“Hey,” Mason said, “can you be at the hospital this morning between eight and ten? That’s when the doctor is supposed to make rounds, and one of us needs to be there.”

“She’s okay?”

“As far as I know,” Mason said, and Cole relaxed a degree.

“I thought Drake was doing it,” Cole said.

Their youngest brother was the only one who didn’t have an eight-to-five. He split his time between being a personal trainer and working part-time shifts at one of the North Brothers Sports stores on the retail floor. He had brains enough, plus the requisite college degree, that he could’ve worked in just about any department at the corporate office, but Drake showed no interest in it. Whereas Cole’s aim was to avoid the family, Drake seemed more against taking responsibility in general.

Yesterday, Drake had said on the brothers’ group text, which had started up the day after their mom’s heart attack and focused solely on navigating Faye North’s health crisis, that he could be at the hospital today to get the doctor’s full report. Their mom insisted she could handle it herself, but she was medicated, she was weak, and she was tired. She needed her sons, even if she couldn’t admit it, and that’s the one thing they all agreed on—they’d be there for her and with her.

“He’s not answering his phone,” Mason said. “Calls or texts. Gabe and I have the annual management retreat today, otherwise one of us would do it.”

There were all kinds of insinuations wrapped up in that one sentence, and Cole resented every single one of them—that their responsibilities with North Brothers Sports were more important than his with Dunn & Lowell, that they were only appealing to him because they had a big management spank-off, that he could just drop everything to pick up the slack for Drake…

For his mom, he would do it.

“Yeah. I’ll be there,” Cole said.

“They might move her out of ICU today,” Mason said unnecessarily.

“I know,” Cole said. “Hope so,” he added, belatedly remembering his goal of getting along.

“Fill us in on what the doctor says. Thanks, Cole.”

“She’s my mom too,” he said, but Mason didn’t hear, as he’d already disconnected. Mr. Important had important things to do.

Now Cole had a legit reason to avoid Sierra today. In the three years he’d worked for her, he’d never called in sick and had taken very little personal time, maybe a couple of hours here and there when it couldn’t be helped. Sierra had told him, more than once since Saturday night, to do whatever he needed to do for his mom. Guess he was going to take her up on that offer.