Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I sniffled. He leaned down and lightly brushed his lips with mine. “Easy,” he soothed. I nodded my head and reached up to wipe at my eyes. He straightened and looked at Tristan. “Come on, Grim. Up off the bed. Reina hasn’t been barking orders at the women about breakfast for half the morning for no damn reason.”
I stood from the bed, and River pressed a kiss to my temple. “Go eat,” he told me before he looked down at Tristan again. “Come on, Tristan. Get the hell up.”
Tristan huffed and sat up, coughing as he did so. It was a bad cough, too. His whole body shook with it, his chest rattling, and his face screwed up in pain. I stopped on my way to the door, worry clenching my chest.
River nodded his head towards the door. “Darlin’, go,” he coaxed. “I’ve got him.”
With a sigh and a clenched jaw, I left the room, worry settled deep in my bones for Tristan.
I hadn’t heard him cough like that before, and now, I was worried that he had been leading me to believe he was still mostly okay.
Because a cough that bad? That meant the cancer was worsening.
Right then, all of my hope rushed down the drain.
Chapter Thirty-Three
River
As soon as Adelaide stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her, Tristan snatched the trash can from beside his bed, spitting out blood into it. I grimaced and shoved my hands into my pockets. “How much longer do you have?” I asked as he set the trash can back down and ran his hands down his face.
Tristan shrugged. “Doctor is giving me a month. Two if I’m really lucky,” Tristan told me. “But he said a month is probably wishful thinking. Lung cancer of all fucking things.” Tristan shook his head. “I don’t even fucking smoke.” He released a bitter laugh. “What a fucking way to go out.”
“How do you plan on telling her?” I asked, referring to Adelaide.
Tristan sighed. “I don’t fucking want to, River. She doesn’t need to worry about how much longer she has with me while she’s pregnant and trying to take care of Axel. Fuck, man, she can have Jaxon any damn day now.” Tristan looked over at me with tired eyes, and I realized right then how much he had been hiding from all of us. He looked fucking exhausted, like living was just too much for him to do anymore. “I know you tell her just about everything, River, but I don’t want her to know this. Don’t breathe a fucking word about this in her direction.”
I blew out a harsh breath, knowing that what he was requesting was going against everything I believed in. I never kept shit from Adelaide. I told her everything. She and I had one hundred percent honesty with each other.
“River, I mean it. It’s my one fucking death wish,” Tristan told me. “I just want her to relax as much as she can. Can I please just let her have that after all of the shit that I’ve done to her?”
Since Tristan finally saw what the fuck his selfishness did to her, he’d been different—gentler with her. He was careful about trying his best to stay calm, though they both always had a way of pressing the other’s buttons.
Honestly, Joey punched Tristan in the face one day when Tristan and Adelaide were arguing about her needing to eat. When Tristan had angrily told her that she was a selfish mother, Joey had snapped and knocked Tristan unconscious. I hadn’t been close enough to do it myself. But I did get my ass over there to hold her as she cried.
Adelaide ate when she was hungry, and Joey and I both knew that. Tristan had just been his normal, overbearing asshole self.
But despite him being an asshole, I would give him his one, dying wish, even if I didn’t fucking like it.
I ran my hands down my face and nodded. “Alright, Grim,” I grumbled. “I won’t tell her.”
He nodded in thanks and pushed himself up off of the bed with a groan, his arms shaking. He was getting weaker with each day that passed. It wouldn’t be long before Joey and I stood next to Adelaide as she set up funeral arrangements for him.
“Let’s go before she gets suspicious,” Tristan grumbled as he walked toward the door, forcing his body to stand straight like he always had, no sign of how sick he actually was showing through his mask. And when he turned to look at me, his eyes gave nothing away except the confidence and dominating attitude he’d always had.
Finally, he was doing something for her, even if it was damn near too late.
Sighing, I followed him from the room, his request weighing heavily on my shoulders.