THE BET (Manhattan Nights #2)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

HEATH

My heart beats hard the entire time.

Imitating a jackhammer without end, it nearly beats out of my f*****g chest, sending my pulse swirling out of control. I can hear the blood in my ears—an interminable rush.

My bowtie flaps in the wind as I run over the banal white tile of the bland-looking halls, the flaps of my loafers adding to the beat of my strumming body.

I stop before the receptionist with barely a breath left. I look at her through a sheet of building sweat.

“Marilyn Daniels.” I shake my head, clearing it. “I’m sorry… Marilyn Sparrow’s room, please.”

She nods, clicking her pen over a brown clipboard. She checks the sheet with her eyes.

“Room 321.”

“Thank you,” I scarcely wave as I start sprinting.

Room 321 looms on the other end of the hall like a rainbow I’ll never reach. My throat threatens to close as I cut a path through the white-washed corridors, a film of perspiration dripping against my crisp collar. I turn the corner, storming through the open door.

My chest seizes as I almost collide with a pair of strong shoulders. My best friend turns, barely avoiding me as I barrel inside the hospital room.

His hand flies to my shoulder, squeezing, as I wheeze.

“Where—?” I huff, my lungs aching, mouth drier than ever. “Where is she, Brett?”

He moves his tattooed arms, motioning towards the bed, and there, I find Marilyn’s pale form, her figure half-hidden beneath a set of snowy white sheets with more color than her bruised face.

Swirls of purple and red decorate her delicate temples, and I walk towards her slowly, my eyes roaming over her motionless body—still disbelieving.

That’s not my sister. That can’t be my f*****g sister.

But it is.

All five-foot-five inches of spunk. Spread out on a stale hospital bed.

Unmoving. Board-like.

Red scratches adorn her tiny hands, and I reach for one, afraid as f**k to hold it. I touch her slightly cold skin, my fingers wrapping around hers when someone clears his throat behind me.

I turn.

“Mr. Sparrow?” A man in a white coat leans forward, his dark brow pinched together. “May I have a word with you?”

Brett glances my way, and I nod stolidly, watching his back as he heads out, a blank stare reflecting in his blue-green eyes. He disappears, leaving me and the nervous doctor alone, the air thicker than the snow starting to build outside.

I exhale, closing my eyes. I open them before speaking.

“How bad is it?”

“Not as bad as it looks.” His quiet voice inspires no confidence. “She’s been through the worst of it, her body at last receiving some rest.” He sighs. “Her brain has swelling, her skull bruised. We managed to get to her in time to prevent a significant blood loss. Her leg is broken,” he continues. “Crushed by the dashboard which collapsed against her in the crash.”

My heart climbs further into my throat with each word.

The day behind me flashes behind my eyes, and I see myself as I was just hours ago, sequestered inside my Hollywood cocoon, caring of nothing…

Or no one.

The smell of rose champagne—sweet and decadent—is still inside my nose, and just ten hours ago, on the other side of the country, I stumbled headfirst into the backseat of my waiting limousine, tasting the metallic iron-filled flavor rolling around on the tip of my sluggish tongue.

The familiar taste of blood.

It was as intoxicating as the tequila still in my system, and I swallowed both as I landed on the leather seats, my thoughts spinning along with my vision.

The only items keeping me tethered to earth? The tiny hands that pulled on me. The same ones that had been pulling on me all night. Acrylic-tipped nails scratched at my skin and tailored tux, turning the twitch along my skin into a veritable crawl.

But this wasn’t what I was used to. At least, for the last year.

I was an LA boy now, drunk off its bevy of beautiful women and sin as far as the eye can see.

And the woman in front of me was all sin. Blonde and buxom.

Her buttery skin barely covered by the bits of silk that clung to her most intimate places, she pushed me backwards into the waiting black limo, crawling on top of me. With a shrill “Drive” to the chauffeur, we pulled away from the chaotic scene near the curb, leaving behind a cacophony of flashing photographer lights and drunk celebrities filtering outside of the silver-plated double doors of the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, the tires skidding loudly as we peel away.

The blonde purred, rubbing her fingers across the cotton at my chest.

“You were magnificent,” Miss Acrylic whispered in my ear. “Just f*****g magnificent.”

She ripped at my cummerbund, sliding it to the floor. Another flick of her fingers, and she loosened what was left of my half-bounded bowtie, her toned thighs straddling me as I sank back into the cushions, clutching the only object that made sense in the confines of the luxury car.

My award.

