“Do you want to come in and talk?” she asked gently when the driver parked.

“I appreciate it, but I’m going to see what it would take to get back to Houston tonight so I can be there for my mom tomorrow. I’ll need to cancel our date tomorrow, but plan to be back for the table read.”

“Of course. I’m sorry this happened and that you had to find out that way. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

“Thank you.” I felt panicked at the idea of leaving her. The pathetic part of me wanted to ask if she would come with me and hold my hand through everything else I needed to do, but I let her get out of the car without saying anything.

I was a grown-ass man and this was a fake relationship. I wasn’t going to ask her to do more than she’d agreed to when she wouldn’t feel like she could say no. But damn did I want to.

16

Alex

“You’re all overreacting. I’m perfectly fine and you can go get some sleep.”

Leave it to my mom to downplay the fact she’d fallen off a ladder and seriously hurt herself, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic injury.

I’d been in a fog on the flight home and the drive to the hospital. I tried looking at my script or some of the books Elena had recommended, but couldn’t focus on anything for long.

Losing my dad to a sudden heart attack when I was in college had been devastating and I was having trouble convincing myself my mom was fine. My youngest brother, Ryan, assured me before I got on the plane that she was stable and everything was going to be okay, but I hadn’t been able to shake the gut punch of seeing that picture of her in the ambulance.

Standing there finally holding her hand, I was barely keeping it together.

Ryan went home to get some sleep since he’d been there all night. My middle brother, Zane, arrived just after me and got to see my mom before they encouraged her to get some sleep too.

She’d dislocated her shoulder, so they’d put the joint back in, but she may have done some damage that would need surgery down the line. They were initially concerned about a concussion or other injuries, but after running a battery of tests, it appeared we were lucky and she was unscathed besides the shoulder. They were going to run a few more tests later in the day and then probably send her home.

She could hardly keep her eyes open, but was still feebly trying to mother us. “The immediate crisis is over. Go back to the house. You won’t get any rest in those chairs.”

I said, “Not happening, Mom. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

I glanced at Zane.

“Same.”

It’d been a helpless feeling to be so far away and not know whether she was okay at first. We were both a little shaken.