Chapter 32
Grayson
FRIDAY
BELLA CONGRATULATIONS!!!
you played so well, you should be proud :)
GRAYSON Thanks Blaze x
SATURDAY
GRAYSON How are the gummy bears treating you?
Hey, just checking in, I haven’t heard from you. Is everything okay?
Bella?
SUNDAY
GRAYSON I’m sorry if I’ve done something to offend you but could you please just let me know you’re okay?
I’m starting to worry. Please call me when you can
Bella please I’m coming home early
run through the airport like a mad man and I don’t care. Couldn’t forceI myself even if I had to. The moment that final buzzer sounded I took off, not remotely concerned for the fine I’ll be sent for not turning up to post- game press.
Money feels like Monopoly in this moment. I don’t care how much I have to spend on an earlier flight home to Colorado, I don’t care how much the NHL will fine me, I don’t care about anything besides finding Bella.
Lucy texted after the game. I was already on my way to the airport when it came in that she hadn’t heard from Bella.
I’m grateful I didn’t have to twist Lucy’s arm for her address. I already had it from that first date I took her on and spat out the directions to the taxi driver. Yes, taxi driver—I didn’t want to wait even ten minutes for an Uber.
So that brings me to now, throwing down three hundred dollars, not caring that I just overtipped the guy that reeks like a chain smoker—it’s the least I could do for my frantic energy. The trunk is barely popped before I’m ripping my suitcase out and charging for her front door.
The lights are off, the house seemingly deserted, and yet her car is in the driveway. It’s dry beneath it despite the cold rain trickling down.
She hasn’t driven in it for at least several hours. I suppose that means nothing—she could have gotten an Uber—but something deep in my gut knows that isn’t the case.
I check the usual suspect spots for a spare key. I lift the welcome mat— nothing.
The ceramic frog that stares at me with a goofy grin—nothing.
The porch swing—nothing.
The pot plant—nothing.
The large suspicious rock by the side gate—nothing.
God help me, I’m about to break into my assistant’s house.
I suppose when I said I don’t care about anything, it also extends to breaking and entering charges. I highly doubt someone would ignore calling the police on a six-foot-four man lurking outside a woman’s house. If anything, it saves me time from calling them.
Though perhaps a small part of me doesn’t want to be charged with a felony, because before I know it, I’m sneaking into her backyard and trying
all the doors and windows until my stomach plummets.
Not only is the back door unlocked, several windows are open, letting in the freezing rain that no doubt will turn to snow overnight. Slowly sliding the back door open, I check that my phone is in my back pocket in case God forbid something horrendous has occurred.
Maybe someone broke in and kidnapped her. If I was a kidnapper, I would want to take her. Who wouldn’t? She’s beautiful and smart and funny.
Or worse, maybe a serial killer has been stalking her for months and took
their time with her because I was away.
Perhaps it was a puck bunny?
Shaking my head, I feel like slapping myself at my thoughts.
Every light is off in the house. I flick a switch, relieved to see the power hasn’t been cut as light floods the kitchen. I’m not sure why I don’t call out her name as I snoop around her house. Perhaps some part of me is worried someone else is in here besides her.
Checking the living room, kitchen, and what I’m guessing is the master bedroom, I come up short, my eyes glazing over the furniture and knickknacks. I open another bedroom, only finding boxes piled high in a corner.
Maybe she fell and hit her head in the garage?
I turn, making my way to the garage, when my entire body freezes at a small whimpered moan. A split second is all it takes before I’m sprinting in the direction of the sound.
“Bella?” I call out frantically. “Bella?”
My breathing has turned labored, the thud of my boots matching the
frantic beat of my heart.
“Bel—”
I’m cut off by a garbled string of words directly behind me.
I open the first door, revealing a closet, another linen shelf. Moving down the hall, I continue to check them all until suddenly one opens up to a bathroom and there lies Bella, ashen, shaky, and bleary-eyed, curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom tiles.
I’m kneeling beside her in an instant, running my hands over the length of her body as I’m trying and failing to see what’s wrong.
She lifts her head, the movement wobbly as she squints at me through pain-filled eyes. “Grayson? What are you doing here?” Her eyes widen. “Is it Monday already? Did I miss the flight?”
“Shh,” I soothe. “Tell me what’s wrong, Bella.” A daunting thought hits me. “Have you been here for two days?” I ask, my voice betraying how much fear is wracking my body.
