realized it meant super empty E instead of you still have five miles E.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I yanked out my phone, trying to tune out Giuliana’s wails, and looked for an Uber. The nearest one was over twenty minutes away. Banging my head on the wheel, I let out a litany of curses, searching for every four-letter word in my repertoire and then some. I knew Mason and his wife were both working, but at this point, I was going to have to text them.
As I was drafting a message, a familiar truck pulled into the driveway next door. Javi stepped out, and I didn’t miss how his gaze drifted over to my place. We were on tentative ground, but he’d helped me before… and I wanted to trust he’d help again. That we were moving to a place where we could ask each other for things, because we knew each other. Cared about each other, at least in some way.
“Javi! I need to ask a huge favor. Giuliana’s sick and I need to get to the hospital. My car is out of gas and—”
“Let’s go.” Without a pause, he immediately went to the passenger side of his truck, opening the small back door and getting a space prepped for her car seat. He was calm and collected, and all that rang in my head was let’s go.
I gathered Giuliana in her car seat and the diaper bag, but I couldn’t carry those and take out the car seat base at the same time. But apparently I didn’t need to worry about that, either—Javi nudged me gently out of the way and leaned into the back seat, hands expertly loosening straps and unlatching hooks. He had the base out in half the time it would have taken me and was already moving to his truck. In numb silence, I followed.
He installed the base in the back of his truck and made sure it was secure, and then carefully took Giuliana from me and locked her into place. I hopped into the passenger seat, the leather burning through the t-shirt I was wearing. Summer was on us hard, and I was coated in heat and stress sweat.
We were on the road in no time, and all I could think about was how effortless it had been for Javi. He’d known just what to do and moved with an efficiency that left me speechless. As he drove, I noticed that he didn’t push the speed limit and was extra cautious when changing lanes, totally focused on getting us to the hospital safely. His calm and collected aura soothed me until I could get my own brain and breath under control.
“T-tell me what’s happening,” he said, gaze locked on the road.
“She got fussy about four hours ago. It was bottle time, so I fed her. And she threw it up. Like, all of it. So I waited a half an hour and tried again with a smaller bottle, but she spit up all of it, too. I kept trying every half hour or so with smaller and smaller amounts, but she spit up everything. It was awful.
“And she’s been screaming like this the whole time. I checked her temperature and she didn’t have one, and I tried to rock her and stick her in a warm bath and all of the other tricks that usually calm her down bu—”
I sucked in a breath, using the pressure of it to push the sobs that wanted to erupt from me back down.
“I didn’t know what to do. Christian said take her to the hospital. She’s never had to go, and I just don’t know what I’m going to do if something’s wrong with her.”
“She’ll be fine,” Javi said. He sounded so confident, my shoulders managed to drop a little.
But the worry was still twisting in my stomach and I couldn’t help it—she was all I had, my whole life was her. I said what I was really thinking.
“What if she’s dying?” And what if it’s my fault?
“Hey,” Javi said, firm but soft. “Don’t do that. K-kids get sick. It happens. Babies are... fickle. B-b-but they are also resilient. She’s s...s-stro—she’s t-tough like you are.”
I took a deep breath. Maybe it was crazy, but I wanted to believe him, and I clung to his words like they were oxygen.
When we got to the ER at the children’s hospital, I readied myself for the curbside drop-off. “Will you hold Giuliana while I get the car seat and