Last time I saw him cry was by Virginia’s bed after her accident. Seeing him so distressed broke my heart. All I wanted to do was to appease him. I still do, but I’m angry too, especially at our friends. Ian is the first one to claim he’s Dex’s best friend, but does he ever check on the guy? How difficult is it to pick up your phone and ask how someone’s doing?
“What can I do to help?” I say a little harshly.
If Dex seems surprised by my tone of voice, he doesn’t let it show. “Can you take care of the gang for me?”
Of course, he’s thinking of the group. As if the world will end if he’s not around to take care of them. I nod, annoyed by his request not because he thinks all will go south if he’s not here but because our friends have no idea how guilty he feels over taking care of his own shit and letting them fend for themselves.
“I’m taking Emma with me. We need to be together for our father. I don’t want to leave Virginia alone, Ryan either, but I need to go. Can you be sure they don’t fuck up their relationship even more? Ian and Julie seem fine, but you never know with them. And well, Asher might need some guidance if something happens. He really loves his grandfather. I’m just not sure I can be it right now. I…” He chokes on his words and his voice drops as if he’s talking to himself. “I need to fix this.”
He seems so different from the Dex everyone knows. How can he be so open with me but not want more? I sigh, pushing my thoughts away. I need to be here for him and stop wondering what we could have been.
“Anything else?” I ask softly.
He looks at his shoes again and shakes his head.
My hand comes to his chin, and I tilt his head for our eyes to meet. “It’s going to be fine. I’m here for you.” I bring him in for a hug. We’re on the sidewalk in the middle of my neighborhood, but I don’t care. I need to hold him. He feels like home, and I’ve missed him more than I thought. I miss his body, his touch, his sarcasm, his glasses, his ugly condo. My pulse races and my knees weaken.
It’s not fair to string Bruce along if I want someone else. I feel like an ass. I should have never introduced him to the group, never made him believe we could be something. In my defense, that was Julie’s idea. She insisted it would be fine and that Dex wouldn’t mind. She said everybody wanted to meet the new guy. We had only been together for two weeks, but I gave in. So I introduced him to my friends, then to my staff, as though it was a given he would be around for a while. Having Dex in my arms, feeling my dick stir as soon as my brain recognizes who I’m hugging, takes everything I have not to break up with Bruce via a quick text. That would be shitty. Even if I’m embracing Dex, he’s still not available. Even less now that his dad is sick. I can’t take advantage of the situation by coercing him into something he doesn’t really want.
He steps away from my embrace and I feel the loss in my soul. It’s as though I just let my soul mate go.
“Thank you,” he says with the most earnest smile I’ve ever seen on his face.
“Any time. You know I mean it, right?”
He nods. “I have to go pick up Virge. Can I call you?” His voice is hopeful, and even if it’s going to hurt me, he needs a friend right now, someone to hold him while his world falls apart.
“Of course.” I take his hand. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be.”
A faint smile spreads on his lips. He breathes in deeply, and I can practically see the weight lifting off his shoulders. He lets my hand go and sends me a smile that has my cock springing to the sky. My heart flutters.
Fuck. I know what that means. I don’t need a long introspection to know I’m madly in love with Dextyn Barclay Crawford the Third. But he leaves me standing there like the fool I am. After a few steps, he turns back toward me. With his chin held high and his chest puffed out, he laughs in my direction.
I look around, trying to understand what is so funny. “What?”
“For your relationship problem, beardy… there’s an app for that!” He winks at me, a beautiful smile illuminating his face.
The asshole is happy I’m sexually frustrated, and I can’t blame him one bit because I really hope he isn’t getting any either.
12
Dex
I glance at the clock, pacing. I swear time has stopped. I glance again. I’ve been waiting for my father to come out of the doctor's office for more than an hour. Emma is waiting next to me, and Clay isn’t far, certainly trying to seduce a nurse or grabbing a beer at the local bar. That’s all he does. He’s never worked a day.
I’ve left everything in the air in LA to be here for my father. Aiden is taking care of the firm, and I was clear to him that I meant taking care of clients and files, not Marlene’s pussy. It’s the first time I’ve left someone else in charge and my controlling ass doesn’t like it one bit, but what options did I have? I can’t even check with him regularly because we’re in a hospital and it’s a no cell zone. Something about respecting the families and patients or some shit doctors like to say. Really, it’s so patients don’t search every symptom or challenge their diagnosis thanks to Dr. Google. Not working is unsettling me. I need to have my phone in my hand. It’s an extension of me, of who I am and how I work. I feel naked and afraid, except I’m in a hospital corridor, not a jungle.
“Dex, don’t you want to sit?” my sweet sister asks.
Emma is cute and young, and I should be taking care of her. But I can’t lie to her. I have no clue what’s going on behind that door. Not that I haven’t tried to find out, but it seems nurses don’t take threats well.
My father had chest pains last night. I wanted to bring him to the emergency room right away, but he refused, saying it was heartburn. I was certain he was having a heart attack, so I insisted. We compromised on him seeing someone today. All night I wondered if he would die in his sleep, and it kept me awake. I pulled some strings, and between my father’s and my contacts, he was able to meet with the hospital’s head cardiologist this morning. My father didn’t want my siblings or me to be with him at the appointment, though Ellen, my stepmother, went with him.
I would prefer to be sitting with them and asking the questions I need answers to. Is the dizziness he’s felt over the past few weeks related to the pain he felt last night? How can a healthy sexagenarian feel chest pain out of the blue? What should we do?
“Dex, seriously, you’re making me want to throw up!” Emma says.
I stop pacing. “I’m sorry.”
I sit next to her, but in less than a minute, my leg is going up and down like a bouncing ball and I need to get up again. I resume my pacing and hear Emma sigh.
“Dextyn! Clayborne told me you would be here.”
Only one person calls my brother and me by our full names, and that would be our mother. I cringe. I really haven’t missed her judgmental tone and high-pitched voice. I turn toward her and keep my hands in my pockets to be sure I don’t give her permission to hug me. Not that she would. I’m a disappointment to her.
“Mother!”
“Why didn’t you call me the minute you knew your father was sick?”