The Ex's Daddy

Episode14

Levy

I hate the smell of hospitals; I’ve been in them way too many times for my liking. Mostly during my youth when I played football in high school. Man was I always at the hospital, I even had a busted jaw once. That hurt like hell and back.

Later in my young adult life I was in hospital when I fractured my arm and another time when I busted up my shoulder coming off my bike, a drunk driver had collided with me, and I was in bad shape. Stuck in the damn place for a week. The driver was fined and put away for a short stint. He could have killed me. If it wasn’t for the fact that I always have my wits about me and don’t drive like a lunatic, it could have ended a lot worse for me.

We’re sitting outside in the waiting room, it’s stale with cream walls some fancy paintings of flowers hang, mostly on canvas. They’re kind of neat if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s not for me, I mean I appreciate art but I’m not gung-ho about it. Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t step inside an art gallery. The chairs are those plastic nasty kind that make you feel like you’re sweating but there is a small two-seater sofa which Harley and Taylor sit huddled up on.

Lacey and Dylan sit in chairs next to them, Dylan holds Harper’s hand and Lacey holds the other offering her words of comfort. Taylor snivels, her eyes are red. We’re all worried about their mother. God forbid the worst happens, what will happen to these two? We need to stay positive and pray for her mother.

Seeing Harper like this, her eyes puffy from crying, her hair falling over her face and tears streaming down her pale cheeks makes my heart constrict. I want to put my arms around her and comfort her, only I think it would cause Dylan to raise a few eyebrows. But damn, the pull to comfort her is huge. It encompasses me.

Instead, I lean back in the chair with my legs outstretched, crossed at the ankle, my arms in front of my chest folded over. I bow my head down and close my eyes because looking at Harper like this is killing me. My heart is wrenching, and it feels as if someone has sucker punched me in the stomach.

We’re sitting in the waiting area close to the ICU where they’ve taken her mother straight to after the a&e team took a look at her. By now she will be hooked up for fluids and all sorts of other stuff, or whatever they actually do to people who take an overdose of hard narcotics. It makes me shudder, how anyone can do this to themselves?

More to the point, did her mother do this on purpose? Was everything getting too much for her? Did she want out? Or was it an accident? We will be a while off yet from knowing more about what happened.

I open my eyes as I exhale and catch Harper looking up at me, her long eyelashes framing those beautiful cornflower-blue eyes of her, red rimmed. Dylan has gone off to get everyone a coffee, again, with Lacey.

“You holding up, okay Sunflower?” She nods and bites her lower lip. Taylor stands.

“I’m going to the bathroom, see you in a bit.”

“Sure, you want me to come with you?” Harper asks her kid sister.

“No, thanks. I’m all good. Just want to wash my face and stop by the nurse’s station to see if we can go in and see momma yet.”

“Okay, let me know.”

Taylor gives her sister a hug, their closeness makes me realize how important these two girls are to each other and how hard they have fought growing up to remain tight when everything around them has gone to s**t. Literally.

As nobody is currently around, I get up and go sit next to her. I sling an arm around her shoulder. Harper lowers her head to my shoulder. “I’m so worried, Levy. What if she doesn’t make it?” What will I do?”

“You’ve got Dylan and I. We will always be here for you, Sunflower.”

“Yeah, but she’s my mother, I can’t breathe just thinking about not having her around. She’s my life, she’s Taylor’s life. I don’t think I’ll make it without my momma.” She begins to cry, her tiny shoulders lifting and falling with each sob. My heart has dropped to the ground, my stomach feels sick for what she is going through. I can’t do anything to make it better and that gets to me.

Usually if there is a problem with anything, I can fix it, I can sort it out and I can make it right. But this, well it’s totally out of my control and I hate that feeling. I feel totally, utterly useless and powerless. Right at the moment when this young woman needs me, I can’t do anything for her situation other than console her.

I move a lock of hair gently away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. “It’s not exactly how I imagined my first moment in your arms to be,” she offers a small smile. It melts my heart. Damn this girl has totally got me. I am smitten for her.

