Page 33 of The Dangers of Daydreaming (Love Connections #2)

Her grandson came running in, bowling right into her legs and almost sending her pancaked onto the floor. Gemma’s husband appeared behind the little tyke, breathing heavily. “The car’s here,” he panted. “And I think getting Luke restrained for a bit would be good.”

Gemma’s eyes were still on me, but she nodded and smiled. “We’re coming.” Then to me she said, “Let us know if Finn needs anything. Or you.”

“Yes, ” Lily echoed. “Here’s my number so you can text if we need to grab you guys anything.” She rattled off the digits, and I scrawled them onto a scrap piece of paper beside me.

“Thank you both,” I said.

The adults filed out after Lily scooped a shrieking and laughing Luke into her arms. A ghost of a smile lingered on my lips long after the sound of a car driving away disappeared.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to bring my own family here one day? To have my own grandkids running around like little savages? My lips lifted at the thought of a little boy like Luke, but with my red hair wreaking havoc on a cute B&B.

My fingers paused in the action of gathering up my things. When was the last time I’d considered that kind of future? The kind that included a family… and a husband?

Ever since Michael had left, I’d sort of given up on things like that. Not that he had broken my heart so badly, so much as…

I’d felt relieved when he’d ended it.

What did that say about me? That I would have married the man, yet felt relief that we broke up? Probably that I was clinically insane. Yet here I was, with sudden visions of little grandkids and family and a husband and… A future filled with love.

I blew out a slow breath. Words Finn had said a week before filtered back through to me. Something about how I didn’t believe in love—I’d analyzed what he was saying then, but quickly dismissed it. I mean, who didn’t believe in love? Most especially me, who lived and breathed happily ever afters.

Maybe he’d been right, though? But wasn’t anymore?

My head spun with it all.

Soul-searching was exhausting. I needed a nap, but first, I really needed to know what was going on wit h Finn.

I pulled out my phone. I wouldn’t call—that might interrupt something with his grandparents—but I could send another text.

The front door opened with a long creak and my head shot up, craning to the side to see into the entryway better. I stood up.

“Finn?”

He appeared in the doorway, and everything about him was wrong. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, his hair was mussed as if he’d just woken up, and his shoulders were slumped. Worst of all, though, his smile was gone, replaced by worried lines.

My heart fell to my toes. “What happened?”

He shook his head, dropping onto the couch and cradling his face in his hands.

I sat beside him on the edge of the couch, my hand rising to his upper back. “Pops… he…” he spoke to his knees.

My heart clenched at his words. Had his grandpa… had he…

“A coma. He’s in a coma. They… they don’t know if he’ll wake up.”

The full force of the situation slammed into me.

As if on autopilot, my hand ran the length of Finn’s back, creating long, oblong movements up and down and around, trying to comfort him when I hardly knew how.

“What happened?” I finally managed.

His hands clenched in his hair, and my stomach mimicked the action.

“They say it’s sepsis. They’re treating it, but…

he might not make it.” He finally lifted his hands just enough to turn his head and look at me.

The pain in his eyes cut through me. “He might never wake up, Lucy. What am I going to do if he doesn’t wake up?

” His voice broke, and I felt heat rush to my eyes.

I kept on trailing my hands up and down his back. I didn’t know if it was helping, I just wanted to do something, and I had nothing else.

My complete uselessness here was crystal clear. But if I could provide even the smallest bit of comfort, I wasn’t leaving.

“Oh, Fi nn.” Saying sorry felt so empty. “And Gram? How is she coping?”

“She just stands next to his bed, holding his hand. Watching him as if she can’t miss a single breath. For hours, she just stood there, wouldn’t even sit.”

The image was more than heartbreaking.

“She finally gave in to the exhaustion and fell asleep. I came back to grab some stuff for her. I think I’m going to go stay at the hospital. I want to be there when… if…” He couldn’t finish the statement. I didn’t want him to.

“Let me drive you. You have to be exhausted.”

“Okay,” he said, not even fighting it. “Let me get Gram’s things.”

I quickly packed up my things and ran them upstairs, grabbing a jacket, my wallet, and the keys to my rental car I hadn’t touched all week, then taking the steps two at a time on the way back.

My mind swam, but for some reason it had latched onto this idea that I wanted us gone before anyone came back to the B&B.

