2
In the morning, it wasn’t the nurse who was the first one in the room. When I opened my eyes, I felt groggy (probably from all those pain meds Michael had been talking about) and I tried to rub my eyes but had too many tubes still poking out of my veins to do it comfortably. I didn’t need to be able to see clearly to hear that Rob and Adam were here.
When I finally got my eyes open, I leaned up against Michael’s shoulder in the bed and saw the two of them, standing eagerly at the bedside and looking exceedingly worried. Adam reached right over and gave me a hug.
“Careful,” Michael scolded him. “She’s got IV’s and things poking out and attached to her all over.”
“I am being careful,” Adam said to Michael before he turned his face back to me and gave me a small kiss on the forehead.
I could feel Michael’s shoulder muscles tighten behind my head. I don’t think he liked the fact that Adam was trying to hold onto me, too. Rob walked up and gave me a kiss on the top of my head but didn’t try to hug me since I looked like a mess of tangled cords.
“How are you feeling?” Rob asked.
“Okay,” I said, but the head nod that I gave caused me to wince, and I knew they all saw it.
Still, it was an honest answer. Kind of, at least.
Last night I was feeling great; high on pain meds and high on the proclamations of love between Michael and me. Today I simply felt okay. Michael was right; I wasn’t quite as “healed” as I thought I was. Regardless, though, I still wanted to get the hell out of here, and we needed to get going so that I could get back on track to Maine.
As if he could read my mind, Michael carefully slid his arm out from under me. “I’m going to go find the nurse and see when we can get you out of here,” he said.
I smiled at him, and our eyes lingered on each other longer than usual. I wasn’t ready to tell Adam and Rob about making my choice yet. For now, I just wanted things to stay the way they were so that we could focus on taking care of the inheritance and Naomi. Once things settled down, I would talk to the guys about Michael and me.
Besides, I chose Michael as the man I wanted to be with forever, but that didn’t mean that I still couldn’t be with them all for right now.
“You really scared us,” Adam said as he sat down in a chair next to the bed.
He looked exhausted like he hadn’t slept in days. Actually, they both looked like that. And it made me sick to my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have left the way that I did. It was stupid and I won’t do it again.”
Rob laughed and I wondered what was so funny.
“It looks like Michael already gave you a lecture about it, huh?” he asked.
I giggled, but even the hopping of my shoulders along with those giggles ached my body.
“Not necessarily a lecture,” I said with a sigh. “But yes, we did talk about it. And he is right. I never should have left you guys like that. It wasn’t fair of me to do. It was hurtful and broke our trust. And it absolutely killed me to leave.”
“Technically, it almost did actually kill you,” Adam said.
There was no laughing this time, though.
“Where were you going anyway, Lisette?” Rob asked. “What was all of this about?”
I started in on the story to tell Rob and Adam all about everything. All about Naomi, the inheritance, and why I left them behind out of fear that Naomi would use my affections for them as a weapon. Just as I got to the juicy parts, Michael came back and sat down beside me on the bed while the other two guys listened until I was done explaining it all.
“The nurse said that you have to spend another day,” Michael said once I had finished talking.
“But Naomi—”
I groaned. “Will still be a force to be reckoned with after you get out of the hospital, I’m sure,” Michael interrupted me. “You need to heal and then we’ll deal with her.”
“Michael is right,” Adam agreed. “We’ll all stay here with you until you’re released.”
I got the feeling that Michael wasn’t too thrilled with that. I think he liked it when it was just the two of us here alone together. Regardless, it gave us all time to talk and rest, which all four of us needed desperately. When I was able to leave, we would all take one car together. Rob had driven a rental and already called the rental company to come and pick it up. We made a plan to go to Maine together and get the inheritance from my uncle. Hopefully, we could talk to Mark a bit while we were there; and hopefully, he would have some insight or information that might help us deal with Naomi. The only thing that the four of us were divided about, was what to do with the inheritance money.
“I think we should just offer it to your Aunt Naomi,” Adam said. “If that’s what she’s after and it will buy you your freedom from her and let us all get back to living in peace, then why wouldn’t we just give it to her? It’s not like money has ever been a priority for any of us.”
“Agreed,” Rob said as he crossed his arms over his chest, which also oddly enhanced his biceps in the process. “I can tell you that from years’ worth of police force experience dealing with criminals, sometimes it’s just worth paying someone to leave you the hell alone. I hate to say that because it goes against everything that I morally believe in, but there are some people out there who will never stop until they get what they want. They’ll manipulate and evade the system, and half the time the system is corrupt enough to let them do it. Sometimes all it takes to make them disappear from your life is to give them the money or whatever prize it is that they are seeking, cut your losses, and move on.”
“No,” Michael said. “That inheritance belongs to Lisette, and with a huge amount of money like that she could run far away. It’s enough money that we could all get far enough away from here that Naomi would never find us. Why would we hand over exactly what that woman wants after all that she’s done to us, and give her even more power? If the choice is there to take the money and get the hell out of here, I say we do it. What do you think, Lisette?”
I didn’t know what I thought, if I wanted to be real with myself. The guys seemed divided by it, and honestly, I could see the valid points in both options. I just wanted to do whatever would get Naomi out of our lives for good, and it was possible that either of those things would work or that neither of them would.
“I don’t know,” I said listlessly. “I guess I need to think about it some more. Besides, I think we should wait to make a decision on that until we can talk to my uncle. There may be other conditions to the inheritance that we don’t know about yet. Or maybe the amount is different than what we think. I think we should go and get all of the information first and then make a decision about what to do.”
Everyone was at least on board with the idea; a nice compromise between all of us. Besides, it was always smart not to react without having all the information you needed. I’d learned that lesson countless times and I was hoping that I was actually going to stop making the same mistake of reacting instinctively and then regretting it.
When we got ready to leave the hospital, I was still a bit sore and still tired, but overall, I felt good because we were all back together again. The drive from New York to Maine wasn’t that long now and the guys would take shifts driving there. I didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but as long as I had Michael, Adam, and Rob with me. I felt as though everything would be fine.
However, the tension and discord between the guys on the ride there should have been my first clue that everything was indeed not going to be fine.
The guys were feeling at odds about what the best course of action was, but there was also another tension that was adding to that unstable dynamic. Michael seemed put-off that they were even here with us now, and I had a feeling it was because he knew that in the end, it would just be he and I together.
I also think he wanted to fast forward to that part now.