“It’s not like that,” I say my voice gruffer than I meant for it to be.

“I like it, you feel so good and you smell amazing.”

“Harper, this is just you know, to er, comfort you. Don’t be getting any ideas. We’re in a hospital dammit.”

“I know, but a girl can dream, right?”

“Not those kind of dreams and not about Dylan’s daddy. He’s your ex-boyfriend remember.”

“We could start something and be secretive. Nobody would have to know.” Damn her saucer eyes are drawing me in, she’s casting some kind of spell on me. I find myself holding my breath.

“Harper, it’s wrong. I’m eighteen years older than you, hell I could be your daddy.”

“You need to get over that, Levy. Nobody cares about that s**t anymore and if they do, well it’s none of their f*****g business. What counts is what is in our hearts.”

“Sunflower, I can’t hook up with Dylan’s ex-girlfriend. It would be wrong.” I try to use my sternest tone to get some sense into her even though I am fighting a whole tidal wave of feelings and emotions right now. Just having her small body pressed up against me and her head on my shoulder makes my body react and of all places in a sterile f*****g hospital. Can it get any worse than this situation?

I spot Taylor coming out of the toilets and quickly move away back to where I was seated. Harper looks hurt and angry both at the same time. Then gives me a wink. Seriously? When her mother is in ICU and fighting for her life, the girl is flirting with me? I shake my head but offer her a grin.

As Taylor walks past she gives me a look, one that says I know what y’all were up to. f**k does it make me feel as guilty as sin. I shift uncomfortably in my chair.

“I thought you were going to the nurse’s station,” Harper says as Taylor takes a seat next to her.

“I was but then I swore I could see Levy over there with his arm around you.” She c***s her head to assess her older sister. Dylan and Lacey come walking towards us, he carries the carton carrier of four coffees.

“He was comforting me, Taylor.”

“I’ll go check with the nurses,” I say to break up the tension. f**k, I rake my hands through my hair. The last thing we need is to even begin or start something. That will not go down well, not only will Dylan be upset and disown me, but for sure it won’t sit right with her kid sister.

I get up and head to the nurse’s station. A male nurse with a piercing in his eyebrows and some cool tatts on his arms looks up. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Yeah, please. I just wanted to check on Mrs Thompson who has just been brought through to ICU.”

“Sure, let me check for you.” He bends his head down and looks at his monitors, whilst the other nurse, a young woman I’d guess around twenty-eight or twenty-nine gives me a flirtatious smile. f**k, what is it with these women in their twenties, they’re killing me? At moments like this I kinda wish I had two heads or a boil at the end of my nose.

“We have her comfortable right now and if you are immediate family, you may go in and see her. Be warned though, Mrs Thompson is hooked up to a lot of machines right now. Her heart is very weak. So please keep it down to just five minutes,” he tells me.

“Thank you, I will let her girls know. I’m just the neighbor.”

“Ah thanks for letting us know, in that case on her children can go in. But please express that it can only be for a few minutes.” His voice is authoritative, I nod and make my way back to Harper and Taylor.

“You can both go in, but only for a few minutes. Be warned it might look a bit scary okay. Your mom’s heart is weak, and she will be hooked up to several monitors and machines. If you need anything we will be right here.”

Harper takes Taylor’s hand. “Thanks so much, Levy. See y’all in a bit.” I watch as she walks with her sister to the room her mother is in, holding my breath. How can anyone ever prepare these girls for what they are about to see?

Dylan passes me my coffee and tells me how sad it is this has happened. Lacey rubs his back. He’s always been over to Harper’s house; he knows her mother well. They’ve been friends then boyfriend-girlfriend since they were kids. Nobody expected that they’d ever split up but that’s life.

I’m only glad they have remained firm friends, Harper needs all the friends she can get right now.

And what the hell am I going to do about the way I feel for Harper? It’s not just this massive physical attraction. There is no denying she has grown to be a beautiful, stunning woman but there’s more to it than that. My heart wants to totally surrender itself to her.