The Truth Is...

‘Just got to the hospital, will let you know more once I talk to the doctor.

Thanks again for the ride, I’m sorry I had to leave.’

James smiled gently at his phone as he read over Claudia’s text that had come in about ten minutes ago. He had replied telling her it was okay, and that he would be waiting to hear from her later and that was all the communication the two had.

He really hated that a part of him was relieved that she had to leave, not over what had happened, but because then he didn’t have to follow through with his insane plan. Who was he kidding? Claudia would never in a million years go for a guy like him.

She made that perfectly clear with all of the guys she had dated before; complete and total opposites.

They were friends, they were better as friends, and that’s how they should stay. It made no sense to complicate things with feelings, eventually, he was sure he would stop looking at her the way that he did, he wouldn’t feel nervous every time he was around her, and eventually they could go back to normal. He was sure of it.

It was for the best.

So why didn’t it feel like it?

James shoved his phone into the pocket of his shorts and got up from the couch, he headed to the door, stopping to slip his feet into a pair of sandals and grab his keys before locking up behind him and getting in his car. He made his way out to a little bar and grill in the city, got a seat by the window in the back and ordered himself a beer and the steak special. It wasn’t steakhouse quality but James wasn’t sure what he liked about the place and their food, he just always ended up here when he needed to get away from life for an hour or so.

He took a large drink of his beer the moment it arrived and then he leaned back in his seat and sighed. Pulling his phone from his pocket when it buzzed James was expecting a text from his mother, she had text him when he was on his way home from taking Claudia to the airport to tell them that dinner was at six. He hadn’t been able to text her back yet.

This message however was from Steven.

‘So… am I gonna be third wheeling every time I visit you now?’

Sighing James replied.

‘I didn’t tell her

And I’m not going to.’

‘Come on dude, we talked about this. Grow some balls man.’

‘Her dad had a stroke.’

A second, maybe two, after he sent that text Steven called him so James answered his phone, “What?”

“Her dad had a stroke?” He asked him.

“Yeah, I got home and I guess her mom called her like right before that to tell her. She’s in Phoenix now, I don’t know when or if she’ll come back.” James explained to him, taking the opportunity to take another long drink of his cold beer.

Steven let out a sigh, “Damn. How is she?”

It was concern, James knew that, but he was annoyed with Steven even asking that for some reason. Maybe it was because he didn’t even know how she was and that really bothered him.

James simply told him, “Okay, I guess. I’ve been giving her some space, leaving her alone while she’s there. She said she would give me an update once she talked to his doctor.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?” Steven asked him and James found himself surprised by his question.

“What do you mean? She told me not to, she said she was fine.” James told him.

Steven was silent for a moment before he said, “You’re a fucking hopeless case.”

“What does that mean?” He was beginning to get a little bit defensive and it was showing in the tone of his voice.

“If it was your dad Claudia wouldn’t have allowed you to get on that plane by yourself.” Steven pointed out. James knew that, he had been thinking about that since she left.

All he told Steven was, “Claudia also gets along with my family. Her mother doesn’t exactly like me, remember?”

It was true, sure, her dad was polite enough and they got along in the rare event that they were ever in the same room but her mother flat out refused to even be in the same room as him. He had never been able to figure out why but it made things weird, so James opted to simply stay away out of respect for Claudia because the last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable or stress her out.

“I would have went anyway.” Steven told him, James knew what he was doing and it wasn’t going to work.

“We’re different people.” James muttered.

“You don’t say.” Steven told him with a chuckle, before he asked, “Well, just let me know when she updates you, okay? Do you think she would mind if I text her? Just to… I don’t know… moral support and all that?”

James smiled gently, “Yeah, I think she would like that.”

“Alright man, I’ll talk to you later.”

James tossed his phone onto the table after hanging up on his conversation with Steven, his waitress brought his meal over to him, lingering a little longer than he cared for to make sure he absolutely didn’t need anything else, as if he couldn’t flag her down later. A few months ago James would have smiled over at her and given her some charming line that would have made her flush and probably even let out one of those stupidly annoying giggles and he would have had company for the night hook, line and sinker.

But, tonight, all he wanted to do was eat, and go home and wait for Claudia to call him.

Maybe Steven was right, should he have gone with her?



Claudia had, unsurprisingly, been the last one to arrive at the hospital, she had the furthest to travel to get there seeing as she was the only one of her siblings who had left Arizona. When she arrived at her father’s room it was full already with her mother and all three of her brothers, which was probably the biggest surprise of them all.

Aaron and Marc she expected, but she never would have expected to see Eric vacating one of the chairs in the stuffed hospital room. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her brother, she did, but he had little to do with their family and was always in some kind of situation or another. He wasn’t exactly going for son of the year, in fact he regularly threw whatever help their parents tried to give him back in their faces.

