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“There is no way in hell I’m moving back here to help take care of that man.” Grant’s jaw was clenched as he spat the words out. “They have enough money to hire round the clock care or stick him in a high-end nursing facility. Considering he let nannies and tutors take care of us our whole lives, it is nothing more than he deserves.”
David thought that was being generous considering everything he’d seen in the last three days that they’d been there. Grant was treated as if he were nothing more than a nuisance that his parents - well, mother in this case, since his father had yet to have the ability to speak – had no intention of even tolerating.
What David couldn’t figure out was why Mrs. Whitmore - which other than ma’am, was all David was allowed to call her – bothered to complain that Grant refused to come. Why would she want him there if she acted as if he didn’t exist? This whole family was beyond fucked up.
Even Mac was a different when around his mother. Like when Mrs. Whitmore had tried to order David from the waiting room. Yes, Mac had put his hand on David to prevent him from leaving, but he hadn’t bothered to ask David if he even wanted to stay. Nor had he actually told David he wanted him there. It had been like that for the past three days.
Mrs. Whitmore would say something derogatory to David and order him to get out and Mac would either grab hold of David’s hand or put his arm around David’s waist, silently forcing him to stay, but David wasn’t sure if that was because Mac wanted him there, or he was just going against his mother’s wishes.
With all that he’d witnessed in the past few days, he feared it was the latter.
“No one asked you to move home, Grant,” Mac said for about the hundredth time since their father had woken up from his quadruple bypass to discover he had no ability to move his right side and he hadn’t been able to speak.
According to the doctors and their tests, Mr. Whitmore did have feeling in his right side, but it would take time for them to know how much, if any, use he’d have of the affected parts of his body. As for speech, they feared the worst. Currently, he didn’t seem to recognize anyone. Not even his own wife.
“Right,” Grant said sarcastically. “Because the great and powerful Macalister would be willing to quit his job to move home and take care of our parents.”
Panic seized David when Mac said, “If that’s what is needed, of course I would. But...”
David didn’t want to hear the rest. He just couldn’t. That Mac would even think about leaving without even talking it over with David was more than he could take.
He started to stand. He had to get out of there. But, like always, Mac took hold of his arm and tried to keep him in his chair. Too upset to just sit there and listen to the man he loved make decisions without even talking to him, no matter how many times David had tried to get him to have this conversation, David jerked his arm away from Macalister and stormed from the room.
He couldn’t do this anymore. His mind flashed to the first time they’d met and he thought Mac too rigid to be human. Since then, he’d gotten to know Mac and had forgotten just how cold and unfeeling Macalister could be.
David shook his head. He was even starting to call him Macalister in his head. Maybe they were too different to work out. Did he get too caught up in the romance and miss the signs of this cold, reserved Macalister? Was his sweet, caring Mac nothing more than a fantasy he’d created in hopes of finding his happily ever after?
David just didn’t know any longer.
“David.” That harsh voice echoed down the hallway as David stood in front of the elevator, willing it to come. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The sound of Macalister’s demanding voice, so similar to his mother’s, made David cringe. Tears stung his eyes as he considered walking away from what he and Mac had shared. But David also knew he couldn’t live like Macalister had grown up. It was just too isolating.
The moment the doors of the elevator slid open, David ducked inside and pressed the button for the lobby. He had no idea where he was going, he just knew he couldn’t be in that waiting room a moment longer.
Just as the doors were halfway shut, Macalister managed to slip inside. “David.”
There was that voice David hated again. He couldn’t even think of this man as Mac any longer. It hurt too much. Unable to stand to hear it any longer he did the one thing he’d been too afraid to do since they’d arrived at the hospital. “Shut up.” Did his voice sound a little too much like Macalister’s mom?
Closing his eyes in despair, David sank against the back wall of the elevator. “Please, just leave me alone,” he whispered.
His heart was breaking and David just wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep it together. How had things gone from wonderful just a few short days ago, to falling apart around his feet? It didn’t make sense. Yet, that’s where they were.
