Once they were in the parking garage elevator at the hospital, Katherine couldn't help but wonder how Mr. King got the information about her father during the phone call he received. She knew he was a pushy megalomaniac, but usually the hospitals only released information like that to immediate family.
"How did you find out so much about why my father was in the hospital? Surely they don't go around breaking protocol for just anyone," Katherine asked as she pursed her lips, looking over at him.
Mr. King turned his head, looking at her with the slightest of smirks on his lips.
"What?" She asked him, rather curious as to why his disposition brightened all of a sudden.
"I may have told them I was your husband," he said evenly as he looked ahead once again, the elevator coming to a stop and the doors opening.
Katherine stood inside the elevator car, her mouth agape as Mr. King stepped out into the hospital.
"Are you coming, Miss Mason?" He turned to ask her. Katherine took a deep breath and let it out hard. That man had serious nerve.
"We're not done with that conversation," she told him, her voice low as they walked up to the front intake desk.
"We're here to see Roger Mason," Mr. King told the front desk nurse.
"Are you family?" She asked, looking up, her mouth falling slightly agape as she took in all the beauty that was Mr. Harrison King.
"I am his daughter," Katherine told her quickly, wanting to roll her eyes at the effect he had on the female population. The woman was practically salivating over him.
"Roger Mason is through those doors and around the corner in bed two," the woman said, looking up at Katherine, pursing her lips together.
Katherine could tell a judgmental look when she saw one. Her father was no saint. Katherine paid it no mind though. She needed thick skin to be her father's daughter.
"Come," Mr. King said, putting his hand against the small of her back to lead her through the ER doors.
"I can go back by myself," she told him, shaking his hand off of her.
"Must you be so stubborn?" He breathed in her ear as he continued on next to her, opening the door for her.
"Must you be so stubborn?" Katherine retorted as the two of them turned the corner.
She stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she heard the sound of her father's voice, cussing out a nurse that was probably only trying to help him.
"God damn it," she growled and picked up her pace.
"Listen here, honey! I was paying my dues for this country before you were even born! Get out of here! Leave me alone!" Her father yelled at the woman trying to adjust his blood pressure cuff on his arm.
The two police officers that were stationed by his bed were just about ready to jump in as Katherine walked up.
"Dad!" She snapped, a scolding tone in her voice. His head turned quickly once he heard her, his hazy eyes searching for her.
"What are you doing?" Katherine hissed in a hushed tone as she swiftly walked up to the side of his bed he was handcuffed to.
"Katy. Oh, Katy Cat," he cooed, his demeanor going from angry to content in an instant.
"What happened? What did you do?" She asked him impatiently, her eyebrows furrowed in concern and anger as her eyes racked up and down his blanketed body.
"Are you family?" The nurse asked her.
"Yes. I'm his daughter. W-what happened?" She asked her quickly, watching as she looked up at the policemen.
"And him?" She asked, nodding over at Mr. King.
Katherine looked over at Harrison, wondering how she would explain him.
"Uh, my... significant other?" She lied, it coming out more like a question than anything.
"Alright," the nurse said.
Mr. King's pensive eyes watched her until she turned her head to focus back on the nurse.
"Your father was under the influence of alcohol and got behind the wheel tonight, nearly killing an entire family when his car veered across the median and hit them head-on," one of the policemen spoke up.
Katherine could hear the disapproval and disgust in the man's voice as he spoke of her father, and she couldn't blame him. He probably already had the pleasure of being belittled and berated by him, on most likely more than one occasion as he stood there. Her father was not a pleasant man.
"Oh my god," Katherine gasped, her hand coming up to her mouth.
"None of them died!" Her dad spat angrily at the officer.
"Are you crazy? Are you crazy!?" Katherine yelled at him, smacking him in the arm repeatedly.
"Katy! Jesus Christ!" Her father shouted, trying to deflect her hand as it hit him.
"Ma'am," one of the officers said, trying to stop her, but even in her shocked state she knew he wasn't too concerned with getting her to stop hitting him.
"Katherine," she heard Mr. King's voice as he gripped onto her arms and pulled her back from her father.
"Mr. Mason has a broken ankle and minor cuts and bruises. Once his leg is set, he should be fine to be released in police custody," the nurse spoke up.
"And the other family?" Katherine asked, her voice trembling as tears welled in her eyes.
"The brunt of it lies with the father who is in the ICU with minor brain trauma. The mother and the children escaped with very little scrapes and bruises," the nurse informed her.
"Brain trauma? Oh my god," Katherine gasped, feeling an immediate pain in her heart. Her father completely changed that entire family's life in an instant. She wanted to puke.
"He is conscious, though having a little trouble remembering what happened," the nurse went on to say.
"Like amnesia?" Katherine asked her.
"See, he doesn't even remember it!" Her drunk father spat out viciously.
"Shut up!" Katherine snapped at him as she stepped forward, ready to hit him again, but Mr. King held her back.
"Yes. A mild amnesia. It's not likely to be permanent. At least we hope," the nurse told her.
"Oh my god," Katherine gasped as she quickly wiped at the tears that were threatening to fall.
