Hook, Line, and Sinker (Flirting with the Zodiac Book 1) Read online

  The room was silent for a few beats, before there was loud applause from further down the table. Everyone turned to see Myrtle, hands high above her head, clapping as hard as she could. “Bravo,” she said, landing her hands on the walker and wheeling her way toward them.

  “Mother,” Larry growled at her as she made her way down the table, but she waved him off. She shuffled right up to Lawrence, held her arms wide. Her smile was almost as wide as he leaned into the hug, surprise all over his face.

  “Gran?”

  She pulled back, her hands clapping to his cheeks, and she shook him just a touch, that smile still plastered to her face. “You did it,” she said, her warbling voice dripping with pride.

  “Did what?”

  “Stood up for yourself,” she replied, still beaming.

  Ty and Lawrence shared a glance.

  She shook her head. “You’ve always been a people-pleaser, Laz, to the point of fault. Won’t stand up for what you want, let other people shunt you around.”

  “Gran …”

  “If you can’t stand up for what’s important, what makes you happy, how can you lead the business? One word from a board and you’d stumble all over yourself.”

  Her smile faded; her eyes glistened, and she pressed her lips together. “Sometimes,” she said, “those decisions affect hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s so easy to make the wrong choice.”

  She hung her head. “Lord knows I did it, time and again. How could I leave you in charge of those tough decisions, ones that may not even seem to affect you, if you can’t stand up for the things that matter in your own life?”

  “I don’t understand.” Lawrence shook his head.

  She patted his cheek; her smile returned. “I meant what I said at your reception. You’ve been in love with this boy since you met him. But you were quiet, let everyone else talk about him behind his back, even though …”

  She paused again, clucking her tongue. “You could have said something sooner. But you never did. If you won’t even stand up for the man you love most, how could you ever run the business?”

  Lawrence shook his head. “Gran, the will.”

  “What about it?”

  “The clause, about the heir, that Mother had you—”

  “Me?!” Ethel cried. “What are you even talking about? I didn’t have her change the will, you—”

  “Like hell!” Ty clenched his fists.

  “Of course she didn’t!” Myrtle barked. “I did it!”

  “Gran!”

  A look of fury came across her face. “I put that clause in there of my own free will so you’d get your act together and marry that boy!”

  “What,” Lawrence wheezed.

  “What,” Ty echoed.

  “What did she say?” someone else near the back of the room whispered. “I can’t hear her.”

  Myrtle lifted her head. “You really thought I’d put something in my will that I didn’t want in there? That someone could suggest something like that to me?”

  “Well,” Lawrence started.

  “I put the damned clause in there, Lawrence, because you couldn’t get your head out of your ass!”

  “Mother!” Larry cried.

  “You can’t just assume two people are going to get together!” Ty roared, balling his fists. “What did you know about it?! What if he’d already said something and—”

  Lawrence rubbed his temples. “Gran, you can’t just force people together. Ty’s right, you didn’t know anything about the situation at all, oh my God—”

  Whispers were building to Ty’s left, and he glanced out at the crowded Trafford dining room, caught a couple of the gossipers staring at him wide-eyed.

  Ethel cleared her throat. “Lawrence, do you care to explain what in the heavens is going on here?”

  Myrtle whirled about. “I changed my will to dis-inherit him if he couldn’t man up and marry the boy, Ethel.”

  “But,” Ethel said, her mouth turning down in a deep frown. “I don’t understand.”

  “They were acting like schoolchildren, too shy to tell each other anything.”

  Ethel just went on frowning. Larry cleared his throat. The room hushed, everyone looking at Myrtle.

  Then their gazes shifted back to Ty and Lawrence. “So,” Chaz drawled at last, “you two confessed and lived happily ever after?” His face was pinched with skepticism.

  “No!” Lawrence cried.

  “We just got married,” Ty huffed.

  “And,” Chaz said, gesturing with his hand. Ty turned furiously pink.

  “Consummated it, clearly.” Frankie eyed Ty suspiciously again.

