A Missing Heart (5 page)

With Gavin settled in his car seat, I head over to the job site, which fortunately, is only a couple miles away today. Hunter’s waiting outside for me because...I was the one with the key to the place.
Oops
. Forgot about that one too. This sleep deprivation brain fog sucks. I get the typical
peering down at his watch
gesture from Hunter emphasizing he knows I’m late. Though, his straight posture breaks when he sees me pull Gavin out of the backseat. A smile creeps across his five o’clock shadow—the dark hairs that are suddenly turning a little salt and peppery. My big bro is getting old at his ripe old age of thirty one. We can thank Princess Olive for that—the seven-year-old with a fifteen-year-old’s mouth and attitude, who rules this man’s world. I think Hunter misses the days of having a quiet little baby sleeping in a car seat—a kid who never talks back. I call them the easy days, but nothing was easy for Hunter when Olive was a baby. Raising her on his own after Ellie died just minutes after giving birth hasn’t left him with many memories from the early days, ones he likes to hang onto or reminisce about, anyway. He’s more of the
live in the moment
type with no need for old photographs or home videos.
To each their own
. Whatever he does to survive, I support. “Where is my little wingman?” Hunter softly growls at Gavin. He takes the car seat from my hands, not once asking why I have him with me at work today. Being brothers, and as close as we are, Hunter knows why I do what I do, whenever I do it, which makes things easy when I don’t feel like explaining myself.

“Can you unlock the place?” Hunter asks. I grab my tools from the truck and head on over to the front door. “Bro, is Gavin okay today? He’s feeling kind of warm.” Hunter has the car seat down on the driveway, and he’s pulling Gavin from the seat, curling him up under his arm as he places the back of his hand on his forehead.

“I mean, besides the beer I gave him on the way over here, he was fine when we left the house,” I joke. “It was probably too hot in the car. I was worried he was going to get cold, so that could be it.” Hunter tends to worry. It’s what he does best, actually. While I pick and choose what to worry about, I tend to wait until there’s a real reason to get worked up. Keeps me sane.

Hunter brings Gavin inside, quickly making himself comfortable on the bottom step of the hall stairwell. “Dude, I was kind of hoping he’d go to sleep so we could get this job started.”

“Carpets can wait five minutes. I haven’t seen him in two weeks, and he’s gotten huge.”

“You and Charlotte need to pop one out already,” I tell him, knowing that’ll get under his skin.

“We’ve been married less than six months and in case you forgot, we both started our marriage with one daughter each, so that’s two. We have two, loud seven- and eight-year-old daughters. That’s like the equivalent to fifteen kids right there,” he tells me.

I tear the plastic off the roll of carpet that was waiting for us and look back over to him. “You two strike me as the type who should have twenty kids or something. Yeah, you should just keep popping one out every year until she becomes infertile. Then you’d never have to miss that fresh baby smell or the cute little cries you warned me about in the middle of the night. Plus, after a while Olive and Lana will just take care of the new ones, you know?”
Cute little cries
…more like the sound of wolves howling. Same thing, really.

Hunter picks his head up, and the smile he had for Gavin melts into a straight line across his face. “Funny.” With my not-so-obvious hints to put my kid back to sleep, he lays Gavin back into his car seat and gently swings him back and forth for a minute until his eyes close. “He’s a good baby.”

“During the day. At night, he turns into a werewolf. So, don’t let those dimples fool you, Uncle Hunt.”

With the baby babble out of the way, we get to work quietly, avoiding all questions I would definitely be asking if the roles were reversed. He doesn’t pry, but I swear it’s because he just knows. That bastard knows everything and I can’t figure out how. Maybe it’s the whole rite of passage for an older brother shit, but I wish I were as intuitive as he is.

It’s almost like I want to talk about it.

“AJ,” he says while hammering a nail.

“It’s a long story,” I answer.

“Could I have that box of nails please?” he follows.

Oh.

“Considering I never bring Gavin to work, why haven’t you asked me why he’s is here?” I finally blurt out like a teenage girl who is desperately seeking attention.

