Loyalty

Chapter 23: Circus.

"Seriously, though, I'm going to be okay. We're going to practice. And I don't think TruTV would agree to anything that would put us in actual danger," he told me.

"I still don't like it," I stated.

"To be honest with you, I'm not too thrilled about it either," Brian admitted, "But I'm doing it for my favorite charity."

"I know how much that means to you."

"Giving back means a lot, and $100,000 is a lot of money. It's the only reason why I would agree to do anything like this. It might be a little dangerous, but I've been in dangerous situations before. I can handle it," he told me.

I know that Brian was trying his hardest to reassure me, but it wasn't helping. There was nothing he could say to get me to stop worrying about him. I love him, how could I not be concerned for his well-being?

"Well, I'll be there rooting for you, but I'm still going to be worried," I confessed.

"You'll see, I'll win that money, and make you proud," he proclaimed.

"You don't have to win an obstacle course, or even $100,000 to make me proud of you. I'm already proud of what you've done, and what you guys do every single day. It doesn't matter if you win the money, you're already a superhero to me," I told him.

"Thanks, Jess. I love you," he told me, as he gave me a gentle, reassuring kiss on the forehead.

"I love you too, but don't do anything stupid out there," I told him.

There was no point in arguing about it. The boys had already made up their mind and agreed to do this show. All I could do now was sit back, and hope that nothing would go wrong.

-----

A few weeks later, the guys went away for a couple of days to train for the Nitro Circus Spectacular. I was getting used to being away from Brian at times, but I still missed him. But more than me missing him, I was worried about him, or any of the other guys, getting hurt. Brian was constantly trying to reassure me that everything would be okay. He even made jokes that the worst thing that would happen is Joe collapsing, since he's so out of shape. I was constantly told that I was just worrier. Maybe I was being overly dramatic, but something in my gut told me that this whole thing wasn't right.

I went to work, hoping that it would keep my mind off worrying about Brian. I was getting calls and texts from the guys throughout the past few days. They were trying to keep me calm. Since I was keeping myself busy at work, I didn't have my phone on me the entire time. But when I did happen to look over at it, I saw three missed calls from Sal, and a text that read:

Call me right now. It's important.

When I read this message, my heart dropped. I immediately called Sal back. But the few seconds he took to pick up, felt like an eternity I knew something had to be wrong. I had a million things running through my mind. Was Brian hurt? Was one of the other guys hurt? How serious was it?

"Jessica?" Sal answered.

"Sal, what happened?" I asked him.

"Well... Brian had a little mishap with an ATV..."

"What do you mean a 'mishap'? What happened? Is he okay?" I asked.

I went into panic mode, speaking so frantically that I was probably barely understandable. But Sal was trying to calm me down.

"The ATV flipped over onto him, and he was stuck underneath it for a few seconds while they tried to get it off him. The doctors think he might've broken his ribs. But he got up and walked after, which is a good sign," Sal explained.