If I Never Knew You (If I Never Knew You Series) (14 page)

"Really?" I asked, kind of whining.

"I'll be here when you wake up, unless, you know, you wake up while I'm still trying to find you something," Orion said. He kissed my forehead and stood up. "Get some sleep, babe. You missed out on a lot of rest this past couple of months and just coming in and out of consciousness while in a hospital does not count." I stuck my tongue out at him before be pushed the button to make the top half of the bed go back down. "Sleep!"

"Make me," I said.

"I'm trying," Orion retorted. He started out of the room.

"Orion..." I called after him. He turned back to me. "Will you move in with us now?"

"Of course I will-why would you think otherwise?" Orion asked.

"After what happened last time you were there?" I reminded him. Orion came back to the bed.

"Forget about it, alright?" he said. "We'll start over."

"From where?" I asked.

"Um, how about after the time you made your friend think I was your boyfriend?" Orion asked. "You remember that?"

"No-the best day of my life and I don't remember," I replied, sarcastically.

"There's the old Madison," Orion said with a smirk.

I smiled and got comfortable. It was hard when my arms were still so sore, but I closed my eyes and soon drifted to sleep.

I WAS ALLOWED out of the hospital after another two days when the doctor finally proclaimed that I was ready to go home. Orion had to get another bag to pack up with because of all the stuff everyone had given me during the last ten days. It was mostly stuffed animals and there were a few balloons that I wound up popping as we tried to secure them on the bag. Also, there were loads of flowers that we put into a box. Everyone fussed over me on the day that I got to leave. I kept saying I could do things for myself, but they wouldn't let me, so I wound up getting to sit in a wheelchair, with Andy pushing.

Orion and Uncle Jack were busy throwing everything into the trunk of Orion's car, so Andy pushed me around the hospital. We went down a few hallways, where he pushed faster than he should have. I even convinced him to let me push
him
for a bit, but then a nurse came by and caught us. She was one of the nurses who had taken care of me, so I got lectured all over again about resting and all that stuff.

"Are you sure this is the right house?" I asked, teasingly as I walked into the cleanest living room I had seen in a while. I had never seen it so
clean
. Where the hell did anyone find the time if they were at the hospital with me practically twenty-four, seven?

"Yeah, why?" Orion asked.

"This is too clean to be our house," I said.

"That would be my doing." I jumped and turned as an older man walked up to us. "So, you must be Madison."

"Yes, I am."

"I'm Phillip, Orion's father," the man said. He extended his hand out to shake mine.

"Oh, the man who runs the library," I said. Phillip laughed and nodded.

"I got him to come by yesterday and help your mom clean up a bit," Orion revealed. "I didn't think he'd clean this much."

I just laughed and hugged Orion's father. Mom hadn't been feeling too well herself these last several days, so I really appreciated Phillip helping her with some of the heavy cleaning.

"Thank you so much," I said. "Maybe you can teach your son a few things."

"Trust me, I've been trying," Phillip laughed.

Soon Uncle Jack and Andy came in, carrying everything. I hobbled up the stairs to my room and opened the door, telling them to just drop everything in there so I could sort it out later. Uncle Jack left a few minutes later, telling us that if I was up to it, we should come by the club that night. He hugged me and told me that he hoped he would see me real soon.

"She really is something special," Dad said.

I nodded, leaning against the banister and listening to Madison and Andy laugh. "And she's also very nice

, depending on who you are and how she feels that day," I said. Dad smiled.

"So," he said, leaning next to me. "She's eighteen, a high school graduate, works in a diner, has an ex-boyfriend in jail, and is now pregnant."

"Well it sounds bad when you put it that way. But, that's about right," I said with a smile.

"Well, she's a lot better than Crystal," Dad said. "You talk about Madison a lot more than you did about Crystal, for sure," Dad reminded me.

"So, you're saying you like her?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Very much so-even though I just met her." Dad acknowledged.

I heard the sounds of Andy and Madison running out of her room. I straightened and watched them run down the stairs. Andy flew past me and, before she could evade my grasp, I snatched Madison and pulled her to me. She instantly put her arms around me in a hug.

"Hey! What are we doing for dinner?" Andy called.

"Aw damn! We never went shopping," I said.

Then, ears burning, Barbara came in and told us that she would be happy to serve us some meatloaf, but that she needed to buy some more ground meat first. Madison told her mom not to worry about it, because she had a better idea.

"Staff discount," Madison suggested, looking at me. "Or it could just be free, since everyone loves me."

"True," I said, smiling. "Andy, Barbara, Dad, we're going out!"