Hunter looks over at me and sits down against the wall, removes his work gloves and folds his hands together. “You’ve been my brother for twenty-nine years,” he begins. “I figured you didn’t want to talk about whatever fight you must have had with Tori this morning. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.” Why does it sound like I’m talking to Dad? When did he start doing the whole lead in to a conversation with an opening lecture? He’s been doing way too much parenting lately.

He is turning into Dad. “You’re turning into Dad,” I say in rebuttal.

Hunter lets his head fall back against a naked beam in the wall. “I’ll cut to the chase then,” he sighs. “Tori is a really, really sweet woman. I think you two had some good chemistry, and I saw things heading in a direction I wanted and hoped for you after your string of bad luck with women, and of course your never-mended broken heart from her.” He has no idea how bad my luck has really been with women—Cammy in particular. “But—” There’s a
but
. He knows more about Tori than I do, doesn’t he? “I noticed a change when you two found out about Gavin. I know you were a little shocked at first, and it wasn’t exactly in your plan, but you got over it quickly and warmed up to the idea of having a kid, faster than I would have expected.” He stops for a minute and grabs his bottle of water, chugging half the thing before continuing. “But that doesn’t seem to have happened for Tori yet. Didn’t you say neither of you wanted children, and that’s why you were so perfect for each other?” I did say that. More than once. It’s why she was on the pill, and we were using condoms. Except, the pill needs to be taken every single night, and condoms can sometimes break. Nine months later, plan unexpected comes shooting out of a dark hole.

Whatever the case, I know he’s right. “You think she’ll ever warm up to the idea of being a mom? I mean, it’s not exactly like we have a choice now.”

“She might. I’ve heard it takes some parents longer than others to bond. Give it some time. However,” he says, pausing for a second, “I never thought I’d say this...like, literally…never, but I think you were meant to be a dad, and for that reason alone, everything else will fall into place.”

“You sound like Dad. You’re seriously aging yourself, Hunt. Have you looked in the mirror lately?” I scratch at my own chin. “You’ve got some salt and pepper action going on there.” I look up a little, focusing on his messy head of hair. “Hmm…and I see a little up there too.”

“Shut it, jackass. Whatever,” he says, standing up and grabbing the box of nails from the brick-covered fireplace. “Charlotte likes it.”

“Well, if Charlotte likes it, then it must stay,” I say with a bit of flamboyance to get the
you’re whipped
message across.

“Such a loser,” he says, hammering the last nail in.

With our argument fizzling out, I look around the room, noticing that we got this huge-ass living area covered in only two hours. “Pretty impressive for a gramps and a man running on no sleep.”

Hunter cleans up a couple of the scraps as I check the corners for any loose ends.

“Bro, Gavin is definitely burning up.” I turn toward the two of them, seeing Hunter’s hand on Gavin’s head again. “Do you have a baby bag or anything? Hopefully, Tori has a thermometer in there.”

“Yeah it’s, uh…it’s in the truck.” Gavin’s never been sick. He’s only four months old. I don’t know what the hell to do with a sick baby. Which is obviously why I’m standing here like a dumbass staring at him while Hunter runs out to my truck.

He returns with the diaper bag and tears it apart for a full two minutes before he starts cussing. “Shit, how can there be no thermometer in here. Dammit. We need to find out his temperature. Babies his age can’t have a fever of more than about a hundred-and-two, I think. It can be serious, AJ.” How does he still remember all this shit, and I don’t remember anyone saying this to me? Is there a damn baby guidebook no one told me about? “Hold on. I should have a thermometer in my glove compartment. Either Olive or Lana are always crashing with a fever. You should really keep one on you.” I don’t know if this is the overboard part of Hunter talking or if this is the inexperienced AJ taking life notes from his experienced brother. Maybe I’m just a shitty dad and I really shouldn’t have taken on this role of some helpless child’s parent. Considering I’m in my late twenties and still questionable when it comes to my parental skills, it’s scary to think what might have happened with my daughter at seventeen. What the hell was I thinking?

