The Handler (Maddie Castle Book 1) by L.T. Ryan & C.R. Gray

Author:L.T. Ryan & C.R. Gray [Ryan, L.T. & Gray, C.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liquid Mind Media
Published: 2023-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

I grabbed the hot waffle from the toaster and dropped it onto the plate to cool. They were a bit freezer burned, but they’d do the trick. Anything in our guts was better than nothing.

I turned to the coffee pot to get it started when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Sliding it out, I grunted with annoyance.

Teresa. Ox’s mother.

I silenced it and set it on the countertop. The coffee just started brewing when it buzzed again.

That was nothing new. Ox and I would get into a fight, and a few hours later—or the next morning, in this case—I’d get a phone call.

Oh, sweetie, he didn’t mean it. You know his temper. He’s sorry. You know how much he loves you.

I loved Teresa. She was the mother I’d never had. Kind, doting, affectionate. She was close with Ox, but not so close that it was weird. She’d raised him to be a reasonable, functioning man. He wasn’t codependent on her. He just loved her. They were friends.

She’d loved when we got together. We’d bonded over the fact that she too had grown up poor and had made a life for herself. She’d gone to college, gotten a degree, and graduated into a great job. Then she’d met Ox’s dad, Ox came along not long after, and her husband had died when he was a baby. She’d done it all on her own, and she’d done a wonderful job.

When she’d met me, she’d playfully thanked me for taking him off her hands. When we’d broken up, she’d taken me out to lunch and apologized on his behalf. She’d even paid my security deposit on this trailer because I’d been on unemployment and couldn’t afford it.

But I really didn’t want to have the, “he didn’t mean it, sweetie” conversation right now.

Still, I glanced at the text.

Ox was shot last night. Please call me.

I read it half a dozen times before it processed. By the time it did, my heart was in my throat, and my hands were shaking.

I dialed and held the phone to my ear. She answered on the third ring. “Hey, sweetie,” she sniffled.

“Is he okay?” I asked. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“He’s—” A long pause that felt like a lifetime. “He got out of surgery an hour ago. He still hasn’t woken up, and—” Another pause, as if she needed to regain her composure. “Things aren’t looking good.”

I was one more sentence from hyperventilating. The room around me was spinning, like I was on a merry-go-round, trying to keep my eyes on one spot to stay steady, but it disappeared as fast as I’d first seen it. “Where is he? What hospital?”

She gave me the address, and the room number, and I was already prepared to leap out the door. Only to remember Darius was still asleep.

No way in hell was I bringing him to the hospital. No way in hell was I gonna let him see the mess I was sure I was about to be.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said.

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