Perfectly Toxic (The Sterling Shore Series Book 9) (34 page)

Chapter 68

ETHAN

My heart is jackhammering in my chest when I come skidding to a stop in front of the hospital, leaving the keys and everything behind as I run inside.

“Hey! You can’t park there!” someone barks at me, but I ignore them as I crash through the doors and into the emergency room’s waiting area.

Ruby rushes toward me, and I get sick when I see the blood on her shirt. It’s all I can do not to punch something or someone right now. I need something tangible to hit.

“How is she? Where is she? The… The baby?” I can barely get the words out before my voice cracks and my hands ball into fists.

Ruby’s eyes are red, and tears are running down her cheeks.

“I… They won’t tell us anything. They shoved us out of the way. The paramedics were just next door when we called, dealing with something that wasn’t a true emergency. We were lucky they came right to us, but… We don’t know anything. Allie isn’t answering, and she’s her only next of kin that’s listed.”

I pick up my phone with shaky hands, and I dial Wren. It goes straight to voicemail. Allie’s phone does the same damn thing.

I move to the glass in front of the reception desk, and I bang on it as a woman walks up.

“Bella Pierson! I need in
now
to see her.”

“Unless you’re family, you can’t come back until she wakes up,” the nurse says with a sad smile. “I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy.”

“He’s Corbin Sterling. He fucking owns the hospital,” I say, pointing at Corbin.

“His father owns it, and unless Hershel Sterling calls here himself, I can’t do anything,” the nurse informs me.

Corbin offers me a grim, regretful look. “Dad’s not answering, since I’ve sort of cut him out of my life,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I’ve already tried.”

I punch the glass, and the woman jumps, but it doesn’t break.

“I’m the baby’s father. Please, I’m fucking begging you, let me come back there. Or at least tell me something.”

Her eyes soften, and she clears her throat.

“They’re working on her right now. That’s all I know. Unless she wakes up and tells us it’s okay, we can’t allow you back here. We have a strict policy to ensure our patients’ privacy, so unless you can prove you’re the baby’s father, you can’t come back here. She’ll be going to a room soon, and you can meet her up there, though.”

“Fuck!”

I spin around, barely able to hold it together. Rye is holding Brin as her body shakes in his arms, her head buried against his chest. He gives me a pitying look that I can stomach right now.

“How did it happen?” I ask Ruby, who is curled in Corbin’s arms as they stand together.

“I don’t know. One second she’s right beside me on the stairs, and the next… The next…” Her voice catches, and she wipes away fresh tears. “The next she’s falling and I tried… I tried so hard to catch her. I missed her by a few fingertips. There was so much blood, Ethan… I’m… I’m so sorry.”

She starts sobbing, and Corbin holds her closer.

Her words slam into my head like a bowling ball rolling down hill to a wall. No… No. Fuck no!

My chest feels like someone is crushing it down, and my insides feel raw. A growing ache forms in my core, expanding more and more by the second.

Something wet hits my cheeks, and I reach up to swat it away. Tears?

I haven’t cried since I was a kid. All that was beaten out of me, and I haven’t even had to resist the urge. Now the tears are falling, and I touch them, dumbstruck.

“Ethan Noles?” I spin around as a familiar face walks up to the glass.

It’s the linebacker woman who tackled me once upon a time, but she doesn’t look like she’s trying to take me out right now.

“Berta, right? Can you please fucking tell me something?” I ask her, moving toward the window again.

She sighs as she frowns. “I wish I could, but I don’t know anything, and they’re shut up in a room with her. Here’s what room she’s gonna be in though,” she says before sliding a piece of paper through the slit at the bottom. “Go there and wait for her, okay?”

I snatch it away, and I look back up at her. “Find me if you find out anything.”

She nods and walks off, and I rake a frustrated hand through my hair.

I dial Wren again, cursing when his phone immediately goes to voicemail. He has to be in an area with no signal the one fucking time I need him.

My mom walks in with tear-streaked eyes. My dad is on her heels, and his eyes look suspiciously wet. That can’t be right. He’s
never
cried. He sure as fuck can’t cry right now, because I’ll lose the small amount of strength I’m clinging to by a thread.

“The baby? Bella? Are they okay?” Mom asks in a quiet, broken voice.

I swallow down the painful knot. “I don’t know.”