It wasn’t until the ding of the elevator alerting David that he’d arrived at the lobby that he even realized Macalister hadn’t said a word the whole way down.
Opening his eyes, he stared into the brown version of what his own despair looked like. It was the first time since meeting Macalister’s mother that David felt a stirring of hope that he hadn’t completely lost the Mac he loved.
“Please, don’t leave me.” The pleading tone of Macalister’s voice wasn’t something David had ever heard from him before. It was as if he’d lost all hope.
“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “The entire time I’ve been here, right beside you, and yet you haven’t said more than a dozen words to me.” Probably a lot less than that. “It’s been three days. Three days and you refuse to talk to me about any of this.”
The anger was boiling inside him as the elevator doors closed, enclosing them together. “I tried to get you to talk about your feelings and nothing. I even tried to discuss if you would want to live here until the doctors know more about your father’s conditions, but you still wouldn’t say anything to me.”
David pointed up, to where they had been in that stupid waiting room with Grant. “I thought it was just too much and you weren’t ready to make any kind of decision, not even a temporary one, but then you tell Grant you will move home.”
The doors opened and several people started to step inside until they realized David and Macalister were inside. They stepped aside so the two of them could leave and David did exactly that. He’d hoped Macalister wouldn’t follow, but that was rarely his luck.
“That isn’t fair,” Macalister said as he caught up to David. “Grant was just pissing me off with his selfishness and I was firing back. I don’t actually plan on moving back here.”
David stopped in his tracks and whirled to face Macalister. “That right there is why I don’t know if we can be together. You’re like a cold, manipulative jerk around your family. How do I know you won’t act like that with me someday?”
Macalister ran a hand over his head, tugging at some of the strands of his hair in frustration. “I’m sorry I don’t have the perfect family and that I grew up to never show my emotions. And I’m sorry that being around them causes that person to reemerge. I don’t know how to be any other way with them.”
“Or maybe it’s just the real you,” David shot back instantly regretting the cheap shot. “Look, I don’t know that I want to be with the man you have been for the past three days, Macalister.”
A tear appeared in Macalister’s eye as he stared at David as if he’d just lost his whole world. David didn’t think he could stay and witness Macalister falling apart. So, he turned on his heel and walked away.
***
Macalister didn’t know how long he stood there staring at nothing after David left. He was sure his heart had shattered into a million pieces, with no chance of it ever being put back together again. How could it? His happiness had just walked away from him.
David was right. The moment he’d seen his mother, it was like the old Macalister had walked right back into his body and taken over. That person he’d been was the reason he’d walked away from his family and the prestigious job in New York. He’d hated that guy, yet, somehow, he’d stupidly let him rear his ugly head and drive David away.
“I know Mother and Father brag about how brilliant you were growing up, but I think they got it wrong.” Grant stood next to Macalister shaking his head. “Anyone who is stupid enough to let a man like David walk out without at least getting on his knees and begging him to stay is an idiot. And not chasing after him? Seriously, we’re in the hospital, you might want to have them check you for brain damage.”
If only Grant’s suggestions would have kept David from leaving. “There would have been no point.”
Grant gave him an odd look. “You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. He called me Macalister.” He turned and went back to the elevator. He may want to find a bed and curl up under the covers and cry his eyes out but he still had his parents to deal with.
“I don’t get it,” Grant said as he followed him across the lobby. “Your name is Macalister, after all.”
“Not to David.” There was nothing David could have said that would have convinced Macalister they were really over, except by calling him by his name.
They stepped into the elevator and Macalister hit the button for the cardiac unit. “I can’t believe you are just giving up on a man like that.”
His brother was right. It was time for him to start taking charge of his life again. But first, he owed it to his father to get him settled. “I think we need to tell Mother she will either need to put Father in a nursing home or bring in full-time staff to take care of him.”
“Well, at least you haven’t completely lost your mind,” Grant told him.
Except, Macalister wasn’t so sure about that. Without David, he wasn’t sure about anything.