She clutches her chest in horror. “Two days?”
She opens her mouth but immediately slaps a hand over it, the other clutching her stomach as she withers in pain. Suddenly, she dry heaves into the toilet, and I suspect there’s nothing left to come up.
Rushing from the room, I move through the kitchen, opening up drawers and cabinets until I find a glass and fill it with cold water, along with grabbing a rag from the linen cabinet I spotted earlier and wetting it.
I’m beside her in no time, getting her to take small sips as I lay the cloth against the back of her neck. She sighs with such relief my mind is whirling to try and find something to give her more of that feeling.
“Is it a stomach bug? The flu? Food poisoning?”
She shakes her head, taking another small sip of water. She tries to sit up but her hands and legs are shaking and it isn’t long before her face is twisting in agony as she curls into a fetal position again.
“Pain meds,” she whispers.
“Tylenol?”
She shakes her head. “Stronger. There’s a bottle—” She’s cut off by a gasp of pain, but clenches her teeth and grits, “White bottle with blue lid.
Bedside table.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I’m rushing to the master bedroom I saw earlier, except now that I know where Bella is, my mind is able to process what I’m seeing. This isn’t Bella’s room. I’m not sure why or how I know that for certain—perhaps the styling? But there is no pill bottle with a blue lid. However, there is practically a pharmacy sitting on the dresser across from the bed. And not over-the-counter medicine, this is heavy stuff.
Someone in this house is extremely sick, and I don’t know why I feel so hurt that Bella never told me that she not only lived with someone else but that they’re ill.
Walking toward the other bedroom I clocked earlier, I put all my feelings and thoughts about what I just found out of my mind. Trying to help Bella is my main priority right now.
I enter the room with all the boxes and smell Bella. Her perfume is everywhere, lingering and sticking to the corners of the room. This is just more her.
It feels odd to be in her safe space without her here, so not lingering more than I absolutely have to, I find the bottle she described and rush back to the bathroom. Bella is still clutching her stomach and groaning in agony.
Dropping the pills beside her, I rub soothing circles up and down her back. “What’s happening, Bella? Should I call an ambulance?”
She shakes her head, talking through clenched teeth out of pain. “No, just bad month.” She inhales sharply. “Will be fine once I take these.”
My frown furrows so deep into my skin I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t stay like that permanently. “Bad month?”
“I have endometriosis,” she says through a gasp. “The medicine was far away and I couldn’t”—she gasps in pain—“move.”
I snatch up the pill bottle I dropped. Following the instructions, I tap out two pills, placing them in her palm before filling up the glass of water with the tap. I’m worried she won’t be able to swallow them with all the grimacing and gasping but she surprisingly gets them down quickly.
I’ve never felt so helpless before.
“Have you been here for two days, Bella?” I ask softly, horrified for the answer.
“I got stuck on the floor after I watched the game and—” She yelps as her body physically flinches, and then she’s lunging for the toilet. The water she’s been sipping comes up, and it isn’t long before she’s dry heaving once again. Because she hasn’t moved from this spot for two days, she has nothing else in her system.
She has nothing in her system. Pulling out my phone, I declare, “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No! I’ll be okay, really. All they will do is send me home and tell me to take —”
She tries to talk through another round of pain but it’s useless, I can see her body physically trying to expel the pain in her body. She’s shaking, breaking out in a cold sweat as another round of heaving ensues.
Shaking my head, I dial 911. “You could be dehydrated, most likely are.
I’m not risking it, Bella.”
Lifting the phone to my ear, I quickly relay what’s occurred and how I found Bella, also conveying she has endometriosis, which is the first thing I google once I get off the phone with the dispatcher. I’m shocked I’ve never heard of it before and become even more horrified the further I scroll. By the looks of Bella, they don’t accurately describe just how much pain a woman
goes through with this chronic condition.
Pocketing my phone, I decide I can go down a rabbit hole later when it doesn’t feel like she’s dying by my side.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she whines. “Now I’ll have to pay for an emergency room bill.”
My head snaps up at that. “Your health is more important than money, and you won’t be paying a dime.” At her side glance, I say, “Let me take care of you, Bella. You need someone to take care of you.”
I’m not sure why my words make her pause, why silver lines her eyes.
But it does, and it breaks my heart that such a simple fact has this woman, who is shaking in agony, want to cry.
I can’t take it anymore. It physically pains me.