  “But you don’t love each other,” Ethel pressed, something triumphant rising in her voice. “This was all just … an arrangement.”

  Ty gritted his teeth, then glanced at Lawrence, who gave him a look that was just as guilty.

  “I …”

  “We …”

  “Oh!” Myrtle cried and collapsed in a heap.

  ***

  Lawrence paced up and down the hospital hall. His footsteps echoed down the empty corridor. When he paused, Ty could hear the electric lights buzzing above them.

  “Will you stop,” he ground out. Lawrence had been pacing since they arrived—hours ago—and it was driving Ty mad. He shifted again, trying to get comfortable on the long bench.

  “Sorry.” Lawrence paused to give him a guilty look, then started pacing again, his shoes squeaking against the tiles.

  “Lawrence.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m worried! They took her in there hours ago and it’s been ages since anyone’s talked to us and—”

  “I know.” Ty pointed to the bench. “Sit your ass down.”

  Lawrence stared at the bench, then plonked down onto it. He sighed and buried his head in his hands. “What if she …”

  “She’s an old woman.” Ty lifted his head. “She lived a good life.”

  “How can you be so callous?” Lawrence buried his face again.

  “It’s true.” Ty folded his arms, shifting around again. He couldn’t get comfortable. Fucking hospital benches and brick walls.

  Not that he would have likely been much better at home; the backache from earlier seemed to have grown, intensifying as it crept up his spine, burrowed between his vertebrae. He shuffled again, then glanced at Lawrence. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine,” he said at last. “I mean, if she was dead, they would have been out already.”

  “Ty!”

  “It’s true!”

  Lawrence shook his head, then offered him a smile. “You’re right,” he murmured.

  “They’re obviously working hard,” he said, then got to his feet. “I’m gonna find a bathroom.”

  “Down the hall, to your left.”

  “Thanks.” He shuffled off down the hall, glaring at any of the nursing staff who dared to give him side eye. They’d tried taking him into a room when he and Lawrence had arrived at the hospital. It hadn’t helped that Ty spoke no French, and Lawrence had been flustered—typical of a new father, Ty was sure.

  He paused in front of the mirror. It was long after one, and his face showed it. He rolled his shoulders back, braced his hands on his low back, and stretched.

  That ache just wasn’t letting up. He relieved himself as quick as he could, then shuffled back to where Lawrence was waiting. “They just took her to recovery,” he whispered as Ty sat down. He linked their hands, squeezed.

  “Great.” Ty slumped against the wall. “Does that mean we can go home and get some sleep? I feel like the walking dead here, Laz.”

  “I just want to see her,” Lawrence murmured, “be here when she wakes up.”

  “Okay,” Ty said softly.

  “You could just tell them you’re in labor,” Lawrence said. “They seemed pretty happy to put you up on a bed.”

  Ty snorted. “As if.”

  “Another half-hour,” Lawrence murmured, and Ty nodded, then dropped his head, pretended to get some sleep
.

  Twenty-Four

  He didn’t get any sleep, not even after they left the hospital. The ache in his back had solidified into a stab, and nothing seemed to relieve it. He tried lying down, then sitting with cushions, then pacing up and down the hall, until Lawrence yelled at him to come to bed.

  So he’d lie down again, only for the pain to flare up once more. Then he’d rolled around and try to prop himself up. And then, when that was unbearable, he crawled out of bed and paced the hall again.

  The third time, he was braced against the wall when Lawrence finally came to find him. The only thing keeping him upright was the garish yellow wallpaper of the chalet.

  “Ty? Are you okay?” Lawrence’s hair was wild; he was squinting with sleep still.

  Ty swallowed, then wheezed with pain. He shook his head.

  “What’s going on?”

  “My back,” he breathed.

  “Oh,” Lawrence said, then landed one of his warm hands over the small of Ty’s back. He massaged light circles, calming, gentle. “Well, I can rub it, so come back to bed and—”

  Ty lurched forward with a sharp cry. Lawrence caught him as he stumbled into the wall, barely righting him. “What’s going on?”

