A Sulawesi Romance

Chapter 25

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Third Person POV

"Someone get a doctor for him, please!" Gun yelled at no one in particular as he and Mark rushed to lift his stepfather from the floor.

The lobby receptionist who had seen what happened, paged for a nurse and soon a nurse accompanied by two orderlies pushing a gurney arrived and lifted Boat and placed him onto the gurney.

"Can we accompany him inside?" Gun asked the nurse.

"Not yet," the nurse replied. "Wait here in the lobby. We will page for you when he's ready to leave the ER. What is this patient's name and how are you related to him?"

"His name is Mr. Tara Tipa and my name is Gun. I am his step son," Gun supplied the information.

"Thanks," the nurse said, pulling out a mini note pad and a pen from her uniform pocket and writing down Boat's and Gun's name.

"Why don't we go and see your mom while waiting for your stepfather to be released from the ER," Mark suggested to Gun.

"Yes, I think that's a good idea," Gun agreed. "We will hear ourselves being paged from there anyway."

Mark and Gun approached the lobby receptionist and asked in what room Gun's mother was. They were informed that she was in one of the rooms in the Intensive Care Unit and that unit was on the fifth floor.

When they reached the fifth floor, they approached the nurse's station and informed the nurse behind the counter that one of them was the son of one of the patients under their care. Gun gave the nurse his mother's name and the nurse told him in which room his mother was.

Mark held Gun's hand as they approached Gun's mother's room.

"Be careful," Mark advised Gun when Gun freed his hand from Mark and rushed to his mother's bedside.

Gun bent and embraced his mother, sobbing quietly, wordlessly.

Mark approached as well, running his hand comfortingly up and down Gun's back.

It was a long time before Gun straightened himself and turned to Mark.

"I feel guilty about leaving her for a long time," he confessed to Mark. "I hope I wasn't the cause for her present condition."

"No you're not," Mark assured him. "Don't beat yourself up over something that you have no control over."

Suddenly they heard Gun being paged over the hospital intercom. He was being instructed to proceed to the ER.

"I will stay here with your mom. Go and attend to your stepdad," Mark advised Gun. "Only one visitor is allowed inside the ER."

"How do you know that?" Gun asked Mark, not wanting to go to the ER by himself.

"When my grandfather was in the ER, I accompanied my mom to bring him there and we were told that only one of us could go inside to see him," Mark replied.

Boat was conscious and sitting up in the ER patient bed when Gun went to see him.

"I'm sorry," Gun and Boat said at the same time to each other.

Boat stretched out his arms and Gun went and accepted his embrace.

"You smell stinky," Gun said moving out of his stepdad's arms.

Boat laughed. "I know, I haven't gone home since I rushed your mother here."

"Let me bring you home so that you can take a shower and have something to eat," Gun offered.

"Thank you, Gun," Boat said. "I'm sorry that we got off to a rough start. We need to get to know each other more and to patch up our misunderstandings."

"Sure," Gun said, holding out his hand with his palm opened.

"What do you want?" Boat asked.

"Your car key," Gun said with a chuckle. "Did you think I was asking you for money?"

Boat laughed, fishing out his car key from his pocket and handing it to Gun.

Before leaving the hospital Gun texted Mark to let him know that he was driving his stepdad home and would come back to the hospital right after.

The drive home was silent for some time.

Just before Gun turned into the driveway, Boat asked Gun without looking at him, "Are you and your employer's son an item?"

"Huh???" Gun could not help feeling surprised at the personal question.

"I'm your stepdad, you know," Boat said with a teasing smile. "Don't you think I'm entitled to ask that question?"

"Um... um ..." Gun did not know how to answer the question that came out of nowhere. He actually didn't know how to tag his and Mark's relationship to each other.