I didn’t want Finn to have an audience or have to explain anything to anyone.

He was only a few minutes behind me, coming out of a room past the kitchen, holding a little duffle bag in his left hand.

“I need to grab a few of my things too,” he said, meeting my eyes with that same hollow look he’d worn since he walked into the house.

I nodded, holding out my hand. He took it in a firm grip, as if I were a lifeline he needed.

I could feel every inch of his fingers and palm on mine as he wrapped them around me.

Every callous and groove. Tears kept surging, but I pushed them back.

It wasn’t my grief to show right now. I needed to be here for Finn.

I put his Gram’s bag in the back and started the car while he ran into his house. Minutes later, we were on the road. I vaguely remembered the way we were headed and assumed he would direct me if needed, so I just stayed on the main road north out of Victoria .

He reached across our seats, grabbing my hand back in his, and tilted his head against the headrest. I thought maybe he’d sleep, and I was considering using a voice command on my phone to give me directions when he spoke.

“He’s too young to die,” he said, his voice sounding as if he hadn’t used it in hours.

“They’ve just always been there. Up until my dad’s incarceration, every holiday and birthday, they were either there or called and sent a gift…

and then after… I mean, you know. They were always there.

Gram came that night, and Pops navigated all the legal stuff to take me home with them.

They were the one future I never needed to worry about planning for. ”

I wanted to provide comfort, distraction, or whatever he needed, but I didn’t know what that looked like here. In that moment, as much as I wanted to help and be here for him, it was blatantly obvious how much I didn’t know how. What would he want right now?

“I’m so sorry, Finn. I wish there were something I could do.”

His hand constricted around mine. “You’re helping.”

I swallowed. “Tell me more about him,” I asked. “What was it like when you first moved in?”

To my surprise, he actually chuckled. “He had no idea what to do with me. I think in his head, he’d lumped me a little with my dad, who was obviously a full-grown adult, so the night after I got there, he sat me down with his expectations.

No girls, no drugs, and no drinking. Since I was thirteen, that wasn’t a problem. ”

I grinned at that, imagining the cute older man I’d met trying to lay down the law.

“Was he like the bad cop and your Gram was the good cop then?”

“Not at all. After that, he was fantastic. Always snuck me home candy bars from the gas station, even though Gram said they were bad for my teeth, let me drive the tractor, and taught me how to fix stuff. Gram wasn’t rea lly a bad cop either, but she was definitely the backbone of the household.”

“They are a great couple.” Not for the first time, I thought about how they reminded me of my grandparents. Grandma Sue was a force to be reckoned with, but Grandpa was just a good time, always the easygoing one.

My heart broke all over imagining my own grandpa in this position. And he hadn’t raised me.

Cars zoomed past us, headlights blinking in the approaching dusk. How interesting it was to know how everyone’s lives just kept going while Finn’s seemed to have ground to a halt… a moment in time where things were suspended until he had answers. Until his grandpa improved… or didn’t.

“Turn here,” Finn said, pointing.

I turned where he directed, letting the steering wheel unwind beneath my hands as it straightened out. He gave me a few more directions until I was in the hospital's parking lot. I pulled into the drop-off zone by the main entrance, parking the car just past the doors.

“Can I help with anything?” I asked.

Finn unbuckled as he shook his head. “No, you’ve been great. I’m so tired. I don’t know that it would’ve been smart for me to make this drive.”

I gave a small smile. “Text me when you’re ready to come home tomorrow, I’ll come get you.”

He nodded. Then, as if it was almost instinctual, he reached out, cradling my face in his hand and leaning towards me. His lips landed on mine. Soft. Sweet. He pulled back, then pressed one more kiss to my mouth.

I ran my fingers down his cheek, feeling the stubble there.

“Thank you again,” he said in a whisper. Then he left, grabbing his and his grandma’s bags from the back and walking into the hospital.

I waited until the automatic doors closed behind him, staring at the large expanse of black glass, my mouth pinched in thought.

My eyes hurt. My heart hurt—physically hurt. It was like my chest had begun to collapse, pressing in on it. The grief that I felt not only for the health of a man I’d only met once, but also the pain of his family, threatened to wash over me now that I did not need to be strong or brave for Finn.

My mind fixated on him as I drove, instead of on the pain that nothing could be done for his grandpa. It fixated and struggled to make sense of him and me.