It’s the worst fucking feeling in the whole world, even though the dread of the probable is choking me. I don’t tell my mother about my inner thoughts. She’d fall apart right now.

If there was so much blood, I know without a doubt, my baby is gone. And it hurts more than I ever thought possible. Bella… Bella is going to be crushed.

I sag to a seat, dropping heavily as I put my head in my hands, trying to stop the spinning as everything shatters at once.

My chest caves in on itself, and I cover my face tightly as pain like I’ve never experienced before lances through my heart and proves to me that I can still cry like a fucking ba—

A choked sound rakes against the insides of my throat as that one word—that I can’t even think—sets me off. I’m slinging a chair through the front glass before I even realize I’ve stood up. It shatters and people scream, but fuck them all.

Corbin and Rye start tackling me, trying to drag me out, telling me to calm down before I get arrested. I don’t care. None of it fucking matters. I failed the only two people who’ve ever truly needed me.

The look Bella gave me when I grabbed Star slams into my mind, and rage simmers close to the edge.

Struggling, I break free, and my fist slams into Rye’s face just as they drag me into the parking lot.

The memory of me standing shocked in that hallway after Bella told me she loved me assaults me next. More self-loathing comes out violently as I connect an elbow with Corbin’s middle, causing him to double over in pain.

Maverick and Tag come racing up, as though they arrived just in time to deal with me. When I think of the hole I punched in the wall after learning Bella was pregnant, Maverick takes a shot in the chin, and Tag drops to the ground after catching a shot to side.

I couldn’t even look at her. I just walked away because I was too much of a fucking coward to face it in that moment. My pride was hurt. I was scared. And I failed her.

Swing after swing, my fury pours out, and my friends bear the brunt of my own misery, because I can’t beat the fuck out of myself.

Corbin wrangles my arms back, and Rye bear hugs me, clutching me as I break down like I never have before, struggling uselessly as the pain overwhelms me.

Life is really fucking cruel.

Chapter 69

BELLA

Lights. I see lights blaring down from above me, but I’m too disoriented to focus on them.

Familiar smells taint my nose, but they’re confusing.

Where am I?

“She may have suffered a panic attack that caused her to pass out, though the blood loss was exaggerated for the injury,” someone is saying, but it’s all so out of focus that I can’t see what’s going on.

“The crowd she’s gathered is growing antsy. Are you sure we can’t tell them anything? We’ve already had to call the police because of the one claiming to be the baby’s father,” someone else says, confusing the hell out of me.

“I wish we could, but it violates all our policies. The only family listed on her employee file is Allie Thrash, and Bella hasn’t named the father of her child herself, or adjusted any paperwork. Anyone of them could claim to be the child’s father. We’ve been trying to contact Allie, but we can’t confirm anything over the phone. Again, it’s policy. It’s even stricter with employees.”

“Let’s hope there’s not a damn riot,” comes a grumbled reply.

“Get her up to the room, Berta. Stay with her there. And don’t tell the ridiculous amount of people here for her anything unless she wakes up and okays it.”

I
am
awake. I think… My eyes are closed… How did they close? When did they close?

“Just so you know,” comes a familiar voice, “Bella would want all those good people knowing. She’s just going to wake up and tell them.”

“Policy is policy, Berta. You know that.”

Something jostles, and then it starts to feel like I’m moving. Seconds turn into minutes, but I finally manage to open my eyes as the distinct
ding
of the elevator chimes.

Why the hell am I on an elevator?

Everything hurts as I sit up a little, watching as they move me down a familiar corridor. My eyesight adjusts to the glaring lights, allowing me to take in more of my surroundings.

Berta is beside me, holding my hand. It dawns on me that I’m in the hospital.

Hospital… No!

My baby!

Instinctively, I grab at my stomach, and Berta releases my hand, her eyes filling with relief as I move my hands lower, searching for the blood.

“My baby,” I croak, wincing at how dry my throat feels.

“Is just fine,” Berta says with a loud breath as we move into a room. “I’ll have to tell your boyfriend we had to change your room because the bed was broken on the other one. I just found out the baby was okay. You want to tell him or you want me to?”

“How?” I ask, then wince when pain shoots through my leg as I try to sit up and fail. “There was so much blood.”

