The Hook-Up (Part Two)

Chapter 274

That next Friday Lauren sat on the floor of their house picking through Bruno's shirts packing for him. Everlee sat on one side of her and Ezra sat on the other each holding different toys playing with them by themselves. She folded the shirts watching the babies smiling at them. "Laur! I'm done with dinner, bring the babies...." she heard Bruno's voice from the other side of the house.

"I'll be there in a second!" she yelled picking the babies up forgetting that she had thrown both her phone and his phone off to the side of the clothes burying them within his neatly folded clothes. "Come on loves. Let's go eat and get you to bed. We have a busy weekend..." she told them balancing both of them on her hip. Walknig out of the room she found Bruno coming toward them.

"One day they're going to be too big for that..." he smiled at her taking Everlee from her watching her hand pull his hair almost instantly. "Ouch." he said pulilng her hand away. "Let's go eat, Evee."

The family of four sat down to eat the meal Bruno had impressivly made for them. After eating they set the babies down in the pack and play off to the side of the sink to clean the dishes. Through the running water they heard a ring near the gate button. "Who is that?" she asked watching him hit the button.

"It's Jamie..." he said going to the front of the house to let her in.

"Kiki...what's wrong?" Bruno asked seeing his sisters pile into the house.

"You weren't answering your phone!" Tahiti yelled at him with tears in her eyes.

"What's going on?" Lauren walked into the room holding both babies the same way she was earlier. "What?" she asked reaching for Tiara's shaking hands. "Sit down...." she motioned to get everyone to the living room.

"You weren't answering your phone...." Jamie got out again.

"That's not why you're over here. You knew we were just at home..." Bruno said watching Lauren sit down next to Tiara who whispered to Lauren. He watched Lauren's expression change from concerned about everyone to the same whiteness they all shared.

"Bruno. Your mom...." Lauren gasped. "Your mom...."

"Mom....." Presley got out reaching for Ezra who was starting to crawl away from their presence.

"What happened?" he asked picking Ezra up to hold him. "What happened? Is she okay? Oh my god...." he clutched Ezra even harder as he tried to wiggle out of his arms. "Is she okay?!" he yelled. "Where's Eric? What's going on?"

"We don't know yet, Brunz. She's in the hospital. They said that she wasn't feeling good this morning and when she went over to Mama's house she fell. Mama had to call the ambulance..." Jamie finally calmed down enough to tell him what was wrong.

"Oh my god." he said almost crumbling to the ground with the baby in his arms. Lauren jumped up to get Ezra holding onto both of them at the same time. "We'll go, Bruno. We'll go. Just hold on." she tried to calm him down feeling him almost start to fall again. "Hold on baby...." she continued feeling Tahiti reach between them to take Ezra from him.

"We're leaving at midnight...." Jamie told them. "We have everything in the car....we'll help you pack." Jamie said seeing Zyah sitting down with his cousins unsure of exactly why they were all together.

"Stay here with Bruno, Tiara...we'll go pack..." Lauren said seeing that she was the most stable of the siblings. Lauren wanted to make sure that he was with someone that could take care of the babies while she ran off to pack everything.

"Do you know what happened?" Lauren asked Jamie as she threw the clothes she had not finished packing for Bruno into the suite case. "Grab me those other bags. There should be enough space for everything in what we have out..." Lauren said finding their phones picking them up to see the texts from all his siblings. "Oh...." she read through the texts feeling herself get nervous and scared in the same what everyone else was.

"No. We don't know what happened. She wouldn't go to the doctor. We've been trying to get her to go just to get a check-up. But you know us and how stubborn we are." Jamie laughed.

"I know. Y'all are very stubborn." Lauren smiled handing Jamie the phones. "Don't let me lose those again." she told Jamie.

"Yeah. We can't lose those." she said hearing everyone heading toward the bedroom.

"Laur...do you need help?" they heard Bruno's cracking voice.

"No. We have it. Go see if you can talk to someone at the hospital to find out what happened..." she told him handing him his phone. He took the phone watching Everlee's hands grab it before he could. "Hey, Evee. Stop." Lauren laughed pushing it toward Bruno. "Go..." she said almost pushing him out of the room. "I just need the space to get everything packed. I have it. We'll be ready soon." she said almost yelling feeling herself trying not to cry. "I'm fine...." she almost yelled.

"Take her..." Bruno said handing Jamie Everlee. "I'll help her." Bruno could sense that the breakdown that he had the second he heard about his mother was going to hit Lauren any second. Bruno reached over to Lauren to hug her tightly. "She's going to be okay, Laur. It will be okay..."

"I know...." she got through her tears. "But I need to be strong for you and I can'ttttt..." she cried. "I can't."

"We're going to get through it together, Elle." he said through his own shaky voice still holding onto her. "We don't know what's wrong...."

"Well we need to let go of each other so I can pack..." she said feeling suffocated by his embrace. "Just stay right by me. We'll get through it, Bruno. We'll get through it...." she said holding onto his hand throwing things in bags with him. " After finishing the bags she turned to see Bruno sitting in the cushy chair by the window. "Bruno?" she asked.

"We're ready. Let's change the babies and go...." she watched Bruno look at her like he did when he was trying to apologize to her. His eyes looked broken and his hands shook against the arm rests.

"She didn't go to the doctor when we were there because of the wedding...she canceled her appointment..." he said feeling as though he was to blame for whatever happened.

"She had a year to reschedule that appointment, Bruno. It's not your fault. It's not our fauilt." she told him taking his hand leading him to the front of the house where the twins were asleep and the older children were sitting by the TV watching a movie. "Let's go." she told everyone waiting feeling Bruno holding onto her more tigtly than he ever had. She leaned over to his ear. "I'm not leaving your side, Bruno."