Texas Wedding (16 page)

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He clutched Thomas to his chest, but his expression wasn’t concerned, more interested. He tilted his head.

“I’m poorly,” Hayley answered.

“Okay.” Max looked back at Riley and Jack. “Can I go home now?”

Riley wanted Max to stay, and he wanted the twins to stay, but he knew both things were not happening. Carol caught his eye and smiled. With Donna’s help, the kids left, then it was only Riley, Jack, and Hayley in the room.

“Where’s Red?” Hayley asked. She was looking to the door, and a frown marred her face.

Jack and Riley had taken up residence next to her bed, Jack with a magazine, Riley staring up at the ceiling. Riley focused in on what Hayley had asked—something about Red, her horse.

“Robbie’s got a good eye on him, darlin’” Jack reassured.

Hayley blinked at Jack. “Is he coming to the party?”

Riley sat forward in his chair. “What party, baby?”

He exchanged worried looks with Jack, who pressed the call button for the nurse.

“The one I need to go to bed for,” she pointed out as if Riley were an idiot for asking. “Daddy, I don’t feel so good.”

Riley jumped to his feet and threw open the door, startling the two nurses in discussion in the hallway.

“We need help in here,” he said, frantic with worry.

One of the nurses walked straight up to Hayley’s bed. All matter-of-fact, she checked the readouts and pressed some buttons. She rubbed her hand on Hayley’s back, and while Riley and Jack watched, the focus came back into Hayley’s eyes.

“Hypo,” the nurse said. “Hayley, can you tell me how you felt?”

“Really sad, like…. I can’t describe it.” Hayley looked from Jack to Riley with a worried expression. “I felt hot, and my eyes were….” She stopped and scrubbed her eyes with her fist. “My head hurts.”

The nurse stopped her, patted her shoulder. “Post hypo headache,” she said. “You’ll learn what a hypoglycemic attack feels like.” She looked at Riley and Jack. “Your dads will help you with that. And you’ll get to recognize the warning signs. You may feel disorientated, hot, shaky, and sometimes you might not even realize what is happening.”

Riley sat up. “That was a hypo?” He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. More collapsing, something more dramatic. “And what if it’s worse and she doesn’t realize?”

The nurse nodded. “That was a baby hypo. She won’t get huge swings here because everything is so tightly controlled. At home, she’ll need to keep up her testing regime and make sure she accounts for what she eats. The first hypo you see that isn’t controlled—the one where she slurs her words, or talks nonsense, or refuses to believe she’s hypo at all—that is the scary one. She’ll need to eat or drink something sugary. We’ll show you all that.”

Jack was nodding his understanding. All Riley could focus on was that there were worse hypos.
Scary
hypos.

“Then there is the opposite of a hypo. When the sugar levels are high, we call that a hyper,” the nurse added. “You know, so they are opposites.”

“When the sugars go too high,” Riley finished.

“Hayley, you will become lethargic, and again, you’ll learn what they feel like. As long as you are testing regularly, you’ll be able to decide whether to inject more insulin, or whether your sugar is low and you need to eat something.”

Riley looked at Hayley in the bed. She was listening, understanding, so completely focused on what the nurse was saying. To Riley, it sounded like the end of the world. Hayley seemed to treat it like it was the next accepted, positive, step in her life. He and Jack would have to look out for her and see that she was okay, keeping everything under control.

“It’s all about balance,” the nurse said.

Riley smiled at her. Balance was something he could get behind. He was determined that Hayley would be supported as much as he could.

Riley settled back in the chair outside Hayley’s room and picked up the paper. He skimmed the front pages—nothing more than opposing views on everything and anything, and while he loved debating, he was tired and had really had enough. Day two, and sitting in the hospital was getting to him. He’d encouraged Jack to go home, check on the kids, the horses, the Double D, anything to get the man who lived for the outside, actually outside this damn place.

At least the coffee he was sipping was hot, and the bagel Jack had dropped to him before he left was fresh. Nothing in the hospital was fresh by the evening.

He turned to page seven and the editorial that was the only thing he ever read in a paper or online. His interest peaked when he saw it was about the upcoming same-sex marriage decision from SCOTUS. There were pros, there were cons, but none of that mattered to Riley. When he read the cons, all he could remember was the comments they’d received before.