“Yeah. You a fucking bleeder alright. Thought you nicked an artery when I found out that baby was just fine. Turns out you just needed some stitches in your leg. Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”

I pick the sheet up, and relief washes over me as I stare down at my freshly stitched leg. I remember a time when I bandaged Ethan’s same exact leg in the same exact spot.

The hospital gown is up high, and the guy pushing my bed down the hallway clears his throat, which lets me know he’s getting an eyeful. Where the hell are my underwear?

I’m too thankful to give a damn if I show the entire hospital everything under the gown right now.

My baby is okay.

Tears start pouring from my eyes, and Berta wipes at her own, sniffling as she turns away from me to hide the tears.

“That boy is tore up, so I’m gonna send him on to you. Okay?” she asks, and I nod, not bothering to tell her we’re not together anymore.

My baby is okay, and nothing else seems to matter at this moment. I thought I’d lost him or her. I thought I was being punished for not being excited right away. I thought my baby was being taken away because of how terribly I first reacted.

My hands clutch my stomach as they transfer me to the bed in the room, and my tears cease temporarily as too many other emotions overwhelm the relief.

“You’re sure everything’s okay?” I ask Berta again.

She turns and faces the guy who pushed me down here. “Go to the other room and send her friends to this one, please.”

He nods and backs out, and she turns to face me.

“That peanut is just fine. Don’t you worry. I made sure everything was good before I walked you up here. Those bastards wouldn’t tell me anything until then. They’re keeping you overnight for observation because of the blood loss and the baby. Apparently there was some kind of glass vase you broke when you landed at the bottom, and the glass cut your leg, which is how you ended up in here. I’ve lost all my damn fingernails over you and your free-bleeding ways. That’s not natural.”

A smile curves my lips, but she just twitches her finger at me. “I have to go grab a drink now. I’ll be back when I don’t feel like crying anymore. You handle that boy. He’s a mess.”

My smile fades when I think of Ethan. He’s probably worried about the baby too.

As soon as she leaves, the door bursts back open, and Ethan is walking in with wide, reddened eyes. Ethan Noles doesn’t cry, but it looks like he has been.

His footsteps pause for a beat, then he’s walking toward me again as relief fills him. When he crashes to the side of the bed and leans over me, I don’t know what to expect. But he carefully maneuvers around the numerous pads attached to me that are monitoring my vitals and my baby’s vitals, most likely.

Then he’s hugging me, pressing his lips to my forehead as his body shakes against me.

“I’m so sorry,” he says hoarsely.

“This wasn’t your fault,” I immediately point out, slipping my arms around his waist.

I’ve forgotten how good it feels to have him holding me, and that ache that’s been in my chest slowly starts to dull. When your world is rocked and tilted, you realize how instantaneously it can all be gone.

Nothing in the past seems to matter anymore, in this moment.

“I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I walked away the other night. I’m sorry I fucked everything up. I love you, and I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. Fuck, I’m so sorry about everything, Bella.”

My heart stills in my chest, and I replay his tortured words, wondering if I’ve heard him right.

“I’m so, so sorry about the baby,” he says in a pained whisper. “I swear I’m going to get you through this, and I won’t ever fuck anything up again. One day, if you want to, we can even try again.”

My brow furrows in confusion as he squeezes me tighter, kissing my forehead with such a soft graze.

“The baby?” I whisper.

His body shakes again, and I push him back. He relents, lifting off me promptly.

He turns his head away and wipes his face like he doesn’t want me seeing him. My heart breaks when I realize what he thinks.

“Ethan, no. No, shit. No. The baby is fine. Everything is fine.”

Why the hell didn’t they tell him already?

His head jerks to me, his brow crinkled with confusion.

“What? How? There was—”

I pull the sheet back, revealing my very exposed, freshly stitched leg. Ethan’s gaze darts to it, and I heave out a sad breath.

“We’ve come full circle. Broken glass. A jagged cut on my upper thigh. And a hospital. It’s even the same leg as yours. I needed stitches instead of bandages though.”

He swallows hard as his gaze flicks back to mine. “You’re okay though?”

I nod slowly.

“And our baby’s okay?”

I nod again, ignoring the tears pricking my eyes at hearing him say
our
baby.

His entire body visibly relaxes, and he drops to me, hugging me so tightly that it almost hurts. I’d hug him back, but he has my arms trapped right now.

“Fuck, Bella. I was so sure… I just… I didn’t realize how badly I wanted this baby until I thought he or she was gone.”

