Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
I take the earbuds at the same time there’s a knock on the door. “Um…come in!” I call out when Braxton doesn’t say a word, waiting for me to say it’s okay.
The door opens, and Houston peeks his head inside before pushing in with the rest of his body. There’s a large suitcase in his hand that he leaves by the door. “Oni said you might need this,” he explains. “It’s got clothes and toiletries in it.”
She really thought of everything. It’s only been a few days, but I’m already indebted up to my eyeballs to the woman.
“I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Braxton says as she stands and joins Houston, who holds up his arm for her by the door. I feel my nape grow warm when I watch them embrace. “Let us know if you need anything, okay?”
Suddenly, I feel Houston’s piercing green stare and Braxton’s warm brown focus on me, so I nod. “Will do.”
As they leave together, I hear him whisper urgently to her, “Did you give her the headphones?”
Braxton tosses back her head in exasperation and groans. “Yes, Houston. I gave her the headphones.”
The door closes behind them, and I’m alone.
Standing from the bed, I drift over to the window like a specter doomed to haunt this plane without a real existence. The curtains are parted to show me the full moon in stark contrast to how incredibly fucking empty I feel being here without my mountain men. I’m back in the States, back in my reality, but I feel far from home.
I don’t allow myself to dwell on it, and instead, I turn to stare at the phone I left on the bed.
They’re only a phone call away, but I don’t feel brave enough to call yet, so I ignore the phone and walk over to the suitcase before ducking inside the en suite for a long, hot soak in the clawfoot tub.
When I emerge an hour later, I’m too nauseous and exhausted to eat, so I crawl into bed and fall asleep immediately only to be jarred awake sometime during the night by the carnal sounds coming from down the hall.
Cursing, I lunge for the earbuds left on my nightstand and shove them into my ears, and then I shove a pillow over my head for good measure.
Thin walls, indeed.
The next morning, I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed in the fluffy robe Braxton loaned me with my new phone in hand and the number to the hospital room in Canada keyed in.
All I have to do is press call.
But I’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes, and I haven’t pressed call yet.
My hand is trembling, my heart is racing, and my skin is fire hot.
I’m a coward.
I’m a coward, I’m a coward, I’m a coward.
I’ve already tried calling the ICU’s nurse’s station for an update, but since I wasn’t an authorized contact, they refused to give me the status of Thorin’s condition.
What if he’s already awake? What if he needs to hear it from me why I left? Don’t I at least owe him that?
Exhaling a long breath, I press call and shut my eyes tightly as if it might shield me from the incoming pain.
The phone rings three times before it stops.
At first, I think it might go to voicemail, but then I hear a gruff and exhausted male voice say, “Hello?”
I don’t speak.
I stare across the room as my vision becomes blurry and my body trembles so hard the bed begins to shake too.
After a few seconds, Khalil tries again, but this time he sounds annoyed. “Hello?”
My lips move, but no sounds come out. In the background, I hear another male voice murmuring a question that sounds like, “Who is it?”
Zeke.
He’s still awake.
Khalil’s voice suddenly sounds muffled, like he pulled his mouth away from the phone to answer. “I don’t know. They’re not saying shit.”
I hear footsteps growing louder on the other line, and then I swear I hear Zeke utter, “Let me try.”
There’s shuffling from the phone changing hands, and then his voice is clear but not as close as Khalil’s was previously.
Speaker.
They’d put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?” Zeke says. Like before, my only reply is silence, but it doesn’t matter because everyone Thorin has is already in that room. Everyone except me. “Princess, you there?” My head falls as I squeeze my eyes closed. “Princess… I know it’s you. It doesn’t have to be this way. Just come back. Come back to us.”
“I…can’t.” A moment later, I jump when I hear a loud thump on the other end of the line—like someone angrily putting their fist through a wall. Losing my nerve to say any more or ask about Thor, I drop the phone on the bed and quickly end the call.
I cry for an hour before I pick up the phone again and dial another number. It rings only one time before someone answers.