“I’m not leaving Madison’s side,” Adam interrupted.
“Is she okay with company, then? We could come up to her room.”
Adam mumbled something, and then he laughed. “She says she’d like to see a new face about now. I guess she’s tired of looking at my ugly mug.”
Gabe could hear Madison’s protests in the background.
“I know you don’t think I’m ugly,” Adam said to her.
“I’ll see you in a few then,” Gabe said, wanting to get back on the road. Melanie was sending him questioning looks through the windshield as he stood in front of the car on his phone.
“See you.”
For the first time in his experience, the traffic around Dallas wasn’t bad, but finding parking at Baylor was a nightmare. Nikki had somehow snagged a prime spot near the entrance to the main hospital and waved at them as they drove past. By the time Gabe found a spot, she’d already found a new friend to talk to. Well, the guy was mostly talking at her boobs—which he was quite obviously ogling—but she didn’t seem to notice. Gabe moved to stand beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the side of her head. “Hey, sweetie, sorry to make you wait. Is this guy bothering you?”
“No,” she said. “He’s a med student.”
Gabe offered the young man an unrelenting stare. “A future gynecologist, I presume, since he’s doing such a thorough examination of your breasts.”
The guy had the decency to blush and back away. Nikki giggled in delight. Melanie rolled her eyes and shook her head at them both.
“We’re trying to find a patient,” Gabe said to the endearingly awkward guy. “Where would we go for information?”
After pointing them in a general direction, the med student adjusted his wire-framed glasses and turned to go, but then he stopped and faced Nikki again.
“It was nice talking to you, Wilma. I wish you had told me you had a boyfriend.” He released a full-body sigh, looking as if he’d just said goodbye to his soul mate, and then walked away.
“Wilma?” Gabe asked before releasing his proprietary hold on Nikki and taking Melanie’s hand.
“He said his name was Fred,” Nikki explained. “I told him we must have been fated to meet because I was Wilma.”
Melanie snorted.
Gabe shook his head at the two of them. “You shouldn’t get a guy’s hopes up like that. Do you know how to flat out reject a guy? That whole let-him-down-easy thing you women do just makes it harder on us in the long run because then we have hope.”
“Do I know how to reject a guy?” Nikki asked. “Sure. Do I know how to reject a sweet, cute future doctor named Fred? Not so much.”
“Since you’re not supposed to hook up with anyone this month, you’re bound to find the man of your dreams,” Melanie said. “It’s poetic justice. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.”
“If he’s the man of her dreams, he can wait,” Gabe declared. “In fact, any man worth your time and affection can wait until the time is right for you, no matter how hard he tries to convince you otherwise.”
“Oh, Gabe,” Nikki said, poking him in the ribs. “You’re such a romantic.”
It took them a while to find their way to Madison’s room. They stopped and picked up some flowers at the gift shop, and Nikki insisted on a Get Well Soon balloon to go along with the bouquet of cheerfully bright daisies. As they walked down a long sterile hallway, Gabe noticed how Nikki began to cling to Melanie. He wondered if it would be better for Nikki to talk about her obvious fear, or if that would make her feel worse.
He opted for middle ground to give her the opportunity to speak freely if she felt like it. “You okay, Nik?”
She looked up at him and nodded with a slight smile on her lips. Melanie lifted Nikki’s hand and pressed it to her chest.
“Hospitals remind her of all the reasons she’s been in one,” Melanie said. “None of them good.”
“A few of them good,” Nikki corrected. “Like when my cousin’s baby was born.”
“I apologize. I shouldn’t have spoken for you,” Melanie said.
“That’s okay.”
“You just looked a little nervous,” Gabe said. “I was worried about you.”
At his declaration, Nikki beamed. “I am nervous. We’re going to see Adam Taylor. I wonder if he’ll even remember me. Did you see the sketch he drew of me? Pretty cool, huh?”
Gabe chuckled. “Very cool. And I’m sure he’ll remember you.”
He had seen the drawing Adam had done, and recalled that Jacob had been upset that half of Nikki’s beautiful face had been depicted as decayed to bone in Adam’s artwork. Jacob tended to take things a bit too literally, while Adam was pathologically artistic. They never saw eye to eye on anything, and that was exactly why Sole Regret needed them both. Having a band made up of like-minded individuals would have made for some uninspired, passionless music.
Which was why he was there. To remind Adam—and himself—that no matter what obstacles appeared in their path, their friendship, their band, their music was worth fighting for.
When they reached Madison’s room, Gabe knocked on the open door and called loudly, “Are you decent in there?”
“I wouldn’t call myself decent,” Adam replied, “but you can come in anyway.”
Gabe was surprised that while Madison had been the one injured and had recently undergone surgery, she looked a hell of a lot better than Adam did.
“When was the last time you slept?” Gabe asked him while the women crowded around Madison to give her flowers and to hear her story about a rattlesnake spooking her horse.
“Can’t remember,” Adam said, swaying slightly in Gabe’s direction.
Gabe caught him by both shoulders. “You won’t be able to help her if you collapse from exhaustion.”
“I keep telling him that,” Madison said. “That he should get some rest while I’m stuck in here, because when I get out and he goes back on tour, he’s going to be too tired to perform. If he thinks Jacob is mad at him now . . .”
Gabe winced, but before he could open his mouth to comment, Adam grabbed him by the arm and tugged him toward the hall.
“Be right back, babe,” Adam called to Madison. “You ladies take good care of her while I’m gone.”
Adam closed the door softly and turned to face Gabe. Adam couldn’t meet his gaze, however, standing there hands on hips, eyes focused downward.
“You haven’t told her?” Gabe asked. “About the band breaking up?”
Adam shook his head. “She’ll feel like it’s her fault. I don’t want her to feel that way. It’s my fault.”
Gabe licked his lips. He wasn’t going to give Adam an out. The band’s breakup was at least partially his fault, and Adam had never been the type to claim responsibility for anything. So to hear him say that he was taking the blame gave Gabe hope. Gabe knew that was what Jacob had always wanted out of Adam, for him to claim responsibility for something—for anything. This was a big step in the right direction. But would it be enough?
“So what are you going to do to fix it?” Gabe asked.
Adam finally met his eyes. He really did look like hell—wrinkled clothes, a scruffy growth of beard, dark circles under both eyes, and his messy-by-design hair was extra-disheveled. He was even missing a few of the chains he usually wore.
“There’s no fixing this. I fucked up too big this time.”
“You did fuck up big,” Gabe said.
“Sorry.”
God, Jacob should be here witnessing this change in Adam. Though it might not matter. Whenever the two of them were in a room together, their alpha supremacy bullshit began.
“But we can fix this,” Gabe said.
“How?”
“Oh my God!” Madison squealed insid
e the room.
Before Gabe could blink, Adam had bashed open the door and was at her bedside. “What is it? Where does it hurt?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” Madison said. “It’s just . . . Melanie and Gabe got engaged too!”, She held up her left hand next to Melanie’s to show they both had sparkly new engagement rings.
Adam covered his chest with one hand. “You scared the hell out