And he was right. As usual. It was getting kind of annoying.

The door opened again shortly after that and my stomach dropped when I saw that it was the doctor. I started to pull myself free, but Jax tightened his hold on me, and all I was able to do was face the doctor.

“How is he?” I asked, my heart thumping fast.

Dressed in blue scrubs and looking absolutely exhausted, the older woman smoothed a small, delicate hand over the top of her salt-and-pepper hair. “You’re family?”

“Yes,” I immediately responded. Blood or not, Clyde was family.

Her hazel eyes swept the waiting room. “All of you are family?”

“Yeah, we’re all family,” Jax responded then, his hand flattening along my stomach. “How is he?”

She walked over to an empty love seat catty-corner to where we sat and clasped her hands between her knees. “He’s made it through surgery.”

“Oh, thank God,” I whispered, slumping back against Jax.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” she went on to say, and I knew from my schooling that the next things she said were serious. “He suffered a major heart attack due to several blockages. We put in stents, because we usually . . .”

They usually saw faster recovery in those who had stents versus a bypass. As the doctor continued, two parts of my brain functioned independently of each other—the clinical side and the personal side. But ultimately, Clyde had made it through surgery and although this was a major surgery and I knew things could go horribly wrong from this point, he made it out of surgery and that was huge. Tears of relief built in the back of my eyes.

“He’s asleep now and he’ll be like that probably for the rest of the day, and right now, we really need to let him rest.” The doctor stood, smiling faintly. “If everything pans out tomorrow, at least one of you can visit him if he’s up to it.”

I came to my feet then, and Jax didn’t stop me. “Thank you—thank you so much.”

Her faint smile remained. “Now all of you should go home and get some rest. If anything changes between now and tomorrow, we’ll let you know. Okay?”

As the doctor left, I turned and Teresa was standing there. She wrapped her arms around me, and I hugged her back. “This is good,” she said. “This is really good.”

Blinking back the tears, I nodded. “I know. Clyde’s strong. He’ll pull through.” Sniffling, I edged back and smiled at her. Jax was standing beside me, and he took hold of my hand, threading his fingers through mine. He squeezed. “Thank you,” I said again, totally choked up as I turned to my friends. “Thank you.”

Avery smiled in return, and my eyes dropped to her waist for some reason. I don’t really know why, but I saw that they were being their typical most adorable couple in all of coupledom; her smaller hand was in Cam’s, their palms pressing together and his fingers curled around hers.