“I’m happy to do that,” Gigi said. “In fact, Elle, why don’t you go on and send that text you need to send and Miss Chloe can help me put our snack together. By the time you get back, those sundaes should be ready to eat.”
* * *
Aidan had made it through surgery and was in the intensive care unit. He’d suffered a head injury as well as multiple broken bones, and the doctor had put him into a medically induced coma to bring down the brain swelling.
Now that he knew Aidan’s condition, Daniel was torn. The bigger part of him, the part that wanted to do what was right, knew he should stay at the hospital in case his brother woke up, but hospitals freaked him out. He hated the smell. He hated the austere environment. He hated the dire reality of the place. Unless you worked there, you didn’t go to the hospital unless something was gravely wrong. In his experience, when the people he loved entered the hospital, they didn’t come out.
His parents. His grandmother. His wife.
He said a silent prayer that Aidan would recover and put an end to that grim streak.
The place made him anxious. And, yeah, as far as he was concerned, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. All selfishness aside, he needed to go get Chloe. He had imposed on Elle and her family enough. So, he left his contact information with the nurses and they had promised to call if Aidan woke up before Daniel could get back to the hospital tomorrow morning.
He exited the automatic double doors, at war with himself about leaving. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do sitting around waiting for his brother to wake up. During visiting hours, he could sit with him, but the rest of the time, he’d be relegated to the waiting room or the hospital cafeteria.
Aidan would understand. In fact, he would probably kick his ass if he found out he’d been sitting there all day staring at the floor instead of taking care of Quindlin Brothers business. But even before he could do that, the first thing on his list was to take care of Chloe.
He had a full plate at work, and with Aidan in the hospital, he had no idea how he was going to get it all done and take care of a child. But Chloe was first priority. She had always been in school or day care since he and Aidan had become partners. But he didn’t know which day care Aidan had put her in and he didn’t know the first thing about selecting one—or finding a babysitter, for that matter. Really, he didn’t want to leave her with a stranger. The hospital had released Aidan’s belongings to him, so he had a key to his brother’s house. The first thing he needed to do after he took an Uber to his truck, which was still parked near Rusty’s, and picked up Chloe was go to his brother’s house and put together a plan to make life as normal as possible for his niece.
Dread was a lead ball in his stomach. His gut reaction was that he didn’t know how to take care of a five-year-old little girl. But he’d been around Aidan and Chloe enough to know he would manage. The one thing he wasn’t sure about was how he would juggle the responsibility of full-time childcare with work and looking in on his brother.
As an architect, Aidan was in the office more than Daniel. If Chloe was home from school sick or on vacation, Aidan could work from home. The majority of Daniel’s working hours were spent on jobsites. Jobsites were no place for a child.
Aidan was a good dad and made balancing work and fatherhood look effortless. Somehow, Daniel would make it work.
Chloe’s mother had been out of the picture for years and Daniel didn’t know where to begin looking to locate her or if it was what Aidan would want. It dawned on him that he wouldn’t want to enlist the help of a woman who had walked away from her own child. She had left Aidan shortly after giving birth, leaving him with a newborn. She’d wanted no part of motherhood or marriage. Over the past five years, Aidan had perfected the art of being both mother and father to his daughter, putting her first and doing everything possible to give her a happy childhood.
Except for that damned motorcycle...
Daniel shook away the thought. The doctors said that his brother was young and healthy and they were hopeful that Aidan would recover...in time. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
Now that Daniel was away from the hospital and could breathe in something other than that grim antiseptic smell, he could finally let down his wall and admit how damn scared he was at the thought of losing his brother.