He eases his hold just enough for me to wrap my arms around his neck. After almost losing our baby, nothing else seems to matter. Everything toxic that was between us just disappears, and I cling to him, absorbing the way it feels.

“And you love me?” I whisper. “I thought you’d hate me once you realized you no longer had the future you envisioned.”

He tenses at that, and when he pulls back, he’s glaring at me. “Nothing is more important than you and our baby, Bella. Never would have been. I guess I suck at showing it, but everything else took a backseat the day I met you. I slowly shifted my priorities without even realizing it, and honestly, the fucking parties sucked after a while. It just gets old when there’s no one there that I care about, or anyone there who cares about me.”

My smile slowly crawls up, and he thumbs my chin. I don’t stop him when he bends down and kisses me, even though I’m annoyed with the fact it’s a soft brush of his lips, as though he’s afraid I’m made of glass.

When he pulls back, I cock an eyebrow.

“There’s an entire hallway full of people I need to go speak to. They all think—”

His words die, and he swallows audibly. I immediately feel guilt, and I nod as he walks out. They all think our baby was the cause of all the blood, and I only had Allie listed as my family. Where the hell is she?

I know better than anyone how crazy they are about policy and procedure here.

Looking around, I spot my purse on the table. I guess Berta must have had it with her, because that’s where she was standing. I grab my phone from it, tossing it back on the table as I dial the girl in question.

Allie answers on the third ring.

“Holy shit, Bella, we’re coming back right now. We’re just a few hours away. I’m so, so, so sorry,” she says, sobbing. “I just found out. We didn’t have any signal, and—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupt. “And so is the baby.”

Her sobs get louder, and I grimace in pain when I try to sit up. Damn those stitches are tight.

“You are?” she asks.

“Yes. So don’t bother coming back. I just had some stitches. Everything is fine, and everyone else is here. Turns out it’s not just you and me anymore, kiddo.”

She laughs and cries at the same time, and I smile when the door opens.

“Love you, Bella,” she says softly.

“Love you, Allie. Gotta go. I have some adoring fans who wish to pat my tummy.”

She snorts, and I feel better just knowing she’s no longer panicking.

Brin walks in as I hang up, and she looks as relieved as I felt moments ago. Ruby comes in with her, and before I know it, both of them are crying and hugging me, and I’m hugging them back the best I can.

By the time they lean up, we’re all three blubbering messes, both of them apologizing to me like it’s their fault, and me apologizing to them for scaring everyone so badly. It takes me a minute to realize my room is absolutely full of people.

“Ethan had to deal with the police, but he’ll be right back,” Rye says, clearing his throat as he moves into the room.

“The police?” I ask, confused.

“Yeah. Long story. He was a little upset when he thought you’d… It’ll be fine. They’re being understanding, and he’s paying for the damage.”

Before I can question that, Arlene is walking in, drying her eyes on a tissue. She’s careful not to tackle me, but she holds me close, shaking as she sobs with relief. James Noles just silently observes us, but I swear it seems like he’s been crying. When Arlene withdraws, she wipes her eyes and has me promise to call her the second I leave.

I do promise her that.

It’s several minutes later when Ethan finally slips back in silently.

He quietly takes a seat in the corner, his eyes training themselves on me like he’s worried to look away, as each person here takes their turn at hugging me. Even Maverick’s eyes look a little watery when he comes and ruffles my hair like I’m a kid or something.

I guess emotion is a little awkward for him.

“Never again,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “You can’t scare us like that ever again.”

To know everyone was worried to death over nothing makes me feel all the guiltier.

Dale steps closer, and he looks as tired as I feel, as though this day has wrecked him. “I think you owe us all a drink, and since you can’t drink, you can be the designated driver.”

He forces a smile as I laugh lightly, but I nod as he moves on, going to speak with Ethan. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Ethan’s eyes keep flicking to me.

Rain and Tria start talking to me, but I can’t hear the words they’re saying, because all of my attention is on Ethan. He said he loved me… That was when he thought we’d lost the baby.

At the risk of sounding overly analytical, I hope the horror of the thought losing the baby caused him didn’t force him to confess something he didn’t mean. Intense situations always bring about confessions not meant to be heard and emotions that aren’t truly there.

Within a couple of hours, it’s just Ethan and me, and he pulls a chair up next to my bed.