  Ty slid a hand under the curve of his belly, swiped away blood with his fingers. “Oh fuck,” he breathed, turning away. He heaved a few times, desperately struggling not to throw up.

  “Ty?”

  “I think I’m in labor,” he whimpered, watched Lawrence’s face twist with fear and something like disappointment.

  “No, no,” he said, shaking his head, and Ty nodded slowly. Lawrence clutched at his hair. “What do we do? Go to the hospital? Call a midwife? What do …”

  “Call my father. Get him on the next shuttle.”

  Lawrence frowned. “Your father’s never had kids, do you really think he’s—”

  “Call him.” Ty turned so his back was against the wall. The cool of it was nice, seeping into his skin. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes. “I trust him. I don’t trust the doctors here. Those nurses freaked out when they realized I wasn’t a human. I bet most of them have never seen a Piscean in their lives. Not like there are a heck of a lot of us around.”

  “Ty—”

  “Call him and then take me to the goddamn hospital, Lawrence!” He screwed his eyes shut as the pain sank deeper into the spaces between his vertebrae, throbbing through them as they expanded. “I’m gonna puke.”

  Lawrence was still standing there, wringing his hands, when he opened his eyes again. “Laz, please.”

  “I—okay.” He looked around desperately. “Should I get the car or call an ambulance or?”

  “Just do something,” Ty groaned.

  “I … I’m gonna … call the ambulance!” He tripped back into their room, apparently grabbing his phone or something. Ty didn’t care, so long as they got somewhere, found someone who could make the pain stop. He slung an arm under his belly, felt blood against his skin.

  He was so not ready for this.

  “Dr. K was right that you shouldn’t have traveled,” Lawrence muttered as he stepped into the hall again, and Ty glared at him. “They said fifteen minutes.”

  A pause. Then, “Ty, I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t start,” Ty gritted out.

  “We shouldn’t have come,” Lawrence continued. “We should have listened to Dr. K, your parents. I’m so sorry, Ty, I’m—”

  Ty shook his head. “We can argue about this later. I’m in a lot of pain.”

  The color drained out of Lawrence’s face. “Do you want to lie down? You’re bleeding. Fifteen minutes, do you think—”

  “Walk with me?” Ty asked, eyeing the other end of the hall.

  “Walk? Are you sure?”

  “Walking helps,” he murmured. He wasn’t sure if it actually did or not, but it was better than lying there thinking about pain, blood, what his body was doing.

  “We should pack a bag,” Lawrence said.

  “Didn’t unpack,” Ty murmured, then shifted his weight, wincing as the pain sharpened and stabbed into him, lancing above his kidneys and splitting him open.

  Lawrence offered him his hand.

  They ambled down the hall, Ty pausing more than once. They reached the end of the corridor and peered out into the night, the moon glimmering off the thick snow that blanketed the entire Alpine village. Ty heaved another breath, and Lawrence squeezed his hand tighter. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Ty spat, glaring at him. “Just have knives wedged between all of my internal organs, it’s fine.”

  The other man grimaced, then followed him back down the hall, to the opposite window. Here, the darkness was deeper, the shadows thick. Ty rubbed absently at his belly, grinding his teeth together as he wished for something, anything to move in the cold, snowy landscape—any distraction.

  Lawrence settled a coat over his shoulders, then gestured toward the door with his head.

  “Oh, thank fuck,” Ty whimpered, “drugs.”

  Lawrence coughed and spluttered. “You can’t say that!” he cried.

  “I don’t care, Laz! They can stab me in the spine all they want!”

  Lawrence’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and Ty peered over his shoulder to find several Trafford relatives were nosy enough to have assembled at the top of the stairs. They were peering down at them now, not least among them Ethel and Larry.

  “I told you he was an addict,” Ethel muttered.

  “Mother!” Lawrence cried, then grabbed Ty by the arms before he could change his mind about heading outside to the ambulance and climbing the stairs to sock her one.

  “You try having a baby!” Ty barked.