He recalled the moment they were told that Jack and he couldn’t both legally adopt Hayley or the twins. He remembered some of the crap they’d been given outside the support of their extended family and friends. He imagined the shitstorm this would cause in Texas. No way was a yes decision from SCOTUS going to go down well in this red state.

He put down the paper and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and thinking about what he would do if the vote was passed. Get his dad to look into the potential for full co-parent adoption; that would be first, and maybe he and Jack could do what they’d talked about: a proper in-your-face wedding to shout from the rooftops.

I married Jack Campbell, and look at us in love and freaking happy!

“Morning, Mr. Campbell-Hayes.”

A voice jogged Riley from his thoughts. He opened his eyes to see a nurse with a tray of food. Hayley was eating better here than at home. She probably wouldn’t want to leave.

“Morning,” he replied and followed her in.

Hayley was sitting up in bed, her eyes bright, her skin still pale, but she looked positive and awake. The nurse talked her through the foods on the tray: hidden sugars in fruit, the kinds of carbs that would work for different scenarios. Like the brainy kid Hayley was, she soaked it all up like a sponge. Riley listened. He’d already bought twenty-three diabetes-related books that were being delivered home the next day. Never let it be said that Riley Campbell-Hayes wasn’t going to know every damn thing about his daughter’s diabetes.

He’d also friended Yasmin on Facebook. She accepted his request, and they chatted privately about life and diabetes. Riley learned a lot from her.

“So she has kids?” Jack had asked when Riley explained who she was and how she was helping him to understand. Riley also admitted they’d slept together once, way back… a long way back. There was no point in getting Jack to friend her because a, Riley would have to get Jack onto Facebook, and b, Jack and any kind of technology had a love-hate relationship. He’d blown the microwave up only a few weeks before after leaving a metal spoon in a coffee he was reheating.

“Two,” Riley said. “A girl and a boy.”

The lecture in the hospital room was finished, and the nurse left with a smile and a hello to someone coming in the door.

If it were possible, Hayley brightened more as Anna, Sarah, and Logan stopped by her bed.

“Lea sent this,” Anna explained and handed over a soft toy. She helped Sarah up onto the bed, and they sat and chatted while Hayley ate her breakfast. Well, everyone except Logan, who was mute, looking down at his phone.

That didn’t matter to Hayley. She loved being the center of everyone’s attention, and Riley was happy to see her smile.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Robbie watched as the shit hit the fan on the twenty-sixth of June. Not only had he needed to deal with an incredibly hyper Eli this morning, but now he’d walked into complete chaos in Jack and Riley’s kitchen. At one moment Eli was up about the SCOTUS vote on same-sex marriage, the next down at the thought of today being another in a long line of cancer checkups. Robbie had said what he could, but when that wasn’t enough, he’d escaped that stress only to land himself in the middle of another.

When he recalled previous episodes of shit hitting fans around the Double D, he knew this was going to be another doozy. The problem was he walked in on Hayley in tears, Max rocking in his chair, Lexie smacking her bowl repeatedly on her high chair, and Riley in the middle of it all looking like someone had stolen his lunch money. There was no sign of Jack or Connor, or indeed Carol, which didn’t bode well.

“No shouting, no shouting,” Max said as he rocked.

Robbie didn’t know what to do first. He looked at the milk spreading across the table toward the six packets of cereal in the middle, Hayley burying her face in her hands, her medical stuff to one side, and back at Riley.

Max first.

Robbie pressed a hand to Max’s shoulder and lifted the little guy when Max extended his arms. Thankfully at that moment Carol appeared back in the kitchen and silently took Max, followed by Jack, who picked up Lexie and disappeared again after shaking his head at Robbie. Did that mean he wanted Robbie to go?

Still Riley didn’t move, and Hayley didn’t look up. Robbie couldn’t in all conscience leave the situation. Abruptly he imagined Hayley was ill or something. She’d been out of the hospital and home over a month now, and she was well. The odd hypo, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Only once had she gone a little too low, becoming disoriented and flushed. Jack explained this in some detail to Robbie the next day. Robbie had heard stuff like that before. He had a friend back in Australia with diabetes, and for a girl so young, Hayley had a good handle on it.

