The Best Mistake - Cookie O'Gorman Page 0,79
tight. “We were just out there dancing. Me, June, Charlie and Rose, and all of sudden these guys, like three of them, started going after this other smaller guy. Chase got caught in the middle.”
“I was trying to calm things down,” Chase put in. “But unfortunately, I overestimated my powers of persuasion.”
“One of them picked up a barstool. He swung it so hard, Archer. It hit Chase in the arm, made him lose his footing, and when he went down, Chase clipped his head on a table. His head started bleeding,” she said, the tears rolling down her face now. “It was so bad.”
“I should’ve been there,” I repeated, laying a kiss in her hair. “It won’t happen again.”
Finn was silent, standing next to Mom as she held Chase’s hand.
Meeting her gaze, I noticed her eyes were red around the edges, and my heart clenched.
“I’m glad you’re here, Archer,” she said then reached out for me. “When no one could get ahold of you, I started imagining the worst. I’m just happy you’re okay.”
I took her hand, holding it tight. “How are you, Mom? I know you hate hospitals.”
That was an understatement. Mom had loathed hospitals ever since we’d gone through that terrible time with Dad. With his cancer, he’d had to be in them nearly constantly. Some doctors and nurses were good. Others were not. The bad ones, the ones that were so heartless, so thoughtless that it bordered on cruel, were the ones who stuck out in my mind. I’d never forget those last few days, the horror they’d put my father through, the pain they’d caused us as a family. It made it even harder for me to see Mom having to sit here now, watching as one of her sons was in that hospital bed.
“I do hate them.” She looked up at me. “But Chase needed help, so here we are.”
I pulled her into a hug. “I’m here now, so if you need to go, you can.”
She held me a moment too long, and I tried to give her all the strength I could.
“Maybe I will just pop out for a minute,” she said, placing a hand on my cheek. “Just to use the bathroom and get some coffee.”
“I’ll go with you,” Finn said, and I gave him a nod.
“Could you all go?” Chase said. “I want to talk to Archer for a second.”
Once everyone was out of the room and the door had closed, his eyes met mine.
“God Chase,” I said, stepping closer to the bed. “I’m so sorry I left you there, sorry this happened at all.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a grin, “enough of all that. How did things go with Honor?”
I shook my head. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is you getting better.”
“I beg to differ. You making love to a girl is far rarer than some bar fight.”
“It should’ve been me,” I said, speaking through the knot in my throat. “If I’d been there, none of this would’ve happened. I can’t even look at you without feeling guilty.”
“My face is a little banged up at the moment,” he quipped.
“Just stop,” I said. Running my hands through my hair, I gestured to him then winced. “Chase you’re acting like you’re okay, but nobody’s buying it. This is serious.”
His face lost all traces of the flippancy he’d shown before. “I know,” he said.
“How long did the doctor say you have stay?”
“Only a couple days,” he said. “They wanted to keep me in case I have a concussion. Did a scan and said one of the bones in my arm is broken and that the muscles in my shoulder were bruised. It’s a clean break. They told me I should be glad it wasn’t worse.”
I cursed underneath my breath. “When does the cast come off?”
“A couple weeks,” he said. “They’ll scan it again then. If the bone heals right, I should start physical therapy a few weeks after that.”
“And baseball?” I asked, voicing the thing I feared. “When will you be able to play again?”
“They said—” Chase cleared his throat and tried again. “They said, if I’m really lucky, and if I’m diligent about the PT, I should be able to get back out there in four to six months. If everything goes well.”
I swallowed.
Chase was trying to hide it, but his lips were trembling.
“And if it doesn’t?” I whispered.
He just shook his head as I pulled him to me, careful of his damaged arm. Maybe it was the pitcher-catcher relationship, but