Page 51 of Protective Love

I take a deep breath, grip tighter onto Dominic, and then groan as I push myself to take another step forward.

"Okay, okay, that's enough now! Give the boy some time to recover," Louise says, rushing over to me and pushing her son away as she helps guide me down into the wheelchair that Jess wheels behind me. "You did really good, sweetheart."

"Thanks, Auntie Lou."

My body slumps back against the wheelchair and I allow my muscles to relax now that I'm sat down.

As everyone moves around the room, putting everything back to where it's meant to be from where we moved it to have enough space for me to walk around, my mind drifts to Rory.

She's in the hospital somewhere.

She came in this morning and checked on me, being extremely professional apart from sneaking me a bag of rainbow belts, and then she's avoided me since.

I don't know if she's avoided my room because my whole family decided to turn up for a visit today, or if she's avoiding me because of what happened yesterday, but I don't like it.

I want to spend every moment I can with her, especially now that I'm getting better.

My stay in the hospital is coming to an end soon, and I haven't had a sufficient amount of time with her yet.

"Well, we best be off sweetheart. We have some meetings to attend to and we have to go and pick up Dominic's suit from the tailors, but we'll be back in a couple of days."

I kiss my aunt's cheek as she bends to give me a tight hug.

"I expect to see you running around this room by time I next come back," Dominic adds, clapping me on the shoulder.

I scoff and shake my head as I watch the surly bastard walk out of the room.

"Obviously he's joking. We all want you to get better as soon as possible, but don't go injuring yourself, son," my uncle says, coming over to give my other shoulder a squeeze before moving on to kiss Jess and Sophia goodbye and then shake Kaleb's hand.

Once they leave, I heave a sigh and glance between the remaining three family members in the room.

Kaleb's holding Sophia tightly on his lap as if he's afraid someone's going to try and steal her out of his arms and pressing kisses against her shoulder.

Sophia's watching him with awe in her eyes and a wide smile painted across her face.

They're in their own little bubble.

It's adorable, but also nauseating.

"They've been like this all week," Jess states, sitting on my bed.

"They're always like this, but I agree they've gotten worse."

Kaleb's icy stare turns my way and his eyes narrow.

"Are we disturbing you?" he asks.

"Very much so," I retort, giving him a snarky smile.

He rolls his eyes and flips me off with his middle finger.

"Can you two stop with the childish antics. You know I don't like it," Sophia says, flicking her gaze between us both.

"He's better now," Kaleb mutters as if that's an excuse for him to continue with the bickering we always fall in to with each other.

"Well, I'm not sticking around for this," Jess says, pocketing her phone and jumping down from my hospital bed. "I'm going to do a little retail therapy. Good job today, Jay. You're doing better than I expected. I'll be back tomorrow morning."

She hugs us all, bar Kaleb, and then hurries out the room.