Citing fatigue, Barbara declined, saying that she would stay home and eat leftovers from yesterday's roast chicken supper. She was kind enough to invite Dad to join her, but he decided to come with us instead.

"Where are we going?" Andy asked, coming into view at the bottom of the stairs.

About twelve minutes later, we pulled into a parking spot at Wayside and my dad pulled in next to us. Andy opened the door for Madison and she laughed at his chivalry as she climbed out of the car. He poked her and the two of them engaged in a poking war until we got to the hostess podium.

"Madison!" the hostess said. "Oh my God, we've missed you so much! Jen could have filled a cup with all the tears she was crying."

"Is she here?" Madison asked.

"Yeah, she's got the afternoon shift."

"I'll be back," Madison said and ran through the restaurant towards the back. Even from where we were, we could hear the screams of joy and the three of us laughed. A server put us at a table, but our food arrived before Madison came back.

"I thought you ran away," I joked.

"No, sorry, I was talking with everyone and then I talked with my boss," Madison admitted. "We've made arrangements for me to do lower stress jobs here. I can work in the back and do some hosting for now. We both agreed that if I went back to waitressing before the baby was born, I'd be pushing myself too much."

"Well, that's good," Andy said.

"What will you do once your baby's born?" Dad asked.

"Um, actually," Madison said. "We were talking about me training for assistant manager when I come back. It's less physically demanding work for a young mom, but will involve taking some business courses so I can handle the ordering and bookkeeping tasks.

"That's great!" I said.

"I take it that this meal is a celebratory one," Madison said.

"Absolutely, baby," I said.

"What are we celebrating?"

"Anything and everything: the baby, the job switch, having you out of the hospital, not having to worry about Damian...Need I go on?"

"You made your point," Madison said, kissing me softly.

We ate our dinners, but I couldn't stop looking at my dad. He had that look like he wanted to say something, but I guess he didn't want to say it in front of Madison and Andy.

I forgot about it by the time we done and were on the way over to Knightsbridge Tavern. Apart from playing, I had never actually been there as a patron. Things looked different when you weren't on the stage, to be sure. Madison wouldn't sit still this evening, which, with her being pregnant, worried me somewhat. She dragged me onto the dance floor and we stayed there for nearly ten songs before I convinced her to sit down for a while.

"I know you like dancing, Mad, but that doesn't mean you should dance yourself into exhaustion," I warned.

She leaned against me and told me not to worry about her so much. How could I not? We sat around for a while and talked with her uncle when he came over. By the time we got back to her home again, it was late and Andy went to bed first. Madison soon followed, after I assured her that I'd check on her every so often. I really wanted to climb in bed with her, but I didn't think she was ready for that kind of thing yet.

I woke up early the next morning. It felt weird waking up on my side after sleeping on my back for the last two weeks. Waking up alone felt weird, too, but it really wasn't too uncomfortable. I put on my slippers and robe, and peeked in on Andy, who was fast asleep and about to fall off the bed. I closed the door softly and went to peek in on Orion in the guest room, who was asleep face down with his butt in the air like a baby. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stop from giggling and I tiptoed down the stairs. I found that I had the entire downstairs, so I made myself a bowl of cereal and plopped down on the couch in the living room. Then I turned on cartoons and enjoyed my first worriless day in a long time. It was so relaxing to feel this way.

I was alone for about half an hour when I heard someone come down the stairs. Orion came wobbling into the living room in his boxers, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Good morning," I greeted him. He froze and lowered his hand from his mouth to look at me.

"Thought you were asleep," Orion mumbled.

"Nope, I've been up for a bit," I said. "I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, so I came downstairs and got breakfast." I gestured at the empty bowl sitting on the table next to me. Orion yawned again and nodded, then made his way to the kitchen. I turned my attention back to the TV, but something else caught my attention. "Hey, when did this come here?" I stood up and walked over to our side table, where there was a new computer perched on top.

"What? Oh, you mean the computer," Orion said. "I got it during your time in the hospital. Before you say anything, it doesn't add anything to the bills. The bills are still very payable."

"Well thank you so much, baby. We really needed a new computer and now I can use it for my courses after I have the baby," I said, going back to the couch.

"Maybe having you in the hospital for a while did something. Normally, you would have argued with me," Orion said, walking over to me.

"Yeah, but it's different now, isn't it? Some things have changed. I can relax and let other people handle things, instead of thinking that I have to be superwoman.

"Well, that's good," Orion said. "Because there's no way in hell I'm letting you do everything with that baby. I want my equal share."

"Is something burning?" I asked.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Orion yelled and hurried into the kitchen.

"I think my cooking skills have been rubbing off on you," I called after him, laughing more.