Her mother didn’t even acknowledge her entrance, but she was expecting that, they had, truthfully, never really gotten along that well, they had their moments were things were normal but those were few and far between. Aaron got up when he saw her, “You’re here.”

“Yeah, I got the earliest flight I could.” Claudia told him, allowing him to wrap her into a gentle hug.

“It’s okay, you haven’t missed anything. He’s still alive, for now at least.” Claudia rolled her eyes at Eric’s words.

She turned to Marc and asked, “Are you okay?”

From what she had gotten from Aaron through text while she was waiting for her flight it had been Marc who had found their dad earlier that morning when he went to pick him up and take him out for breakfast.

Marc simply nodded, he didn’t say anything, he just moved aside to make space for Claudia between he and Aaron. That was when their mother turned to Claudia and asked her, “What took you so long?”

“I had to get a flight mom.” Claudia informed her, as if she didn’t know that.

“I called you this morning Claudia.” She told her, obviously trying to point out the fact that it was now well into dinner time.

Claudia sighed, “I was in Ontario, it was an hour just to get to the airport.”

“Well, what were you doing there? You would have gotten here way quicker had you just been in Nashville where you were supposed to be.”

After staring at her for a moment, unsure of what to say Claudia simply stated, “This isn’t my fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault, let’s just drop the conversation.” Aaron said, halting whatever tension was building up in the room before it got too bad.

Claudia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair, when all three of her brothers pulled their cell phones out to busy themselves Claudia took hers out of her bag to send James a text to let him know she had arrived and would update him once she knew anything.

Marc glanced over at her, catching the name of the person she was texting and he asked her, “You two are still friends?”

Claudia let out a small chuckle, “Yes, we’re still friends.”

“What are you planning on doing now that he’s not in Nashville anymore?” Aaron asked him curiously, adding in, “Marc and I watched the expansion and awards thing to see if they would pick him.”

Marc added, “Aaron was yelling at the TV when they selected him.”

“Must we really talk about this right now?” Their mother asked them sharply.

Eric got up from his chair and went over to her, “Come on mom, let’s go get some fresh air.”

Once they were gone Claudia asked Aaron and Marc, “Eric actually showed up? What the hell is going on?”

“We have a bet for how long it takes him to ask mom for money this time.” Aaron told her, adding in, “I said three days, Marc, ever the pessimist said before the end of the day today.”

“Tomorrow.” Claudia told them. She looked over at her dad and then she asked them, “Has the doctor said anything? What even happened?”

“No one has really said much, they just know he had a stroke. We won’t know much more until he wakes up… if he wakes up.” Marc said.

“Don’t say that.” Claudia told him, turning her attention to her younger brother.

He shrugged, “It’s the truth.”

Aaron gave a weary look before he asked Claudia, “Did you know about the first stroke?”

She whipped her head toward him, surprise evident in her wide green eyes as she asked, “What first stroke? What do you mean?”

With a sigh Aaron told her, “Mom told us when we got here. I guess he had a stroke last year, a couple of weeks after Christmas. Marc and I were on vacation, you were in Nashville and Eric was… god knows where he was. Dad didn’t want to tell us.”

“What the fuck.” Claudia stated, resting her elbows on her knees, head in her hands as she sighed.

A nurse popped her head into the hospital room to say, “Visiting hours are over, you can come back at nine tomorrow morning.”

So they each got up, Claudia grabbing her bag, she reached out to give her dad’s hand a quick squeeze before she followed them out. As her mother headed back in the room Claudia looked over at Aaron and her quirked eyebrow made him explain, “Mom’s staying the night.”

“Oh.”

“I have the guest room at my place ready for you.” Aaron told her, and when she went to argue he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and told her, “Don’t, it’s no trouble at all. It might be kind of nice to have you around. The house is kind of empty with Cheryl gone back east.”

“She’s not here?” Claudia asked him in surprise.

“I told her not to come, it’s just a whole lot of sitting around so there was no point in her cutting her visit with her family short for it.” Aaron told her and when Claudia shot him a look he went on to say, “You didn’t bring James.”

“We aren’t together.” Claudia reminded him, and he nodded his head slowly as they got into his truck.

Rolling her window down Claudia rested her arm on the window’s edge as Aaron asked her, “So you’re probably gonna wrack up a lot of frequent flyer miles over the next year, huh?”

Her brow raised, “For what?”

“With James in Vegas… I figured you would probably be going to visit him a lot.” Aaron told her slowly, surprised by the fact that he even had to explain that to her.

Claudia shrugged, “I guess, I don’t really know yet.”

“Know what, if you’re gonna visit your friend?” Aaron asked her in amusement and when Claudia shrugged again he told her, “Alright, spill it.”

She sighed and said, “I’m kind of weighing out the pros and cons of possibly going with him.”

