Try not to think about Heather and what she would think when she got back to her apartment and he wasn’t there. She’d knock on his apartment door, and he wouldn’t be there, either. She’d call, but . . .
“Hey, have you seen my phone?” he asked.
“With your stuff,” his mom said, gesturing to the corner of the room. “You want?”
“Nah.”
He didn’t want the outside world right now. Couldn’t handle it.
“Your sister’s on her way,” his dad said, glancing at his own phone.
Josh stifled a groan. “Seriously? I told her not to come. The baby shouldn’t be in the hospital.”
“Josie next door is watching Marian,” Sue said, patting his arm. “She has five grandkids of her own; she’s perfectly competent with infants.” His sister and Kevin had flown up with the baby for Christmas, and Jamie had opted to stay through the New Year so that his parents could help with childcare and get their grandbaby fix.
“She’s still flying out tomorrow, right?” Josh asked.
His parents exchanged a glance, and he read their silent communication perfectly. It depended on the test results.
“No, I don’t want—” Fuck. Josh put both hands over his face. “I can’t do this again. I can’t put you all through this again.”
“Don’t be selfish,” his father said, in a tone Josh hadn’t heard since he got caught with a six-pack of Buds when he was eighteen. Josh dropped his hands and found his dad giving him a stern look. “You think this is about you, and it is, but it’s also about the people who care about you. The people who want—need—to be here for you. Because we love you.”
Father and son held gazes for several moments, but Josh was the first to look away. His dad was right, of course. If situations were reversed, and any of them were in a hospital bed, there’d be no dragging him out of the building. He’d hop on a plane, train, or unicorn to make it to any one of them, Kevin included, if they were sick.
“You’re going to be fine,” Sue said as Josh stared blindly at the ceiling and tried to ignore the burn in his throat, the lethargy in his body.
“Can I have a few minutes?” he said, looking back at them. “I’m not asking you to leave, I just . . . I need a moment.”
“Of course,” Rob said, even as his mother started to protest. “We’ll be in the waiting room if you need us. And if the doctor comes back with test results—”
“I’ll make sure he finds you,” Josh said.
His parents shuffled to the door, looking older than they had when he’d seen them at Christmas just a week earlier. His mom turned back. “Josh, honey, there’s something I should probably—”
His mom never finished her sentence, because there was a blur of dark blond hair and blue sweater dashing by the window of his room before coming to stand in the doorway.
Heather.
Out of breath, beautifully disheveled, and here.
His heart leapt in joy even as his brain registered outrage. He glared at his parents, and his mom gave a sheepish smile as she crept around Heather, patting the younger woman on the shoulder.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Sue mock-whispered. “I called her while you were getting the tests.”
His mom disappeared before Josh could get good and properly angry at her, and then he found he wasn’t angry at all because Heather was at his side, her face buried in his neck.
A neck that was . . . damp.
Heather was crying.
Motherfucker. Heather was crying. For him.
“Don’t,” he pleaded. “Please don’t.”
“You asshole,” she muttered against his neck, sniffling, and Josh couldn’t help but laugh. She was his same old Heather.
She pulled away and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me. How could you not tell me this?” Her eyes flashed even as she swiped at her running nose. “All this time I never knew. Cancer. You had cancer?” Her tears seemed to dry and she looked good and pissed. “You don’t keep something like that from someone that—”
“Someone that what?”