Page 35 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

LIAM

I ’d spent a lot of time in hospitals over the past year—waiting by Jake’s bedside, waiting for news, waiting to hear if the latest surgery had been successful.

There was always a lot of waiting involved.

Even now, just to get an all-clear, we were waiting, the four of us crammed into Jake’s private room.

Well, five, technically.

Ash was curled up under the window, eyeing the nurses suspiciously every time someone new walked in. I’d had to bribe the front desk and vaguely threaten a shift supervisor to get him past security, but…worth it. The dog refused to leave Jake’s side, and frankly, I respected that.

Jake was getting antsy, huffing as he scrolled on his phone, and I couldn’t blame him. Even I wanted to get the hell out of here, and I wasn’t the one in the hospital gown with my leg propped up on a pillow. Where the hell had that doctor disappeared to?

“Still feeling okay?” Mia asked, seated on a chair next to his bed. “Pain under control? ”

Jake gave a brusque nod. A nurse had given him something for the pain earlier, before they’d wheeled him off to imaging. “I told you guys I just jarred it. We didn’t need to haul my ass all the way down here for X-rays.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Gabrielle said. “We don’t need you ending up with a blood clot or compartment syndrome or a fracture from damage we can’t see and you can’t feel.”

She paced at the end of his bed, eyes glued to her own phone where she was clearly looking up worst-case scenarios.

I wanted her to sit down. Her fretting was starting to make me uneasy.

Jake’s leg looked fine on the outside, but she was right that that didn’t tell us anything about the damage that might be on the inside.

What if he’d torn something and set back his recovery? What if he needed another surgery? That would set him even farther back. I didn’t even want to think about how frustrated and stressed and bitter that would make Jake. In that case, we could definitely kiss whatever progress he’d made goodbye.

My eyes lifted in Mia’s direction. I tried to catch her eye, wanting her to see my silent promise that we’d get through this, but she worried her lip and refused to make eye contact, her gaze trained on the wall.

I knew I needed to keep my distance, especially now—I needed to support Jake—but it wasn’t easy.

Frankly, the only thing stopping me from pulling her into my arms was the bed I’d positioned between us.

A knock at the door drew our attention, and the mood in the room grew tense as the doctor walked in. Dr. Patterson was older, gray at the temples, and he was wearing a smile, but that did nothing to relieve me. I needed to hear him say the words.

“Well, Jake. I just took a look at your x-rays,” he said. “Happy to report there’s no new damage.”

Mia sighed in relief, mumbling, “Oh, thank God. ”

“Looks like it’s just some soft tissue injury.

You’ll likely have a bit of swelling for the next couple of days,” Dr. Patterson said, “but that should go down with meds and rest. Keep an eye on the pain though. If it starts to get worse, come back and see us again, or get in touch with your regular doctor.” He clapped Jake’s shoulder. “And don’t push yourself.”

“That’s what I’m always telling him,” Gabrielle insisted, running her hands through her hair.

“You just need to be a little more aware of yourself,” Dr. Patterson continued. “You got lucky this time, but you won’t get lucky every time.”

“Believe me, Doc,” Jake muttered, “that much I already know.”

Dr. Patterson asked if we had any more questions, then headed for the door, on to his next patient. The moment he was gone, Gabrielle burst into tears.

Alarmed, I looked from Jake to Mia.

“Sorry,” Gabrielle said, covering her face with her hands. I didn’t know if the tears were from relief at hearing Jake was okay or from being overwhelmed, but she rushed for the door, tears streaming down her face.

“Gabrielle?” Jake called after her, struggling to shift himself to the edge of the hospital bed to get back in his chair.

“I just need a minute,” she tossed over her shoulder, disappearing into the hall.

“Gabrielle!” Jake called again. Louder.

“I’ll go,” Mia offered, climbing to her feet. “You get changed.” She bent over and pressed a kiss to the top of Jake’s head. “And try not to scare me like that again. ”

He huffed, still struggling to the edge of the bed. I didn’t offer to help him. I’d made that mistake before and he’d snapped at me so hard I’d half expected to see he’d drawn blood.

If Jake wanted help, he’d ask for it. At least, that’s what I’d been told. I did position the chair a little closer and leaned my weight against it to stabilize it, so he could grab the armrests and use them to haul himself off the bed.

“God, this is just…” He trailed off, thumping into his chair.

“I know it sucks,” I said. “But don’t you feel a little better knowing everything’s okay?”

“It’s not okay though. Is it?” he bit out, gesturing after Gabrielle, the bitterness in his tone darker than ever.

I hated hearing how frustrated and hopeless he sounded.

Mostly, I hated knowing that on top of Jake’s injury concerns, his relationship seemed to be dangling by a thread.

I needed to help him fix this. To hold it together.

They needed this cruise now more than ever.

I could only hope that leaving all this behind for a few days would help them turn the corner, get things back to normal.

If it didn’t work…I wasn’t sure what the hell I’d do.

MIA

Gabrielle was damn fast. By the time I’d left the room and gotten into the hallway, she was completely out of sight.

“Excuse me?” I said to the receptionist at the nearby nursing station. When she turned to face me, I realized she had a phone crammed between her ear and shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” I said.

