Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The next three days of my life went by in the blink of an eye.

All right, a blink if you had pink eye.

I woke up, and each of the days, I tried to jump rope, had to stop every ten seconds then start again as I accepted I was nowhere near the top tier of physical conditioning above sea level. Then I had breakfast, showered, and went to work.

Work was . . . Parts of it were good. The parts where I got to talk to Clara and catch up with her were my favorite. Rekindling a friendship with her was like breathing. It was effortless. She was just as funny and warm as I had hoped.

We didn’t get to talk much. By the time I arrived every morning, she was hectic in trying to have everything organized before opening. I helped her as much as I could, and we squeezed in questions as she made explanations about stocking and what the store carried, which was everything imaginable and everything unimaginable.

Had I gotten my boobs done?No, they were the same C-cup I’d had since they’d stopped growing at fifteen, held up by what was basically a Wonderbra.

Did I bleach my teeth?No, I used straws all the time and brushed my teeth three times a day.

Had I ever gotten Botox done because she was thinking about it but wasn’t sure?No, but I knew a lot of people who had and wasn’t sure I would do it. I also told her she didn’t need it.

I would have asked her things too, but she’d squeezed in so many details that first day I’d walked in that there weren’t too many other things I felt comfortable asking about so soon.

In the years since we’d last seen each other, she had gone to college in northern Colorado for nursing, moved to Arizona with her boyfriend, gotten married, and then he’d passed away too soon afterward. Since then, she’d moved back to help take care of her ill dad and run the family business, and—this was where she’d been vague and I’d bet it was because her niece had been there—shortly after that, Jackie had moved in. Her older brother got a job as a long-distance truck driver and needed somewhere safe and constant for her to stay.

Having worked for people that I cared about and loved before, I already understood how to listen and follow instructions without letting them get to me or affect my pride. But Clara was great. Literally great.

We’d made plans to hang out away from work sometime soon, but she had to get someone to stay with her dad because he couldn’t be left alone for long periods, and the nurses and aides who usually stayed with him during the day were already working too many hours with her being at the shop literally all the time since she didn’t have reliable help.

I remembered her dad and wanted to see him; she said that he would love to see me too. She’d told him all about how I was back, and that just made me want to help her that much more, even if I was pretty sure I was only one step above her previous shitty employees. My only saving grace was literally that, even though I was useless and constantly having to ask her questions eighty times a day, the customers were all sweet and patient. One or two were a little too friendly, but I was good at—and unfortunately used to—ignoring certain comments.

When Clara wasn’t running around the shop talking to customers, we talked about the store. When she asked about my life, I told her bits and pieces, tiny fragments that didn’t exactly piece together properly and left plot holes the size of Alaska, but luckily the store was busy and she got distracted constantly. She hadn’t grilled me yet on what happened with Kaden, but I had a feeling that she had an idea since I was avoiding the topic.

That part of my new start in Pagosa was great. The Clara part of it. The hope I felt in my heart. The possibility of new connections.

But actually working at the store . . .

I’d come into my new job being realistic. I had no idea what the hell I was doing working at an outdoor outfitter. For the first ten years after I’d moved away from Colorado, the closest I got to doing outdoor activities were the times I’d gotten on my uncle’s boat. Over the last ten, I’d gone to a beach a few times, but we’d stayed at upscale resorts that served pretty and ridiculously expensive drinks.

My mom would have disowned me, now that I thought about it.

I had never felt more like an imposter than I did working at the shop though.

Today, someone had asked me about a wade trip, and I’d literally stared at them blankly for so long, trying to figure out what they were asking about, that they had told me not to worry about it.

Fishing. They’d been talking about a fishing trip, Clara had explained to me with a pat on the back.

An hour later, someone asked for recommendations on tent hammocks. There were different kinds of tent hammocks?

I’d had to run to ask Clara to help them even though she was busy with another customer.

What kind of fish are there around here? Little ones? I had no idea.

Which hikes could a sixty-five-year-old woman handle?Short ones, maybe?

Was it too late in the season to go rafting?How should I know?

I had never felt so useless and dumb in my life. It was so bad that Clara had finally told me to work the register and run to the back if Jackie—a fifteen-year-old who was clearly more capable than me at everything—asked me to get anything from the storeroom.

And that was what I was doing, standing at the register, ready to check someone—anyone—out as Jackie handled some fishing rod rentals and Clara helped a family with some camping gear purchases—I’d been eavesdropping a ton and considering bringing a notebook with me to work to take notes I could go over at home—when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out.

