Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,11

How was this happening?

“If you’re a match, you could save him. He’s been on the donor list for two years.”

Alexis wanted to cover her ears and yell La-la-la-la. She didn’t want to care. Not about him. Not about Candi.

“I know this is a shock—”

Alexis opened her eyes. “How long have you known about me?”

Candi’s hesitance was an answer all on its own.

Alexis’s tone hardened. “How long?”

“I found out three years ago.”

Three years. Alexis exhaled an entire lifetime’s worth of unanswered questions, only to inhale another lifetime’s worth of new ones. Did that mean he had known about her for three years too? Or had he always known about her? Either way, he had obviously not cared enough to reach out himself.

“He wouldn’t let me contact you before,” Candi said, as if reading Alexis’s mind.

So he had known about her, at least for that long. Alexis rose slowly. “Maybe you should have respected his wishes.”

“I can’t. We’re running out of time. He’s at the top of the donor list, but he’s been there twice before, and each time something went wrong with the donor. If he doesn’t get a kidney soon—”

“How soon?” Alexis heard herself ask.

“A few months. We don’t really know.”

Empathy warred with self-preservation. And if that wasn’t the story of her entire life, she didn’t know what was.

“I know what I’m asking is a big deal,” Candi said. “To give a kidney to a total stranger.”

Alexis puffed out a joyless laugh and shook her head. Giving a kidney to a total stranger would be easier.

Candi stepped closer. “Do you want me to beg? I will.”

No, she didn’t want Candi to beg. No one should have to bargain for the life of a loved one. Alexis knew the soul-sucking hopelessness of that, of falling to her knees and promising doctors, researchers, and God that she’d do anything, say anything, give anything, if they could just save her mother. None of it had been enough.

Sometimes, hope was a fool’s bargain.

She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Please, Alexis,” Candi said, resorting to begging at last.

Alexis pressed her fingers into the lines forming on her own forehead. “I need to think.”

“But—”

“You’ve known about me for three years, Candi. I deserve a couple of days to get used to it.”

Candi’s hands once again disappeared inside the cuffs of her sweatshirt as she folded her arms across her torso. The pose might have seemed defensive from someone else, but Candi was simply resigned. Her throat tightened with a deep swallow, followed by a nod. “Okay.”

“How can I contact you?”

Wordlessly, Candi retrieved her bag from the floor by her chair. She dug out a small notebook and a pen and scribbled her phone number on a blank piece of paper.

Alexis folded it into her hand.

“I’ve been staying at a hotel,” Candi said. “I have to go back to Huntsville soon.”

“I understand,” Alexis managed to say.

Candi’s hands disappeared into her sweatshirt again. “So will you call me or—”

“I need some time.”

Candi’s lips parted as if she wanted to say more, probably to remind Alexis that time was something she didn’t have. Alexis would’ve been a hypocrite if she didn’t understand that. Nothing screamed as loudly as the persistent tick tick tick of time’s cruel clock when every second brought you closer to the last.

Candi nodded woodenly before turning away. Alexis watched her sling her bag over one rigid shoulder and then, with one last look behind her, walk away. Her footsteps were deliberate but dejected.

A moment passed, and then the kitchen door thwap-thwapped behind her.

Several more moments later, Jessica appeared in the doorway. “Everything okay?”

Alexis blinked out of her stupor. “Can you and Mariana clean up? I have something I need to do.”

Jessica hesitated. “I—yes. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I have no idea.”

“Alexis—”

Alexis ducked around her and walked through the kitchen in a fog to the back door. She grabbed her purse and coat. They were robotic functions, as rote and unintentional as the beating of her heart and the constriction of her lungs with every breath. In the alley outside where she parked her car, a group of women walked by in honky-tonk attire, leaning on one another and laughing drunkenly. A detached part of Alexis’s mind wondered about them, wondered if they knew how lucky they were to be so carefree, to have just missed the teetering edge of a before-and-after chasm that would forever change Alexis’s life. Again. Because no matter what happened, no matter what she decided, life would once again never be the