Robbie placed the paperwork he’d been dropping off onto the side of the worktop, then very carefully stepped right in front of Riley, who flinched.

“Riley?” he asked carefully.

“I….” Riley began, then stopped.

Riley had been so wrapped up in Hayley. Hell, he checked everything she ate, kept a record of her readings, and explained every little thing to her. Privately, Robbie thought Riley was overprotective, who was he to say.

“I fucked up.” Riley said finally.

He looked tired. Almost as tired as he’d been after the twins had been born. Robbie glanced back at Hayley, who had now sat up and was scrubbing at her eyes. She met Robbie’s gaze but dropped hers and instead fiddled with her blood reader, before looking at her insulin pen, setting an amount, and injecting herself in her tummy.

“What happened, Riley?” Robbie asked.

“I wasn’t thinking. I put sugar on Hayley’s cereal.”

Okay. There was an actual
thing
at the center of this that Robbie could work with. “Accidents happen,” he offered in his best attempt at encouraging philosophical acceptance.

“He shouldn’t be near my cereal,” Hayley snapped. “I can look after myself.”

Oh. So, it was one of
those
arguments. The teenager-parent kind. The overprotectiveness of Dad against the fact Hayley was growing up and wanted control.

“I’m sorry.” Riley was talking to Hayley, but Robbie was in the way. Robbie stepped aside as Hayley pushed past and out of the door. “Hayley!”

“Leave me alone,” she shouted back and slammed the bottom half of the door shut as she left.

Jack walked back into the kitchen, concern morphing to an expression of
Where the fuck is Hayley
?

Robbie wasn’t going to ask. “Reports are here for you, boss. I’m off now.”

“Thanks, Robbie.” Then Jack turned to Riley. “Where’s Hayley?”

“She went out, and I don’t know if she checked her sugar.”

“Riley, you need to take a step back.”

As quick as he could, Robbie was out of the kitchen. He had the day off, and even though he wanted to help, he knew he’d been the odd one out in that family. Somehow Riley and Hayley would be okay, Jack would be all calm, Carol would be there, and everything would settle. He was absolutely convinced of it.

Some instinct had him sauntering over to the barn, like he had no intention of seeing if Hayley went that way, but checking anyway.

He found her pretty quickly, her head against Red’s mane.

“Why won’t he leave me alone?” she sobbed to the horse. “I’m okay to do my own testing and my own jabbin’. I don’t need him checking everything.” More sobs, louder, and Hayley’s hands gripped Red’s mane so tight that Robbie could see an accident happening. He should go back and find Jack. Or Riley. But… maybe that wasn’t what she needed.

“Hayley? I wouldn’t grip Red so tight, darlin’.”

Hayley released her hold and stepped back immediately, Red chasing for her hand with his soft nose.

“See, I can’t even do that right,” she said through tears.

Robbie stepped closer, stroking Red’s nose and chuckling under his breath. “Red’ll take a lot more of that than you gave him,” he reassured. “I’m thinking you want someone to talk to, and Red is the best there is. He doesn’t tell any of my secrets.”

Hayley smiled up at Robbie, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I guess he doesn’t tell any of mine either.”

“You want to talk?” A large part of Robbie hoped she’d say no, only because he didn’t have an awful lot of practice with hormonal girls.

Hayley sighed noisily and scratched Red’s face, burying her fingers into his mane once more. She mumbled something that Robbie couldn’t quite catch.

“You feelin’ okay?” he asked.

She looked back at him and nodded. “I tested my levels, and had new cereal. Only….”

“Only…?”

“Dad watches me every second of the day. He wants to see my readings, check my insulin. He fusses and lectures.”

“Aww, Hayley, he’s just worried about you.”

“I know that. But he has Max, and the twins, and work, and Jack. He should be thinking about all of that. There’s no space for my problems as well. I don’t need them like everyone else does.”

Robbie’s heart twisted in his chest. Is that what she thought? That Riley had more vital things to care about than his own daughter? Of course he had other pressures, but family was paramount in Riley’s head.

“Hayley—”

“He wouldn’t let me play rough with Connor yesterday,” she said, and the tears began to fall again. “Said my levels were too low and I might hurt him.” The crying got uglier. “I wouldn’t hurt him.”