Hunter disappears outside again and returns less than a minute later with a weird-looking contraption. “What the hell is that and where does it go?” I ask him.

“It’s a forehead-scanning thermometer. It’s not best for babies, but it’ll give us a close enough reading right now.” Thank God. If he were to tell me that thermometer should go anywhere but his head…I’d be more than a little scared. Hunter lightly scans the device over Gavin’s head as I drop to my knees in front of his car seat.

“Is he breathing heavy or is it just my imagination?” I ask Hunter.
That’s worry
. I feel it. I have to protect this little guy with everything I have, and right now I’m failing miserably. “What does the thermometer say?”

“We gotta get to a hospital, AJ. He’s got a hundred-and-three-degree fever.” I appreciate Hunter not drilling in the fact of the danger zone number again. I heard him the first time when he said anything over a hundred-and-two was dangerous.

As we’re flying over the roads through town, I debate about calling Tori, but I can’t deal with that conversation right now, so I choose the wrong decision and forgo calling her. I need answers before I’m asked questions.

I have my hand on Gavin’s chest as I lean into the backseat, feeling the rise and fall of his slow breaths. “He’s breathing weird,” I tell Hunter again.

“You don’t know that. I’m sure it’s okay,” Hunter tries to assure me.

It doesn’t take much for me to crack with the punch from his statement. Maybe he didn’t mean it as a low blow, but I can’t help responding defensively. “I know how he breathes, how fast his breaths are, how many seconds apart each one is, and how long they last. I spend every night of my life listening to him breathe, and I know he’s not breathing right.”

Hunter looks over at me briefly while navigating us through town in my truck and smiles proudly. “I know, man. I’ve been there. I’m there. I believe you.”

CHAPTER THREE

IN ADDITION TO
not calling Tori like I should have, evidently I was supposed to call Gavin’s pediatrician as well before showing up at the ER, which the receptionist condescendingly informed me. Why don’t I know any of this? I listened to everything. I’ve been to every appointment, and yet, I feel like the dumbest parent in existence. Now we’re sitting here in a goddamn waiting room while my son burns up in my arms. Shouldn’t kids have priority in an ER?

Hunter places his hand on my shoulder and reaches over with a cup of coffee for me in his other hand. The coffee smells good, and while I appreciate the gesture, the caffeine is just going to stir me up more than I already am right now. “Did you call you Tori yet?” he asks.

I shake my head, realizing it’s been over an hour, and I have no excuse for not calling her by this point. “No,” I say, looking down at Gavin who’s unworried, unfazed, and asleep in my arms.

“Oh, you probably should let her know,” Hunter says, sitting down beside me. “I don’t want to pry, but—”

“You’re not,” I tell him.

“You’ve changed, AJ.” His words aren’t meant to be offensive. It’s a factual statement. “And I’m worried about you.”
I’m worried about me too
. “You don’t laugh, you don’t smile, and you aren’t…you.”

“Yeah,” I agree. I can’t disagree, because he’s right.

“Are you okay?” he asks with hesitation.

Wanting to blurt out my answer, I let his question stir around in my head for a minute. I’m not sure I know what the definition of
okay
is. I guess if I was
okay
I would feel happy, and I would smile and laugh like I used to, but since I don’t, I guess there’s only one answer to his question. “No. I’m not.”

“I know,” he says. “Can I help you?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know if anyone can.”

“Gavin,” a nurse calls from one of the open doors.

“I’ll wait here,” Hunter says. Part of me feels like a child, and I want him to come with me. I hate hospitals. I know he hates them more, though, and with good reason.

I bring Gavin in through the door, following the heavy-set nurse who’s draped in smiling puppy dog scrubs. As we enter the triage area, she pulls the curtain closed around us. “If you could remove his clothes except for his diaper, we’re going to weigh him, check his temperature, and his oxygen levels. You mentioned at the front desk that he has a fever?”