Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Shoving away from the table, she strode out to her balcony and took deep gulps of the cold air. “Snap out of it,” she told herself. “You knew this was coming.”
Except she hadn’t. Because it was Danny.
Danny, who’d carried her on his back for countless races and never dropped her even when that meant he went down face-first instead. Danny, who spoke to his nieces and nephew every weekend like clockwork. Danny, who’d messaged her first every single time since he’d been away.
She’d told herself to be better, to reach out first, but the fear was a choking hand around her throat.
Danny wasn’t her father.
He was also a young and sexy male in a foreign country where he was considered a star. She knew it bothered him a little, that the spotlight had turned on him even so far from home. But over there, it seemed focused more on him as a man and less on his sporting prowess, which he was able to laugh off.
“I have a brother who is a damn underwear model,” he’d said when she teased him about the adulation. “Trust me, I know I’m just flavor of the month.”
He hadn’t mentioned the attendant female attention, but Catie had a brain, could figure it out. Danny was hot, and New Zealand or Japan, women noticed that. It was late afternoon heading into early evening in his part of the world now, so he could’ve just forgotten their online date and gone out for dinner.
Striding back to grab her phone, she checked the screen. Nothing.
Stomach acid burning, she decided to leave it and work out. But all those things she’d just thought about Danny, they made her hesitate. So, though her cheeks burned, she went to the part of her phone where she’d stored the emergency contact information he’d sent her. His family all had the same information, and they’d surely have told her if anything had gone wrong…
She hesitated, not wanting to feel foolish and stupid and clingy.
Two months. No missed calls or ignored texts.
It still took everything she had to call the number for his friend Takuro. Better to start there than with the head of the club. The phone rang and rang, and she was just about to hang up when it was picked up.
“Hello, Catie,” said a male voice from the other end, his accent indistinguishable from that of a New York native—it was where Takuro had apparently gone to university. None of which explained how he knew it was Catie on the line.
“Takuro?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was about to call you.”
Her heart thundered. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “Danny is in the hospital—”
“What!” It came out a yell.
“But he is fine.” Takuro rushed to reassure her. “He had bad pain in tooth damaged long time ago in game and went to dentist, and dentist sent him to hospital.”
The fact that Takuro—whom Danny had told her was totally fluent in English—was dropping words and not using contractions just stressed her out even more. “Why?”
“Infection,” Takuro said. “It goes from tooth to heart if doctors don’t stop.”
Trembling, Catie sat down on a breakfast stool. “Where is he now?”
“Sleeping,” Takuro said. “Doctors give him medicine for infection but also to make him rest. He forgot his phone at home, asked me to call you—he really wanted me to call you.”
Mouth dry and chest aching, Catie ran a trembling hand over her hair. “Have you told his parents yet?”
“No. Danny said call Catie first because Catie’s waiting for my call.”
“You have my number programmed into your phone.”
“Yes, you and his family.” Takuro sounded calmer now, his breathing even. “For emergencies.”
Catie’s nails dug into her palm. “I can talk to his parents. But first give me all the details.”
Takuro went above and beyond, even going to a doctor and asking questions, the answers to which he then translated for Catie. The doctor reassured them that they’d caught the infection early and Danny would be out of the hospital within a day or two. Mostly they were just keeping him for observation—the sleeping meds were because he’d stayed up the previous night as a result of the toothache.
Once she had all the info and was calm enough that she wouldn’t freak out his family, she hung up with Takuro and immediately called Alison.
The entire family knew within the hour. By then Takuro had been joined at the hospital by a couple of people from club management, and all three of them conferred with the doctor and were assured Danny would be fine. Catie still couldn’t concentrate or sleep or do anything in the hours that followed.
So she was wide-awake when her phone lit up with a message at three o’clock in the morning.
A sloth emoji.
A laughing sob broke out of her. Fingers shaking, she found the tooth emoji and the sick smiley with a thermometer in its mouth, sent both back to him.