Fighting a New World

34

Jax's POV

I was in a pretty good mood for once.

Work had been slightly better, no drawings of any of my boyfriends all day, no rude customers, and no walk ins.

I had decided to celebrate by stopping by the store and getting some ice cream so we could have an early movie night but the second I walked in, the happy mood I was in disappeared. 

Liam looked just as confused as I did but Callum was scolding Ryder for some reason. Ryder honestly looked like he was on the verge of crying but Callum didn't seem to notice as his voice slowly began to grow in volume.

"Okay let's take a deep breath real quick," I butt in as I place my shopping bag on the table along with Liam's. "Who wants to fill the rest of us in on what happened?"

Callum turned to Liam and me with a pissed off expression before sighing and handing us a piece of paper.

"We have to come up with a thousand dollars in three days," he said as he flopped down on the couch. My breath hitched in my chest as I took in everything on the paper.

"Why did this come from a hospital," Liam asked as he looked over my shoulder. "None of us have been to the doctor's since we got here."

"It's for my mom," Ryder mumbled.

I honestly didn't know much about Ryder's mom other than the fact that a few years ago she was really sick. I kind of thought she was already passed on since he never got to call her and he never got any letters.

Callum's face changed as if he didn't know the reason either before now which made me a little mad. He was always the first one to say don't yell until he was the one yelling.

"Is she okay," Liam asked as he looked up from the paper and began walking closer to Ryder who now had tears balancing on his water line.

"She's still breathing on her own. This is just for routine treatment and equipment," he mumbled as he leaned into Liam's chest.

"Have you been going to see her?" Ryder only nodded. "Why didn't you ask us to come with you? I know it couldn't have been easy to do on your own."

"Because you were all busy and I didn't want you to get your hopes up about her. Things are starting to get bad and I didn't want you to be affected."

I can't help but sigh as I let the paper fall onto the table before joining Ryder and Liam in on their hug.

"We're going to be affected regardless," I point out as I play with his hair. "If it hurts you, it's going to hurt us too. If you had told us when you first found out we could have helped more. I could have gone ahead and budgeted it in; we could have changed our work schedules to go with you. We could have helped you look for insurance and anything else you needed." He mumbled something but since he was pressed against Liam's shirt I can't make it out.

Three days to come up with a shit load of money. I had a way to do it but I wasn't looking forward to it.

"We can talk over the secret keeping in a minute," Callum sighed as he pushed off the couch and joined us. "For now, how are we going to pay this? I'm not letting us miss a payment, especially the first one. They'll be a lot less forgiving from now on if we are late on the very first bill."

"It's actually only 75. I've been saving the money from the bookstore to go into the bills. I almost had all of it covered but I forgot that jobs take out taxes."

My chest immediately felt less heavy. $75 was a lot more reasonable than a thousand.

"How are we going to do it, Jax?" Liam asked as he looked up at me.