  “I did!” she hollered back. “We used a surrogate!”

  “You can’t judge me!” Ty cried, and Lawrence almost shoved him into a snowbank. He glared. “Do you mind?”

  Lawrence closed the door with a bang. “I know she’s awful, but maybe you could try not fighting with her for five seconds?”

  “I’m irrational, I’m in pain! I’m gonna fight anyone who wants to say anything ’cause this—hurtttssss, real bad.” He doubled over, clutching at his abdomen, trying to breathe through it.

  The two paramedics were standing there, eyes wide. “Monsieurs,” the one said, “which of you …”

  “Him,” Lawrence said, pointing.

  The paramedics exchanged a look. Ty rolled his eyes. “I’m bleeding!” he cried, shook his hands for emphasis.

  “Ah,” one of them said. The other hustled back into the ambulance. “Now, monsieur, was there an accident, or …”

  “I’m pregnant,” Ty said, glancing at Lawrence.

  “Oh.” The paramedic’s mouth was a perfect, round “o.” She shook her head, then fumbled for words. “We don’t do that.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t do that?!”

  She kept shaking her head. “Non, non,” she said. “We don’t work with your kind.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?! My kind?!”

  Lawrence stepped between them. He already had his wallet out; he handed the woman some crisp notes. “Here,” he muttered, “please. I want a private room for him, and you can call in whatever specialists you have to.”

  She shoved the money back at him. “Non. We don’t have his kind.”

  “Fuck you, you—”

  “You are not human! We do not have blood!” she cried, shaking her hands. “Or medications that are right for you! You react, you will die.”

  “Oh no,” Lawrence said.

  Ty sat down in the snowbank. The snow turned to ice around his fingertips; they ached and throbbed as he dug them in, gulping down air as fast as he could.

  He was going to give birth in a snowbank, on the lawn of the Traffords’ fancy alpine chalet, because humans were completely unprepared to deal with a Piscean, and …

  “I should have stayed home,” he sobbed, “I shouldn’t have come here, my parents were right, I’m so
rry—”

  “Oh, starfish, don’t cry—”

  “It hurts, it hurts so bad, Laz.”

  Lawrence’s hands were warm around his. “It’s okay, Ty, sh. We’ll figure it out, it’ll be fine.”

  “I know someone.”

  They both glanced at the paramedic. She looked steadfastly at the ground. “You are Piscean? I know someone who can …”

  She sucked in a breath, then looked up at them. “Help.”

  ***

  Half an hour later, Ty was in another nondescript chalet on the other side of town. This one was far dingier and crowded, which made the Traffords’ look like a mansion. He might have cared a little more about the stains on the mattress he was lying on or the overpowering scent of rue, but hell, he’d do anything to make the pain stop. It had been a knife twisting into him for what felt like hours nonstop now, and the midwife (or whoever the hell this person was) had promised him it was only going to get worse.

  He couldn’t imagine worse. He didn’t think it could get worse.

  More annoying, Lawrence was having a hushed discussion with the midwife outside the door, so they’d left him to deal with the pain and the whispers of their conversation. He could hear some syllables, but not others, and it was infuriating. He kicked his heels into the mattress and ground his teeth as one of them dragged over another sibilant s. He hated snakes, and he was going to strangle both of them when this was over.

  Or maybe stab a knife into Lawrence’s kidney to show him how it felt, oh fucking hell. Why had he signed up for this?

  The door creaked open and he screamed, then sobbed, because he was in enough pain without his ears being assaulted as well.

  Lawrence crouched down beside him, whispering, “Hey, so I called your dad, and—”

  Ty’s fist connected with his cheek, and Lawrence almost toppled over, his blue eyes wide as dinner plates. “Fuck you,” Ty spat, “he could have been here by now. Why didn’t you call him when I asked you to?”

  “He couldn’t have been here by now, fishy—”

  “It’s been forever,” Ty growled, then jammed his heels into the mattress again. “He could have been here. Are you trying to torture me? Why are you making this worse?”