Chapter 6
The next two days were a blur of doctor’s appointments, last-minute tests, and quiet moments with my new family.
Liam was nervous, he tried to hide it, but I saw the way he picked at his food at dinner, the way he’d lie awake at night staring at the ceiling of his new room.
I found him on the roof of the penthouse the night before the surgery, sitting on the ledge, looking out at the city lights.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked, sitting down next to him, making sure to keep a hand on his shoulder just in case.
He shook his head, pulling his hoodie tighter around himself.
“What if something goes wrong?” he asked, quiet. “What if your body rejects the kidney? Or mine does? What if—”
“Hey,” I said, cutting him off, turning him to face me. “Nothing is going to go wrong. The doctors said we’re a perfect match. Better than perfect. This is going to work. I promise.”
He stared at me for a long second.
“How can you be so sure?” he asked.
“Because,” I said, grinning a little. “You’re my kid. We’re Hale men. We’re tough. We don’t let a little surgery beat us.”
He laughed, a small, shaky sound, and shoved my shoulder.
“You’re so cheesy,” he said, but he was smiling now.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
I’d had them made that afternoon, after stopping by the storage unit I’d kept for 20 years.
“Got something for you,” I said, handing them to him.
He turned them over in his hand, confused.
“Keys to what?”
“Keys to my old F-150,” I said. “The 1998 one I had in high school. I kept it in a storage unit all these years, had it restored a few years back. It’s in the garage downstairs. It’s yours. If—when—we get out of the hospital, we can work on it together. Add whatever parts you want. Make it yours.”
Liam stared at the keys, his mouth hanging open.
“Your old truck?” he whispered. “Mom told me about that truck. Said you used to take her to the drive-in in it. Said you almost got stuck in the mud once on the way home from the river.”
I laughed, loud.
“Yeah, that’s the one. We had to walk three miles to the nearest gas station to get a tow. Your mom was so mad she didn’t talk to me for two days.”
Liam laughed too, wiping a tear off his cheek with the back of his hand.
“Thank you,” he said, clutching the keys tight. “This is the best thing anyone’s ever given me.”
I pulled him into a hug.
“Wait till you see it,” I said. “It’s still got the scratch on the passenger door from when I crashed it into a fence trying to impress your mom.”
We went back inside an hour later, and I found Evelyn in the kitchen, making us hot chocolate.
She was wearing one of my old hoodies, the gray one with the company logo on it, and her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders.
She looked exactly like the girl I’d fallen in love with at 16.
“Liam okay?” she asked, handing me a mug.
I nodded, wrapping my free arm around her waist, pulling her close.
“He’s fine. Just nervous. Gave him the truck keys.”
She smiled, soft.
“He’s going to love that. He’s been talking about fixing up an old truck since he was 12.”
I sipped my hot chocolate, looking down at her.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, quiet. “About us. About what happens after the surgery. About all the time we lost.”
She tensed a little in my arms, like she was waiting for me to say it was too much, too fast.
“I don’t want to waste another second,” I said, tilting her chin up so she was looking at me. “I love you, Evelyn. I’ve loved you since I was 15 years old and you tripped me in the hallway just to say hi. I don’t want to take things slow. I don’t want to date for a year and see how it goes. I want all of it. With you. With Liam. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to watch our son graduate, get married, have kids of his own. I want the whole life we were supposed to have. If you’ll have me.”
She stared at me, her eyes glistening.
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she whispered, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Not yet,” I said, grinning. “I’m going to do that properly, with a ring, and a fancy dinner, and all that stuff you deserve. But I wanted you to know. I’m all in. No matter what.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, soft and slow, her fingers tangling in my hair.
It was our first kiss in 18 years.
It tasted like hot chocolate and salt from her tears, and it was better than I’d ever imagined.
“I’m all in too,” she said, when we pulled apart. “Always have been.”
The next morning, we went to the hospital early.
Liam was in a hospital gown, his legs swinging off the edge of the bed, still clutching the truck keys in his hand.
Evelyn held both of our hands, one in each of hers, as the nurses wheeled us toward the operating rooms.
“See you on the other side,” Liam said, grinning at me as they stopped at his door.
“See you, kid,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.
May you like
They wheeled me into my OR a few doors down.
The last thing I saw before the anesthesiologist put the mask over my face was Evelyn standing in the hallway, blowing me a kiss, her face full of hope.
