Chapter 29

Autocorrect makes me say things Nintendo.

-Text from Travis to Hannah

Travis

“Do you have any threes?”

My eyes peeled open, and the first thing I noticed was that I hurt.

Oh, God did I hurt.

I licked my dry, cracked lips and turned my head, a wave of nausea rising in my gut because of the pain.

“Go Fish,” Hannah giggled, smiling brightly. “Alex, do you have any fours?”

“Ummmm,” Alex hedged.

I started to laugh and immediately regretted it.

“Daddy!”

“Travis!”

“Travis!”

Then suddenly I had three gorgeous women surrounding me.

“Hey,” I croaked.

My eyes went from Reggie’s, to Alex’s, and finally to Hannah’s.

“Everything okay?”

All three of them nodded.

“Mommy said that you were hurt.” Reggie leaned forward until her face was less than an inch from mine. “You don’t look hurt.”

I grinned and lifted my hand to curl around her neck, then pulled her the rest of the way down so I could place a kiss on her forehead.

“Good,” I grunted. “I’m okay.”

Hannah snorted, and I let Reggie go.

Alex then threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest.

I saw stars.

However, I didn’t pull away, and Hannah didn’t stop Alex, even though Hannah could tell that she’d hurt me.

“I’m okay, baby.”

Alex brought her head up.

“I’m sorry for all the mean things I said to you, Daddy. I didn’t mean them.”

I watched as her face crumpled, and it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around her and hold her to me.

The only thing that stopped me from doing it was something on my right side holding my arm in place.

I tried to move it, and an annoyed grunt followed.

“Oh, sorry,” Hannah said, walking around the bed.

“No, don’t,” I told her. “Leave him there.”

My eyes traveled down to my leg where TJ was sleeping between a pillow stuffed next to the rails, and my thigh.

His reassuring heat had me breathing a sigh of contentment despite the pain in my chest from where I could feel Alex’s weight touching.

“Alex, did you want to show your daddy your report card?”

My stomach tensed, this time for different reasons.

Alex had been on the verge of failing school for most of the year. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see her grades.

But the way Alex pushed off of me with an excited cry and then ran to the corner of the room where her backpack was, had me thinking it was good news—otherwise she wouldn’t be so excited.

And then when she shoved the blue paper into my face, so close to my nose that I could see nothing but blurred dots, let me know that in all likelihood, she’d passed.

Alex never wanted to show me her report card.

Never.

“You pass, baby?” I questioned.

Hannah started to laugh and pulled the paper back, allowing my eyes to focus.

My eyes went through the seventies, one sixty, and a fifty, all the way to the end, and what I saw was surprising.

“You made a hundred in all your classes this six weeks?”

“She even beat me,” Reggie said, sounding proud of that fact.

I grinned and brought my hand up to Alex’s face. “Good job, honey.”

Alex looked so proud. “Next year, I’m going to make all A’s.”

I ran my thumb over her cheek, happy to see that not a single scratch or hair was misplaced on her head, and I owed that all to one woman.

“Y’all think you can go find Uncle Baylor and ask him to take you down to the cafeteria for a while?” I asked.

Now that the pain meds that my brothers had been slipping me throughout the day had cleared, my brain was back online.

Reggie started to clap.

“They have really good cinnamon rolls here!” she declared.

How she knew that, I didn’t know, but I was going to ask to try one tomorrow morning.

For now, I really needed to speak to her mother.

“Aces!” Alex cried, then both children were out the door.

I could hear my brother’s voice, so I wasn’t worried that he’d let them go by themselves, but Hannah left anyway just to check.

I chose that moment to place my hand on my chest and look down at my sleeping son.

A sleeping son who was asleep instead of screaming at, I looked up at the clock, seven o’clock in the evening.

“He’s not crying.”

Hannah grinned. “No, he sure isn’t.”

I grinned and held out my hand.

“Wonder why?”

She took my hand and brought it up to her face. “Don’t know.” She paused. “And honestly, I hope that it’s going to be recurring.”

I agreed.

“Han?”

I swept my thumb over her chin.

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

Hannah’s face broke out into a smile. Then she leaned forward and placed her mouth gently onto mine.

I kissed her, and then pressed my forehead to hers.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes opened, and she pulled back slightly. “For what?”

My mouth tipped up into a smile.

“For saving my life.”

She opened her mouth to disagree, and I stopped her.

“You may not think so, but you did,” I interrupted her. “You saved Alex. You saved Reggie. You saved you.”

Her mouth closed with an audible snap.

“That woman next door…”

Her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Allegra. She’s in the room next door.”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed, and I kind of loved the way she got all protective.

“Don’t.”

Hannah’s eyes lit. “You can’t…”

“I know I can’t,” I agreed. “But for now, just stay with me.”

She sighed and planted her butt on the bed next to my calf. I kept hold of her hand, though.

“She could’ve taken a lot of stuff away from me today,” I said. “Then I’d be an empty hull like Dante.”

She looked away. “I know how he feels now. Just thinking about how close I came…it’s a scary fucking experience.”

And it was.

I’d had plenty of time to think about what I’d heard Hannah had done, and each and every time I did, it was enough to send my heart into overdrive.

Just the thought of losing them was enough to send bile rushing up my throat.

And speaking of the devil.

I looked up to find Dante standing there, his eyes on me.

“You okay?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Good.”

Then he was gone.