“What, like moving to Vegas?” He asked her in surprise. When she nodded her head he said, “I mean… I would be cool with that. It would really be nice having you closer.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s the biggest thing for me… but I don’t know, that’s a big decision and I haven’t made it yet.” Claudia told him honestly, because she really hadn’t even come close to a decision yet.

Every time she felt like she was starting to lean one way or the other something happened that drastically tipped the scale right back to neutral again.

This latest incident with them sleeping together had done just that. In fact, actually, it had for a moment tipped the scale over to the moving side just a little more until James had made it perfectly clear that he really didn’t have any interest in that type of a relationship with her. The scale was teetering between no answer and staying in Nashville now.

When they arrived at Aaron’s house Claudia let him take her bag into the guest room and then they sat on the couch with a six pack of beer on the coffee table. Claudia used the bottle opener to pop the top off of hers while Aaron used the edge of the table next to him and then he leaned back in the couch and asked her, “So you were visiting his family?”

“We did our usual summer vacation and then decided to head out to see his family for a few days. I felt really bad that I didn’t get the chance to see them much while they were out during the playoffs.” Claudia explained to him.

“Yeah… that was some rough shit for him. The playoffs I mean.” Aaron told her and she nodded her head in agreement. He then added, “You know… Vegas plays the Yotes October seventh.”

“They do?” Claudia asked him. She tried to play dumb, like she hadn’t checked the schedule the minute they were released. She knew exactly when they played in Nashville December seventh, and hosted the Preds January second, she had every date they played in St. Louis, Columbus, and Chicago memorized because those were doable drives for her in the event that she stayed in Nashville.

Claudia had everything figured out except for the most important question of all; would she move to Las Vegas again?

Aaron paid no mind to her silence, he simply told her, “I was thinking maybe if he had time he could come by for dinner. I’m sure he would enjoy a home cooked meal for once… Cheryl would be cooking, by the way. Be sure to tell him that.”

She let out a small chuckle and then she told him, “I’m sure he would really enjoy that. I’ll let him know.”

“Have you talked to him yet?” Aaron asked her, adding in for unnecessary clarification, “Since getting here, I mean.”

She shook her head, “No, it’s late there. I’ll call him in the morning.”

“You should call him now Claud, he’s probably waiting.”

She sighed and picked up her phone, she sent him a text to see if he was still awake and half a minute later she received a response saying that he was. So she got up, taking her beer bottle with her as she slipped out onto the back deck of her brother’s home and called James.

He answered on the second ring, “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Eh, you know.” Claudia told him, he didn’t but he nodded his head despite the fact that she couldn’t see it. Claudia continued, telling him, “Sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it, I knew you would call once you had a minute.” He told her, and his words made her smile gently. He then went on to ask her, “How is he?”

“We don’t know yet, he hasn’t woken up yet.” Claudia told him, she sat down on one of the patio chairs, took a drink from her bottle of beer and then she told James, “He had a stroke last year, wouldn’t let my mom tell us about it.”

“What? When?”

“After Christmas. I don’t know, Aaron told me.” Claudia told him, bouncing her knees up and down as she spoke.

James asked her, “So what happened? This time, I mean.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s common to have more than one. He had breakfast plans with Marc, when Marc went by the house to pick him up he was just on the floor in the porch. We have no idea how long he was there, nothing.” Claudia told him, she was thankful to have someone else to talk to about this, someone who wasn’t really going to be affected by what she was saying.

“Jesus. How’s Marc?” James asked her with concern, and it made Claudia smile gently. She loved that he got along so well with her brothers. Well, two out of three of her brothers.

“Okay, I guess. He hasn’t really said much, not that I really expect him too.”

James told her, “He’ll be okay, he’s a tough kid.”

“Yeah, he really is.” Claudia agreed, nodding her head. She couldn’t help but ask him, “Hey, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“What?” He asked her, she could picture his brows furrowed when he spoke.

“This morning, you came home and said you wanted to talk to me about something. It sounded important.” Claudia reminded him and James went quiet.

He froze, he didn’t know what to say, so he chose to say nothing for a moment. But then he knew that saying nothing would raise more suspicions so he told Claudia, “It was nothing, really. Not important at all.”

She hesitated, because she knew there was more to it, and she asked him, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He told her, adding in, “You should get some sleep Claud. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay, goodnight James.” She waited until he said goodnight back, before she hung up, finished what was left in her bottle of beer and then she headed back inside.

She took her spot on the couch again, cracked open another beer, Aaron was already halfway done his second one, and he told her, “You should do what your heart tells you.”

“What?” She asked him, turning to face him with surprise on her face. He didn’t speak like that.

He shrugged, “With your decision about moving or not. For once, Claud, ignore what your head is telling you, it’s too damn logical. Just do what you really want to do.”

The problem was her heart wanted to go for all of the wrong reasons and his heart wasn’t interested in them.