The notification wasn’t for a phone call or a text but for an email.

Thenmy hackles rose.

Because it wasn’t just some spam email or a newsletter from a company.

The name of the sender was K.D. Jones.

The man who had called me his wife in private and around loved ones.

The man who had promised to really marry meone day when his career was just right and a relationship wouldn’t hurt his wittle fanbase. “You understand, don’t you, beautiful?” he’d reasoned time after time.

That fucker.

Delete it, some part of my brain instantly said. Delete it and pretend you didn’t see it.Nothing he says is anything you want to hear.

Which was true.

His last email was an example.

There was literally nothing I needed to hear from him. Nothing that would benefit me. Nothing I wanted other than to possibly hear him admit that he had gotten to where he was, at least in part, thanks to me. But honestly, I would have gotten a hell of a lot more satisfaction hearing those words from his mom’s mouth than his.

Everything that needed to be said between us had been laid out almost a year ago.

I hadn’t heard from him until recently.

Fourteen years and he’d dropped me cold turkey from one day to the next.

But the nosey motherfucker that lived in my body said, Read it or you’re going to wonder what he wanted. Maybe someone had cast a curse on his dick that made him impotent and he wanted to see if it had been me so I could remove it. (I wouldn’t.)

Then the smug voice inside of me that had reveled in how poorly his last two albums had been reviewed reared her pleased face up and said, Yeah, you know what he really wants. I knew damn well what the most important thing in his life was. The voice in my head had a point. I did know. I’d been imagining this happening, even while we’d still been together, when he had first started to pull away. When I was pretty sure his mom had decided to start phasing me out slowly.

They had no idea what they’d done, what they’d almost completely taken from me, even though I didn’t feel any grief over it.

Delete it.

Or . . . read it first and then delete it?

Maybe get mad if he was being an asshole? If that was the case, it wouldn’t be unexpected and it would only be a reminder that I was better off now than I had been. I was a winner anyway, right?

I was here. I was without people who hadn’t contributed to my happiness in too long. I had my entire future ahead of me, ready and waiting for me to take it.

There were a lot of things I wanted and nothing stopping me from getting them but patience and time.

But . . .

Before I could talk myself out of it, I clicked on the message and braced myself, pissing myself off so that whatever he said couldn’t make me angrier.

But there were only a few words in the email.

Roro,

Call me.

And for one microsecond, I thought about replying to him. Telling him no. But . . .

No.

Because the best way to get under his skin would be to just not reply.

Kaden hated being ignored. More than likely because his mom had spoiled him every day of his life and gave him just about everything he ever asked for, and everything he didn’t. He’d gotten too used to being the center of attention. The pretty boy everyone fawned over and fell over to please.

So instead of deleting the email, knowing I wouldn’t be tempted to reply to him, I left the message where it was because Aunt Carolina would ask to see it. Yuki would too so she could cackle. Nori would tell me to keep it so one day when I was feeling down, I could look at it and chuckle to myself at how the mighty had fallen. I set my phone back into my pocket.

Yeah, he wasn’t asking for me to call because he couldn’t find his social security card or had a hex on his dick, and I knew it.

I smiled to myself.

“What’s that smile for?” Clara whispered as she came around the counter where the register was.

The family she’d been helping waved as they went by. “We’re going to think about it, thank you!” one of the two moms said before leading her loved ones out.

Clara told them to call if they had any more questions, waiting until they were out before turning to me.

I couldn’t help but smile again and shrug. “Kaden just emailed me. He asked me to call him.” I had thought this situation over in my head a few times since we’d reconnected, and I’d decided that sticking to the truth was the only way to go.

She knew about our relationship because I’d told her about him before he’d gotten famous, back when I’d been able to post pictures of us online, before his mom had come up with the idea of painting him as an eternal bachelor. Before they had asked me, so sweetly, so kindly, to please remove all the pictures I had up of us together.

Clara had noticed.

She’d contacted me and asked if we’d broken up, and I’d told her the truth. Not saying what the “plan” was but just that we were still together and things were fine. But that was all she’d known.

And I knew I had to explain it all to her, if I was planning on staying here.

Lies had fragile, little legs. I wanted a foundation.

Clara raised an eyebrow as she leaned a hip against the counter, stretching her dark green collared shirt with the name of the business above her breast. She’d brought me one of her old ones and promised to order new ones. “Are you going to?”

I shook my head. “No, because I know it will bother him. And there’s nothing he would need to tell me anyway.”