Gently maneuvering her, I place her head in my lap, rubbing soothing circles along her back. I pull out my phone again to google what could help her as we wait for the ambulance. The pain medication will take twenty minutes to kick in, but I doubt she can keep another dosage down.
I’m scrolling endlessly, feeling like a prick for being on my phone until
my thumb pauses.
Heat.
“Do you have a heat pack?”
Her eyes melt at the question. “Please. It’s in the far left kitchen cabinet.”
Grabbing a towel off the hook, I gently place it under her head to replace my leg and dart from the bathroom. I not only locate the cabinet but her heat
pack stash. There are dozens.
Dozens.
And she no doubt has that many for a reason. I heat up three, just to be safe.
Quickly passing her the burning heating packs, I’m about to tell her to wait a moment to let them cool down but she just lifts her shirt and places them—all three—directly on her lower stomach, sighing contentedly at the burn.
I’m going to have to bring all of this up later. I’m going to have to research more about this so I don’t say the wrong thing because this is nowhere near as awful as what Google described.
I brush the hair off her face and soak up the relief shining in her dazed features. Without thinking, I lower my lips to her forehead before I whisper, “I’m going to unlock the door for the ambulance. I’ll be right back, I
promise.”
Moving through the front room, I open the door and turn on the porch lights right as the ambulance pulls up.
The relief I feel is so fast and swift it could bring me to my knees, but Bella still needs me. As I walk them toward the bathroom, I’m irritated by how leisurely their gait is. Biting my cheek, I open the door. “Bella, the paramedics are here.”
They step in right as her body starts to convulse again, bringing up more of the water she just drank.
“What medication have you taken?” one of the paramedics asks.
He’s probably around my age, shorter by a good few inches. He kneels and picks up the bottle I grabbed from her bedside table.
She can’t talk because she’s still heaving so I interject, “She just took two roughly fifteen minutes ago —"
The older paramedic, who looks strikingly close to my father, rumbles,
“Which she clearly didn’t keep down.”
I grimace at the toilet. “Yeah.”
“Anything else?” the older paramedic behind me asks as the younger one begins to check Bella’s vitals.
She pulls away from the toilet, her hands shaking as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I haven’t been able to move to grab anything else.”
“Anything to warrant this bad flare-up? Drugs? Alcohol? Sex?”
The older gentleman looks me up and down as if I’m the problem. My back stiffens at his tone and line of questioning. How the fuck is it her fault that it’s bad?
I must show something on my face because Bella’s soft voice draws my attention. “Grayson, it’s okay.”
“The fuck it is,” I spit before I can stop myself.
The older paramedic’s eyes narrow but I pay him no attention as the younger one ruffles through his bag. “We need to hospitalize her. She’s severely dehydrated and needs fluid ASAP.”
The paramedic behind me dips his head, still looking to Bella for answers to his questions.
“No,” she says, her voice hard as she pins him with a glare. “No to all three. I had chicken soup the night this flare-up turned bad and I was watching a sports game. Nothing provoked this but shitty hormones and the
cysts covering my ovaries.”
The dipshit purses his lips before giving a flat smile. “Very well, can you walk to the ambulance?”
“I wouldn’t have called if she could walk,” I find myself growling under my breath. “In case you forgot she’s been stuck on the floor for two days, so no, she can’t fucking walk.”
Bella jumps in to add with a sickly-sweet smile, “Unless you want me to collapse to my knees and break something on the pavement when the pain slices through my uterus?”
Is it odd that I’m turned on by this hard side of hers?
The younger paramedic rises, clearing his throat. “We don’t want that,
Bill. Go get the stretcher.”
Bill huffs but spins and walks out.
“Sorry about that. He’s been a bit…grouchy lately,” the young man apologizes.
“Can we just focus on what’s important?” I walk over to Bella, not giving her a moment to object before I’m sliding my arms under her back and knees and lifting her. “Don’t puke on me,” I drawl, trying to make light of a horrible situation.
She snorts. “Damn, there goes my evening plans.”
Bill comes back with the stretcher. I gently lower her onto it in perfect time because she does cramp up, her entire body writhing in pain.
They push her down the driveway and I want nothing more than to be next to her, but instead, I call out, “Wait!” Rushing for the younger paramedic, I explain, “I’ll ride with you. Just please give me thirty seconds to get her belongings.”
Bill’s lips thin, probably about to say no, but the young guy dips his chin.
I certainly need to learn his name. “Make it fast, though,” he says.
