She laid her hand on his arm. “The campaign won’t kick into gear for a few more days. This is your time to be a father. Maybe make up for some of those things you lost.”
“He told you.”
“Yes.”
His lips curved. “One of the things I’ve always appreciated about you is your brutal honesty, Evelyn.”
“It’s not my job to pass judgment on you, Senator. But you do have some relationship building to do with Gray.”
“He still resents me.”
“That’s not for me to say. But he does need you right now. And that’s purely my opinion. It would mean a lot to him that you’re here.”
“I’m worried about him. There’s no place I’d rather be right now than here.”
“Good. I’ll take care of things on the campaign end. I’ll call you or text you if anything urgent comes up.”
“Thanks.”
She took off, but she wanted to be at the hospital.
As she climbed into her car, she stared up at the rooms of the hospital.
She’d always loved her job, and when she was away from it longed to be back at it.
This was the first time she resented her job.
She wanted to be with Gray. And her job was getting in the way of that.
TWENTY-EIGHT
CRUTCHES SUCKED.
So did having bodyguards and a f**king entourage of people who treated him like he might collapse any second. But those were his doctor’s orders—and his parents’, and the only way he was going to be allowed to attend the convention.
At first he’d argued with his father, who told him it was absolutely unnecessary for him to be there, that it was more important for him to focus on his recovery.
He’d been surprised as hell to find his father lingering at his bedside for so many days, when the most important political campaign of his career was happening. But his dad had told him that the accident had scared the hell out of him, and he’d wasted enough time on politics and hadn’t spent enough time with his son. A son, his father admitted, that he might have lost that day. And he’d already lost enough time with Gray. So the campaign could just go f**k itself.
Gray had laughed at that, though it had hurt like hell to laugh.
Maybe Gray had been blind to his father’s overtures all these years, because there was no way in hell the old Mitchell Preston would have allowed anything—not even Gray’s accident—to stand in the way of him becoming the vice presidential nominee.
Granted, it wasn’t happening right after his accident, but face time with the media and with the delegates was so important.
Still, his father wouldn’t budge, not even after Gray had been discharged from the hospital two days later and had been comfortably put up at a suite at the conference hotel. Being the prospective vice presidential nominee had its privileges, including getting an extra suite at a hotel that had been sold out a year in advance.
His father had hired him a private doctor and nursing staff to oversee his care, which was totally unnecessary. He had a residual headache from the concussion, his leg had been set in a cast, and the ribs would eventually heal, though the ribs were what hurt the most.
That and his pride. Losing out on this year’s championship utterly sucked. He hated letting his team down. But Ian had been to the hospital and had come up to the suite and told him the crew were just relieved he hadn’t died in that crash, a crash that had come about because of the circumstances of racing and nothing more. Cars got too close and bumped and sometimes the younger racers weren’t paying attention. Hell, he couldn’t even blame Cal McCluskey, who hadn’t even been in his vicinity at the time of the crash, though he’d been wrecked, too.
Though apparently the crash had had a sobering effect on Cal, who’d hit the wall six cars back. He said his reaction time had been bad, that he could have avoided it if he hadn’t been drinking the night before. Cal admitted to being an alcoholic and had ended his race season early, deciding to enter rehab.
It was a good choice—the right choice. Gray hoped Cal cleaned up and came back to racing the next season. He was a good, hard competitor and Gray wanted to see him come back clean.
As for Gray, he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he’d been the one to take the hit. A really bad hit that had cost his team the championship.
Fortunately, he already had another driver lined up to drive the number fifty-three the rest of the season, because he sure as hell wouldn’t be doing any driving. The thought made him itchy and restless, but there was nothing he could do about it. And they were fortunate to have a week off so Ian could get Alex Reed ready and give him some practice time in Gray’s car.
He was damn lucky to get Alex, who didn’t have a full-time ride this year. Alex would do a great job driving for him the rest of the season.
Next year, though, Gray would be ready to climb back into his own car and kick some serious ass.
In the meantime, he was free to soak up the convention.
Pretty impressive stuff. Lots of speeches, which weren’t really his thing, but since he was holed up in the hotel, he got to watch Evelyn in action. He hadn’t told her he was at the hotel, and hadn’t spoken to her since he was discharged from the hospital.
She was busy doing her job and he didn’t want to get in her way, so he had his mother tell her that he was headed home to Daytona, that he was tired, and they’d touch base after the convention.
His thought was to surprise her, that maybe she’d get a few free minutes and he could hold her, kiss her, and finally have that conversation he’d wanted to have with her after the race on Sunday.
Except the race hadn’t turned out like he’d expected, and they’d never had a chance to talk. He also knew her schedule here at the convention, since she was right by his father’s side. She was running constantly, meeting with delegates and press and working on that whole social media thing she did so well. So he sat back and did his recovery thing and kept tabs on her while also working on a few surprises for her that he’d maybe spring on her after this was all over with.
His dad stopped by several times a day to see how he was doing, a fact that still shocked the hell out of him. He wouldn’t say they were close as a father and son should be yet, but his dad had gone out of his way to make Gray a priority, and that meant a lot to him, especially since his father had zero expectations of Gray making an appearance on the convention room floor. In fact, his dad had expressly forbidden it, which made Gray laugh since he was well past the age where his dad could forbid him to do anything he had a mind to do.