Clara scrunched up her nose, and I could see the questions in her eyes, but there were too many customers still around. “Did he try calling you?”

“He can’t because”—this was all part of Things She Could Know—“his mom disconnected my line the day after he said things weren’t working anymore.” Didn’t even give me a warning or anything. I had been packing up to leave when it had happened. “He doesn’t have my new number.”

She winced.

“My family and friends would never give it to him either; they all hate him.” Nori had said she knew someone who knew someone who could make me a voodoo doll. I hadn’t taken her up on it, but I’d thought about it.

Clara’s expression was still troubled, but she nodded seriously, flicking her gaze around the building quickly, like a good business owner. “Good for you. What a jerk—his mom, I mean. Him too. Especially after how long you were together. What was it? Ten years?”

True. Too true. “Fourteen.”

Clara grimaced just as the door opened and an older couple came in. “Hold on. Let me go help them. I’ll be back.”

I nodded, and I was lingering over my hope that his mom was sweating his career when I happened to glance up to find Jackie staring at me strangely.

Very, very strangely.

But just as soon as we made eye contact, she smiled a little too brightly and looked away.

Huh.

I spent the car ride back to my garage apartment thinking more about everything that had gone wrong in my relationship.

Like I hadn’t already done that enough and sworn not to do it again after almost every time. But some part of me couldn’t move on from it. Maybe because I’d willingly been so blind, and it bothered some subconscious part of myself.

It wasn’t like there hadn’t been signs leading up to his declaration that things weren’t working anymore. The highlight of that final conversation had been when he’d looked at me seriously and said, “You deserve better, Roro. I’m just holding you back from what you really need.”

He’d been fucking right that I deserved better. I had just been in some serious denial back then, asking him to stay, to not give up on fourteen years. Telling him I loved him so much. “Don’t do this,” I’d pleaded in a way that would have horrified my mom.

Yet he had.

With time and distance, I now knew exactly what I’d dodged in the long run. I just hoped my ultra-independent mom would forgive me for having stooped so low to keep someone around who obviously didn’t want to be there. But love could make people do some crazy stuff, apparently. And now I had to live the rest of my life with that shame.

Anyway, done again thinking about it, I followed my navigation carefully back to the garage apartment because I still didn’t have every turn memorized and the driveway to the house wasn’t exactly well marked. A couple nights ago, I’d tried to drive back without it and had gone about a quarter of a mile farther than necessary and had to pull into someone’s driveway to turn around. After that final turn off the dirt road, the crunch of gravel under my tires sang me a song I was slowly becoming familiar with. For one brief moment, it felt like a word started to take shape on my tongue, but the sensation disappeared almost instantly. It was fine.

I frowned as the main house came up through the windshield.

Because sitting on the steps was the Amos kid.

Which wouldn’t have been a big deal—it was a nice day out, especially now that the sun wasn’t directly overhead baking everything under its rays—but he was hunched over, arms crossed over his stomach, and it didn’t take a mind reader to know that there was something wrong with him. I’d seen him yesterday on the deck again, playing video games.

I watched him as I parked my car off to the side of the garage apartment, tucked in as close as I could get it to the building so that his dad wouldn’t be inconvenienced.

I got out, nabbing my purse and thinking about how the man, Mr. Rhodes, didn’t want to be reminded that I was staying here . . .

But when I got to the other side, the boy had his forehead pressed to his knees, curled into a physical ball about as much as someone who wasn’t a contortionist could be.

Was he okay?

I should leave him alone.

I really should. I’d been lucky not to have gotten busted the day he’d shared aloe vera with me or the other times we’d waved at each other. Leaving them alone was the one thing his dad had asked of me, and the last thing I wanted to do was get kicked out ahead of time and—

The kid made a sound that sounded like pure distress.

Shit.

I took two steps away from the door, two steps closer to the main house, and called out, hesitating and ready to hide around the back of the building if the game warden truck started coming down the driveway. “Hi. You okay?”

Nothing was exactly the response I got.

He didn’t look up or move.

I took another two steps and tried again. “Amos?”

“Fine,” the kid choked out, so raggedly I barely understood him. It sounded like there were tears in his voice. Oh no.

I sidled a little closer. “Usually when someone asks me if I’m okay and I say I’m fine, I’m not fine at all,” I said, hoping he understood I didn’t want to be annoying, but . . . well . . . he was curled up in a ball and didn’t sound right.

Been there, done that, but hopefully for very different reasons.