Reality TV producer of the year.

I vaguely remembered drinking out of its gold surface before finding my way into Miss Acrylic’s arms. Several f**k you’s to a couple of angry-looking bouncers and many shots of Don Julio later, and I was heading God-knows-where with a very plastic-looking, life-sized blow-up doll in my lap, my bruised fists and bloody lip just a few signs of all the fun I’d been having.

I smiled, spreading more blood across my teeth. I look up at my unexpected guest with a grin.

“Am I being kidnapped?”

She blinked sweetly down at me. “More like man-napped.”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, my temples starting to throb. “And might I ask the name of my man-napper?”

She kissed the buttons of my white collared shirt, her lips sinking lower as she gazed up at me, her body sliding down mine over the elongated seats. She stared.

“Does it matter?”

I wanted to say “No, it doesn’t.” I wanted to say “Who gives a f**k?” And any other night, I would have, if it weren’t for the niggling in the back of my tequila-soaked mind, a simple thought that told me I was forgetting something. Something damned important.

But I couldn’t think about it that much.

My phone, tucked in the confines of my tux, started blaring and I fished it out of my pocket, just as Miss Acrylic’s pink lips took a detour between my legs.

I answered the call, my eyes sinking closed. “Sparrow,” I grunted.

“Holy f**k, man. I’ve been calling you all day.” Brett’s voice on my speaker breaks the silence.

“I’ve been preoccupied,” I murmured. And getting punched, I don’t add. “I won the producer award, in case you were wondering,” I told my best friend, my teeth tightening. “But you would know that if you actually brought your ass out here to LA once in a while.”

“Sparrow.” His voice sank. “We can talk about that another time. Right now, I’ve got something more important to tell you.”

“What?” I laughed, the sound long and loud. “Have you decided to take me out of my misery with this wedding s**t and elope?”

That was what I forgot. The wedding.

My best friend’s nuptials were just over two months away, the pre-wedding events even less so. The grunt I gave when my phone rang turned into a groan, and though my c**k was dangerously close to splitting the cavern of Miss Acrylic’s eager lips, the noise that grumbled in my throat was more from anger that I was losing my best friend than arousal.

He exhaled loudly. “I wish, bro.” His silence was deafening as he waited. “It’s about Marilyn.”

His words were the beginning of the end, and in the span of an hour, I’d booked a flight back to the cold streets of New York, not a bag in sight, my bowtie still attached as I ran for the next flight back to the city.

Now here, in the hospital, sweating in a five thousand dollar Tom Ford tux, the laughter has stopped, been twisted and replaced into a strange regret. The regret turns into a hardened rage when a balding man in a suit enters my sister’s hospital suite without knocking, a phony small smile on his wrinkled face.

I know that look. Can smell the lawyer on him. And as he comes closer, I hold out my hand, stopping him from approaching the doctor and me any farther. My frown slides into a scowl.

“Don’t. Don’t you even dare. Leave.” My voice is a grisly growl. I lean towards him. “Now.”

Despite my anger, the attorney in front of me is as cool as a cucumber. His graying blond hair sits proudly on top of his tanned head, and he sweeps a hand through it as he regards me with warm, steady gray eyes. He nods as if understanding.

“I don’t mean to intrude, Mr. Sparrow…”

“Then don’t.”

“But it’s about your father.”

My brow furrows, my hand lowering as the lawyer talks. I blink. My father?

“What about him?”

His stare slants at me, his skin pulling tightly at the corners of his eyes. His proud shoulders sink as he glances at the doctor beside me. His stare returns back to me.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

He sighs—a weighty sound. “Your father was in the accident, too, Mr. Suh-Sparrow.” His tongue seems to trip over my name. Maybe because it’s a bitter surname to say. Even to me. He inhales as if needing his next breath more than life, and I watch his face, reading it. As I’ve done with so many others so many times before.

The look in his eyes translates to tragedy. He glances up at me, misery hidden in his rainy irises.

“Mr. Sparrow…your father is in a coma. He’s suffered major brain damage, and according to his living will, he would like for you to…”

But the words are fading from my consciousness. Replaced by a roar that doesn’t end. I blink slowly as my vision becomes blurry and as I glance over the head of the older man in front of me, I swear I almost see a vision. A hallucination. An image in the hallway that can’t be real.

Red hair and long legs pass through my periphery across the open door, and flashes of memories I’d rather forget swirl in with the other images floating through my muddled head. None so powerful as the thought that nothing—not a goddamned thing in my life—will ever be the same.