“It’s fine—I’m on hold,” she explained. “Porters. How hard is it to pick up a patient on time?” She rolled her eyes. “How can I help you?”

“Did you see a woman go by here just now? Brown hair.” I winced internally. “Probably sobbing.”

She pointed down the hall to a door labeled Quiet Room.

“Ah, thanks,” I said, walking along. I knocked gently once reaching it, then slid inside, closing the door behind me. “Gabrielle?”

She sniffled, wiping at her eyes. She was sitting in the almost dark, the room lit by nothing more than a single lamp with a dull, flickering bulb. “I’m sorry, I’m…coming now.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “No rush. I just wanted to check that you were all right.”

She nodded, wiping more tears away. She wiped and wiped, but they kept coming.

I plopped down in the chair next to hers, my breath leaving me in a whoosh .

“Every time we come back here,” I said. “I replay that phone call all over again in my head.” Hearing that Jake had been injured on the job, hearing my mother’s frantic sobs, seeing my father, pale-faced and speechless for the first time in my life… I hated reliving those things.

“I just,” Gabrielle began. “I’m always worried he’s going to push himself too hard, and today felt like that day. Then hearing that he was okay…I don’t know.” She sobbed into her palm. “I don’t know why I’m crying so hard.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s not just about today. Maybe it’s about more .”

Gabrielle sniffled. “I’ve been wondering lately whether Jake and I can make this work. I love your brother. I really, really do. But he’s not the same guy he used to be before all of this—the guy I fell for the day we met.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear her say that. Maybe it’s because I knew it was true, as awful as it was to hear.

“And I don’t mean physically,” Gabrielle hurried to say. “I mean, of course that’s different, but I’m talking about all the other things that have changed since the accident.”

“I know,” I said softly. I could tell Gabrielle was burning out—that she’d been burning out for a while.

When I thought about standing in her shoes, imagining myself and Liam in the same situation, it was terrifying.

Liam was grumpy on a good day, so I could only imagine he’d be downright impossible to deal with most of the time if he had to adjust to such a dramatic change in his life.

It took a lot to stand by someone who was struggling this much, and even though I knew Gabrielle was trying her best, I got the sense she was reaching her limit.

“You know, after the accident, I was determined to stay by his side,” she said, “because I figured that once he started healing, we’d be past the worst of it.

But it just keeps getting worse. It’s like…

we take one step forward and then just spin in circles until I don’t even know which way is up anymore, much less which way is forward. ”

I nodded, letting her talk.

“I can deal with the physical changes to our life, but all the fighting is really getting to me. And that’s all we seem to be doing lately.”

“Jake’s fighting the world,” I agreed.

“He won’t let me in. He won’t let me help.

He’s pushing himself to a point that he’s risking his recovery to do things he knows he can’t do.

And I can’t watch him hurt himself—or yell at me for worrying over him.

He’s…taking me for granted,” Gabrielle said.

“Taking for granted that I want to be here to watch that self-destruction.”

The words were more sad than bitter, and it was the resignation in them that worried me. Jake was going to lose her if something didn’t change soon. Liam was worried Gabrielle was pulling away, but to me, it looked more like Jake was pushing, little by little.

At some point there’d be a ledge she couldn’t come back from. And it wasn’t because she’d decided she didn’t love him or that he wasn’t worth the trouble, but because she was frustrated with how negative and self-isolating he’d become.

“I’ve been bending over backward for the past year,” Gabrielle said. “Trying to be whatever he needs, and it’s like he doesn’t even recognize how much stress this is putting me under.”

Jake was caught up in a spiral of his own angst. I knew that.

Liam knew that. And Gabrielle knew that too.

But there was only so much a person could take before they had to step away.

Jake was my brother, and I loved him, but if he didn’t wake up and start thinking about more than just his own grief, Gabrielle wasn’t going to be there when he finally opened his eyes.

“I miss the guy he was when we first met. The one who was warm and kind and comfortable in his own skin. And I know he’s struggling to be comfortable in this new skin, but I just…

I don’t know how long I can keep dragging myself through this with him, hoping he makes some sort of peace with himself. ”

“I’m not judging you, Gabrielle. Trust me.”

She leaned her head back against the wall. “Is love really supposed to be this hard? Why does it feel like I’m the only one who’s trying?”

I related more than I wanted to admit. I almost told her about Liam and me before remembering no one was supposed to know about us.

I curled my fingers around the arms of my chair.

Since the moment Liam and I had gotten together, I’d let him dictate the terms of the relationship—not telling Jake or anyone at work.

On top of that, I’d been the one bending over backward to try to make things work in the writers’ room with Lyle and Damien because I didn’t want to create any problems that might hurt VeriTV.

I loved my brother, and I loved the show, but it would be nice to feel like Liam cared about me as much as he cared about Jake and End in Fire .

I sighed, patting Gabrielle’s arm. “I know it’s hard right now—that it’s been hard for a while. I miss the old Jake too. But everything’s going to work out,” I said, trying to believe my own words. “You and Jake will get through this.”

Gabrielle hummed, hesitant, but she squeezed my hand. My chest clenched, realizing how uncertain we both were that things would ever get better.