had been so holier than thou at the family dinner he hadn’t even noticed how frail and sickly his dad was.
“Does Levi know?” he asked, because he didn’t like the idea of his dad being completely alone through this experience.
“Nope, just Chip and Annie.”
Emmitt wasn’t sure what had happened in his throat, but speaking was impossible. So was breathing and pretty much every other bodily function necessary to sustain life.
“Annie knows?” he got out finally. Then to be abso-fucking-lutely sure they were talking about his Annie—because look at how many lives were sent into chaos over a simple E looking like an F—he added, “Annie Walsh?”
“I don’t know her last name. She’s my doctor. About this high, black hair, pretty eyes,” Les said. “You know, the cute little thing renting your room.”
Oh, Emmitt knew all right. Knew that he was a complete idiot. Twelve-year-old boy at a boob convention, that was him.
“She’s a special one, that girl,” Les went on as if Emmitt’s world hadn’t taken a nosedive. “Sweet as can be, never too busy to help me when I need it.”
Just too busy to tell the guy she was sleeping with that his dad had testicular cancer. Annie, of the “No fake promises or lies,” who’d given him shit for keeping his family in the dark about China, had been sitting on a secret so big that when it detonated Emmitt took a hit that made concrete shards feel like cotton balls.
Then there was this searing hot pain in his gut, like a knife cauterizing his insides. He wanted to double over in pain. Instead he sat down, memorizing exactly what it felt like to have his heart shredded to pieces so that he’d never, ever make this kind of mistake again.
“I know that stubborn look, son. And before you go blaming Annie, you need to know that I kept her quiet by using that doctor-patient privilege jargon.”
Emmitt had used a similar tactic, only she’d given him a deadline to come clean or she’d spill his secret. Clearly, she took Les’s secret a hell of a lot more seriously.
“She couldn’t tell you,” Les said, and wasn’t this just the person he needed to hear the truth from. The guy who’d ruined the first part of Emmitt’s life had teamed up with the woman who had effectively ruined the second part.
It was a one-two punch to the throat.
“Uh-huh,” he heard himself say, but none of that mattered.
Sure, he got the whole confidentiality crap. What he didn’t get was why, knowing about his dad’s cancer, she’d made all those suggestions about his dad and Paisley, second chances, being honest with family, leading him to believe she was on his side. Period. Hard stop. End of story.
He thought she’d chosen him. That when push came to shove, she’d have his back every day of the damn week. Because that’s what he’d been offering her.
He’d busted his ass proving to her that he was all in. He’d let his walls down, shared things with her he’d never shared with another living soul, let her so far into his heart that the marks she’d leave behind would be as good as branded. The scar tissue would harden over until the only love he’d have left to offer was for the people already inside his heart.
Love and trust can’t exist without each other, my ass.
He was such a fool.
His phone buzzed and he felt a wash of anger and anxiety that made him light-headed. He glanced at the screen, wishing to hell that it was Annie with an excuse that would make everything okay. It was Carla.
Carla framed every assignment as the assignment of lifetime, especially the ones in some remote village afflicted with malaria and the avian flu. Both sounded less painful than the story he was living right now.
“I’ve got to get going.” Emmitt stood. “You got a ride home?” he asked Les as if Emmitt himself had driven there instead of walked.
“Yeah, Chip’s waiting for me outside.” Les went to shove his hands into his pockets, only to remember he was wearing sweats. He rocked back on his heels instead.
“I hope you get this all straightened out without too much of a hassle,” Emmitt said as if the cancer would go away once Les filed the right form.
Not sure what else to say in such a royally screwed-up situation, he turned to leave. He made it as far as the door when he paused, then blew out the mother of all breaths