j-j-umped me.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. His heart monitor started beeping wildly. My guess was that his blood pressure had spiked, but I didn’t know much about things related to medicine.
A nurse ran into the room and assessed Pops with a frown. “I’m going to have to ask all of you to leave.”
“But…” I held out my hand toward my father. “He’s been out so long.”
The nurse shook her head, pressed a few buttons on the machines near Pops and glared at me. “We’ll talk outside. All of you go. You can come back in the morning when he’s rested.”
My shoulders slumped. Feeling defiant, I pushed past Nurse Ratched, went to my dad, and kissed his forehead. “Rest up. We have a lot to talk about. We’ll be back in the morning.”
Maddy said her goodbyes, and we met the nurse outside. She informed us that he had not been told how long he’d been in a coma. The doctors wanted to do more tests on his mental capabilities and get him started on physical therapy right away. She reminded us that he had a long road ahead of him in his healing and to be patient.
With a promise to meet with the doctor tomorrow morning, we headed out. Wes and I got a room in the hotel across the street, and Maddy and Matt when back to their apartment.
* * *
“Hey, bitchface, how're you doing? How’s Pops?” Ginelle asked when I picked up the phone.
I’d refused to talk to anyone other than Gin. Wes touched base with Max. I knew he was crazy with worry, but we were fine. There was nothing to say right now, and I didn’t want to go over my feelings with my brother. He knew us, but he didn’t know how I dealt with things. He didn’t know all the details behind our upbringing, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to go through it now. I knew he resented our mother the same way I did, but he also didn’t know any of the good stuff about Pops other than the fact that we loved him.
All the other calls I’d gotten were friends wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. Again, a new experience.
I inhaled and cuddled in the blanket. “Good, as far as I know. We’ll know more when we meet with the doctor tomorrow. The nurse said he didn’t know how long he’d been out. When we tried to introduce Wes and Matt, his blood pressure spiked, and she kicked us out.”
“And how about you?”
I groaned. “It’s weird. Before I saw him awake, I was angry with him. Far beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. And you know, I think I’m justified in that anger. But then, when he held his arms out, it was like I was a little girl all over again, wanting my father’s love more than anything else.”
A tear dripped down my face onto the pillow. My nose started to run, but I didn’t care. I just wiped it with the sheet.
“That sounds pretty normal to me, babe. I mean, Pops is always going to be your dad. He may not have been the best father, but at least he didn’t leave,” she offered, trying to make me feel better.
“Didn’t he though? Every time he sucked back the whiskey, he disappeared. Each sip he took from Mr. Jack Daniels himself turned him into another person. One who forgot he had two young daughters to feed, clothe, and get to school. And this last stunt? A million dollars? It’s like he was asking to die.”
Ginelle groaned and let out a long breath. “Maybe he did it on purpose.”
That single thought shot through me like a lightning bolt, its electric energy shredding through bone, tissue, and muscle. “Holy shit. You could be right. He may have been ignorant when it came to gambling, but he’d never be stupid enough to owe a man like Blaine Pintero a cool mil.”
“Sometimes, when you want out of your life, you take the easy road. Pops would know that Blaine would come for him.”
“Yes, he would.” I shook my head, the shock of this option all but consuming my thoughts.
“How’s the ocean?” Ginelle said randomly, but it didn’t sound as though she’d asked me the question.
“Mmm, salty tears of the gods, Ku'u lei,” a man’s low rumble said close enough to the phone for me to hear. I knew that word. Ku'u lei. It meant “my beloved” in Hawaiian. I’d heard Tai’s dad say it to his mother. And Tao had just said it to my best friend. The plot thickened.
Wanting to change the subject, I jumped right on this new development. “So how was your Thanksgiving? Eat a lot of turkey?” I asked in a suggestive tone.
Ginelle made a moaning sound low in her throat. “Girl, let’s just say the only bird I swallowed was a heaping dose of fat Samoan cock.”