Torch (Men of Inked: Heatwave Book 11) by Chelle Bliss

Author:Chelle Bliss [Bliss, Chelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bliss Ink LLC
Published: 2023-01-23T18:30:00+00:00

A warm hand touches my shoulder, waking me. “Honey,” the soft voice says.

“Mom.” I turn, finding my mother’s sorrowful smile, but her eyes are on Ana.

“Is she okay?”

I wipe the sleep from my eyes as I stand. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I think so.”

“We’re here for whatever you two need,” my dad says, always the supportive father and the best one any person could ever have.

“Thanks, Pop.”

Mom pulls me into a hug, rubbing my back like she always did when I was a child to console me. “This is going to hurt like a motherfucker for her and probably you too,” she says in my ear. “But this too shall pass in time.”

“I’m already bracing myself.”

“You can’t prepare for something like this,” Mom says like she knows.

I pull back from her embrace until I can see her face. “Did you…?”

She nods. “Once. I’ve never experienced a grief quite like it either. Not before and not since.”

“I don’t know what to do, Mom,” I tell her truthfully. “Where do I fit in? How can I help her? What do I do?”

My mom slides her soft hand down my cheek until she cups my jaw. “You just have to hold on and let the ride take you where it will, baby. You can’t prepare for this. You can’t plan how you’re going to handle every emotion that’s going to roll your way. It’s going to be like a turbulent storm. Just hold on and know that nothing lasts forever, not even darkness.”

“Thanks for being my mom,” I say, always feeling that sentiment but never voicing it.

“You boys made it easy.” She smiles, dropping her hand from my face.

“Don’t listen to your mother. You boys were not easy in any way. Still aren’t,” Dad says as he moves to the other side of Ana’s bed and stares at the hospital monitors like he has any idea what all the numbers mean.

Mom leans into me. “He’s a pain in the…”

“I can hear you,” Dad says before she can finish the statement.

“Anyway.” Mom waves her hand at him. “Everyone’s here.”

I swallow and furrow my brows, confused. “Who?”

“The entire family.”

“Fuck,” I groan. “Why?”

“Gigi put out the call, and everyone rallied around because they love you and they care for you and your new wife.”

“Ma…”

She puts up her hand. “I don’t care how this marriage started or why, baby. But the way you’re lying at her bedside tells me there’s more to it than you want to tell me, or maybe you haven’t been entirely truthful with yourself.”

“I don’t know, Ma. I don’t know anything right now except I want to take away whatever hurt she’s feeling.”

My mother takes my hand. “You’ve got to let her feel it, Trace, but you can be there for her through it all.”

“I’m going to try.”

“It’s all you can do,” she says with a squeeze.

Ana stirs in the bed, drawing our attention and ending our conversation. “Trace,” Ana whispers, blinking slowly as she tries to focus.

I rush to the side of her bed, taking the seat I’d been planted in for what has felt like hours.

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