After Forever & Ever

Chapter 109

Tessa-Present

I absolutely hate that I am at work and Hardin is in surgery. I know it's a minor one but still.

He was definitely off this morning which I mean understandable he was going in for surgery but he seemed sad.

I have been trying to stay busy until I hear from Trish that he is out of surgery. They said it would be about an hour.

She calls at about the hour and 20 minute mark...and said he was out of surgery in the recovery room...she was just waiting until they let her go back there.

She said the surgeon came out and said that everything went good.

Now I am just waiting for him to call me...

I step out of my office to grab a coffee and just as I am about to walk past Vance's I hear Hardins name so I stop.

"Well do you want me to come there?" He questions slightly raising his voice and that gets me extremely worried.

"Well I don't know what exactly it is your talking about since you won't tell me but we don't know how he will be off his meds so just don't bring anything up that will upset him." Vance tells Trish.

"He doesn't hate you." He says.

"Trish what happened?" He asks firmly.

"Okay let me know how he is." He says and hangs up.

I stop in his office... "hey was that Trish?" I ask playing dumb.

"Yea..." he replies annoyed.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"Nothing...Tess. I need to get back to work." he says brushing me off.

So I don't push it and I walk out and grab coffee from the staff lounge. I know he is worried about Hardin and whatever is going on with Trish and Hardin which is stressing him out even more.

Ill feel better myself once I talk to Hardin.

I go back to my desk and do the work that needed to get done for the day and I check in on Vance at the end of the day and he is on the phone yelling at someone it sounds like a client...which isn't good so I keep walking.

As soon as I get in the car my phone starts ringing and its Hardin.

"Hey babe how are you feeling?" I say into the phone.

"Hey....yea I'm good." He responds.

"How did the surgery go?" I ask him.

"Fine...just in pain." He says in a super unemotional tone.

"So they couldn't give you anything right?" I ask him.

"They gave me tylenol about an hour ago.." He responds annoyed.

"Just try and relax I am sure it will start feeling better soon." I tell him.

"I'll call you back the doctor is coming in." He says and hangs up.

Hours pass by and I don't hear from him. So I text him 'Hey are you free to talk, what did the doctor say?'

Still no response.

It isn't until 10:45PM he finally calls back. "Hey what happened?" I ask him.

"Sorry." He simply responds in a unapologetic tone.

"Okay....Well are you home?" I ask.

"Yea...I'm laying down. I feel like shit though...but I wanted to at least call you back." He tells me.