“Sarah, I don’t know whether to be insulted or amused. I was fully clothed. I was alone. Yes, I got drunk. Yes, I fucked up, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love you. That all of this—all of the long hours and the travelling, it’s all for you and the baby.”
She stared down at where I was holding her hand, refusing to look at me.
“It won’t always be like this, bub. I promise you. Things have just expanded rapidly, and we need to take on more staff. I’m gonna get that sorted, and I promise, no more travelling while you’re pregnant.”
She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip, and I knew by the look on her face that she didn’t believe me. But before I could respond, we both turned our heads towards the door to her room as it slowly opened. Mai’s pale and worried face appeared and Archie was right behind her. If looks could kill, the crash team would’ve needed to be paged right then to try to resuscitate me, coz he was giving me the death glare.
“Sarah,” Mai said in a hushed voice.
“We got here as soon as we could. Sooner than we should have really, thanks to ya grandfather here thinking he was Sterling Moss on the motorway.”
“Who’s Sterling Moss?” Sarah asked.
“That your Jag out there being loaded onto a tow truck?” Archie asked, the hint of a satisfied smile on his lips.
“Shit, my laptop’s in there.” I leant forward and kissed Sarah on the forehead. “No pole dancing while I’m gone.” She rolled her eyes and gave me a small smile.
“Mai, Archie, I’ll be right back.”
“That’s good of ya.” I heard Archie mumble from behind me as I headed out the door. I obviously wasn’t his favourite person.
After a fair bit of begging and the telling of my sob story, as well as a twenty-pound “drink” for the driver, I got my car unloaded and parked it in the car park. On my way back to Sarah, I called Mel, thoroughly pissed off that she hadn’t told me about Sarah’s call this morning.
“Hey, boss. You back in town yet?”
“Why didn’t you tell me Sarah called this morning?”
“Ah, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah, Sarah called this morning.”
“You told me you didn’t have her number when I emailed you earlier.”
“I don’t.”
“Would it not still be showing on your call log?”
“Yeah, I suppose. I didn’t actually think of that.” She paused for a moment as I paced outside the entrance to the building. It didn’t matter if she’d passed the number on to me or not. The issue was that I wasn’t here when I should’ve been. “Is everything okay, Liam?”
“No, it’s not. Sarah’s in the hospital. My phone was dead, I don’t know her number off the top of my head, you passing it on to me this morning could’ve saved a lot of stress for both of us.”
“You’re seriously blaming me because you don’t have your wife’s number memorised?”
I took in a deep breath through my nose and wiggled my bottom jaw to loosen some of the tension. When I saw Archie appear through the doors, obviously looking for me, I stopped pacing and tried to calm down.
“No, Mel. I’m just asking that if my wife calls again, please make sure all messages are passed on to me.”
I hung up without giving her a chance to reply. Blaming someone else for my fuck-up didn’t make me feel in the least bit better, and I just knew I was gonna have to cop it sweet from Archie.
“You fucked up.” Good ol’ Arch, straight to the point.
“I did.”
“I find out you weren’t where you’re saying you were, you and me are gonna have a problem.” It was like listening to Luke. Even Archie’s posture was the same as his.
“I was face down, fully clothed, in a pile of whiskey puke from too much single malt after celebrating a new contract we just won. I was planning on flying straight back after the negotiations and didn’t take my phone charger with me.”
He gave a small nod.
“In the future, you make sure your phone’s charged and you have your charger. That girl was hysterical when she called us this morning. She was more worried that something had happened to you than what was going on with her.”
The jagged knife of guilt that had been sitting in my chest all morning twisted itself a little deeper, and my knuckles traced a path up and down my sternum in an attempt to ease the pain it caused.
I opened my mouth to speak at least three times while Archie and I stared at each other, but fatigue, stress, and fear all seemed to hit at once, and I felt as if I was gonna cry. The words just didn’t seem to come.
“Son, the fear, that panic you’ve experienced today, that’s just a little taste of what it’s like to be a father. You’ve now got something to worry about for the rest of your life, so you best get used to it.”
I nodded my head, still unable to speak.
“Let’s get back inside. Hopefully they’ve both finished crying by now.”