The nurse quietly excused herself as the police officers stood watch at the end of her father's bed. She felt Mr. King's hand on her shoulder comforting her, and although she wanted him to stay in the car away from her crazy father, she was almost glad he was there with her.
"Who are you? Are you fucking my daughter? Is that why you're here?" Her father snapped all of a sudden, looking straight at Mr. King.
"Dad!" Katherine snapped at him.
"What the hell is this guy doing here, Katy? Do you even have any respect for me?" He scoffed loudly, his bleary eyes narrowed at his only daughter.
"Dad..." She growled, feeling so much annoyance and unrelenting embarrassment.
"Bringing your dirty laundry here. Dirty... agh... can't get any goddamn peace..." he grumbled, almost incoherently by the end.
"You should apologize to your daughter," Katherine heard Mr. King speak up.
"What the hell did you just say to me?" Her father growled, his eyes going manic as he stared back at him.
"You should apologize to your daughter," Mr. King said more sternly this time.
"Harrison, don't," Katherine warned, turning to him, his given name slipping off of her tongue without thought.
"I don't have to do anything! If my daughter doesn't have enough respect for me to not bring assholes like you around, then she can leave and so can you! Filthy whore, just like her mother," her father pressed on, making Katherine want to crawl under a rock and die.
In a split second, Mr. King bypassed Katherine and gripped onto the front of her father's hospital gown, sticking his nose right in his face. Mr. King was nearly lifting his upper body off the bed and Katherine could feel the animosity and anger radiating off of him.
"You will apologize," Mr. King growled, his voice coming out fierce and indignant.
"Whoa. Step back, sir," one of the officers stepped in quickly.
"Harrison!" Katherine yelped, gripping onto his arm, trying to pull him back.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Face," her father hissed callously, his eyes narrowed dangerously at Mr. King. Oh, god. This wasn't good.
"Sir, step back," the same officer said, his hand placed on his nightstick.
"Harrison, please," Katherine pleaded, tugging on the arm of his suit jacket.
With a violent shove, Mr. King let go of her father's hospital gown and took a step back, looking at Katherine for just a split second. She could see the fire in his intense eyes, and it scared her.
"Pathetic – the both of ya," her father grumbled, and Mr. King took a quick step forward, making her father flinch away from him.
"Harrison! That's enough," Katherine shouted, gripping onto his arm. And surprisingly he let her pull him back.
She had to get him out of there. He had already seen too much of the shambles her life had been with her father in it. For so many years, this is what she dealt with, with no help from anyone else and now Mr. King was completely ready to fight her father for her. It was unnerving and, if she was being honest, a little flattering. But she couldn't let him do that.
Katherine pulled Mr. King down the hospital hallway with her, all the way back to the waiting room.
"Please wait for me here," she told him sternly.
She could see the anger in his eyes, his jaw clenched, his knuckles nearly white from gripping them so tightly into fists.
"Please wait. I will be right back," she said more calmly.
He blew out a heavy breath through his nostrils and nodded his head. She was surprised how easily he complied. She was almost sure he would insist on going back there with her or demand that they leave that instant.
"Thank you," she told him before she made her way back to the ER doors.
Katherine turned her head to look back at him just once, seeing him run his hands violently through his hair as the anger radiated off of him. She let out a sigh as she pressed forward through the doors and headed back to her father's bed.
"How dare you!" Katherine shouted lowly at her father.
"Katy," he cooed, trying to sweet-talk her, pretending everything that just happened, didn't happen.
"No! Do not 'Katy' me. That is my boss, Dad. My boss!" She yelled at him.
"I don't like the way he looks at you," he stated, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child.
"I don't care what you like or dislike, okay. You are an embarrassment," she snapped at him.
"Katy," he breathed, his mouth falling open slightly. And it looked as though he might actually cry from her words, which of course made her feel bad immediately.
"Gahhh, Dad," she sighed, shaking her head, looking away from him.
"Katy, I'm sorry," he apologized quietly. She took a deep breath and a step back.
"Sometimes sorry just isn't enough. And tonight your drinking could have killed someone – multiple people. I am ashamed to be your daughter right now. Absolutely ashamed," Katherine told him, her voice quivering with emotion.
There weren't many times in her late adolescence and adulthood that she wasn't ashamed to be his daughter. But this— this definitely took the cake.
"Katy, please," he whimpered, looking at her with his sad watery eyes.
"I will not stand by you on this. You're destructive. You're going to end up killing yourself or someone else," she pressed on, really letting him have it.
"Please don't—" He choked out.
"You can spend the night in jail. And please, do not call me to bail you out. Because I won't," she told him finally before she walked away with him shouting her name after her.
Once she was out of his sight, Katherine stopped and took a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves, before pushing through the doorway, heading back into the waiting room. Mr. King was standing by the wall, still looking overly stressed. She walked up to him and it took him a moment to realize her presence, but when he did, he just looked at her, his brown eyes softening immediately.
"I would like to go now," she told him quietly. He nodded his head and the two of them made their way back to the parking garage in silence.