He didn’t move. I wasn’t even positive he was breathing.

“You’re kind of scaring me,” I told him honestly, watching him as fear rose inside of me.

He was breathing. Too loudly, I realized when I took another two steps closer.

He grunted, long and low, and it took him over a minute to finally reply in a voice I still barely understood. “I’m good. Waiting for my dad.”

My uncle had said he was “good” when he’d had kidney stones and had tears streaming down his face while he sat on his recliner, ignoring our pleas to go to the doctor.

My cousin had once said he was “good” when he’d jumped out a moving truck—don’t ask—and had whatever bone his shin consisted of sticking out of his leg as he bawled in pain.

What I should do was mind my own business, turn around, and go inside the garage apartment. I knew that. This stay here was already on a rocky road, even if Mr. Rhodes had been decent and helped me with my dead battery—I still hadn’t gotten the corrosion off, now that I remembered. I needed to do it on my next day off.

Unfortunately, I had never in my life been able to ignore someone in need. Someone in pain. Mostly because I’d had people who hadn’t ignored me when I’d felt those ways.

Instead of following my gut, I took yet another two steps to the teenager who had gone behind his dad’s back and given me the opportunity to stay here in the first place. It’d been a crazy, sneaky thing to do . . . but I admired him for it, especially if he’d done it to buy a guitar. “Did you eat something bad?”

I was pretty sure he tried to shrug, but he tensed up so violently and grunted so loudly, I wasn’t positive.

“Do you want me to get you something?” I asked, eyeing him closely, alarm still bubbling inside of me at the noises he was making. He had on another big black T-shirt, dark jeans, and worn white Vans. None of that was alarming though. Just the shade of his skin was.

“Took Pepto,” he gasped before I swear on my life he whimpered and clutched his stomach closer.

Oh, fuck it. I cut the distance and stopped right in front of him. I’d had the stomach flu more than a few times in my life, and that shit was something, but this . . . this didn’t seem right. He was scaring me now. “Did you vomit?”

I barely heard his “no.” I didn’t believe him.

“Did you have diarrhea?”

His head jerked, but he didn’t say anything.

“Everybody gets diarrhea.”

Okay, what stranger—especially a teenage boy—wanted to talk about diarrhea with someone they had literally met less than a month ago?

Maybe just me.

“You know, I got food poisoning from a sandwich I bought at a gas station in Utah a month ago, and I had to spend an extra night in Moab because I couldn’t stop using the bathroom. I swear I lost ten pounds that night alone—”

The kid made a choking sound, and I couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or a groan of pain, but he sounded a little quieter as he muttered, “I don’t.” He made the savage, painful sound again.

Apprehension gripped the back of my neck as the kid hunched over even more a moment before he started panting through his mouth.

All right.

I crouched down in front of him. “Where does it hurt?”

He gestured toward his stomach somehow . . . with his chin?

“Have you farted?”

That choking sound rattled from his throat again.

“Does it hurt on the left, right, or the middle?”

His words were gritted. “Kinda right.”

I pulled out my phone and cursed at the fact that I only got one bar of cell phone service in this spot. Not enough to use the internet but hopefully enough for a call. There was Wi-Fi, but . . . I wasn’t going to ask what the password was when he could barely speak.

I hit the contact for Yuki, thinking she was the only person I knew who constantly had her phone on her, and fortunately she answered on the second ring.

“Ora-Ora-Bo-Bora! What are you doing? I was just thinking about you,” one of my very best friends answered, sounding pretty damn chipper. But of course she should. Her album had hit the number one spot three weeks ago and was still hanging in there strong.

“Yuki,” I said, “I need your help. What side is your appendix on?”

She must have heard the distress in my voice because the humor disappeared from hers. “Let me find out. Hold on.” She whispered something to what had to be her manager or assistant before putting the phone back to her face after a few moments. “It says mid-abdomen, right lower abdomen, why? Are you okay? DO YOU HAVE APPENDICITIS?” she started to shout.

“Fuck,” I muttered to myself.

“ORA, ARE YOU OKAY?”

“I’m fine, but my neighbor is sweating big-time and looks like he’s going to puke, and he’s clutching his stomach.” I paused. “He doesn’t have diarrhea.”

The boy made another choking sound I wasn’t totally sure was appendix-related and was more than likely caused by me talking about diarrhea again. I had enough nephews to know that as savage as they could be, they got shy about bodily functions sometimes. And the way he’d been talking to his dad a couple weeks ago, how he’d talked to me too, I had a feeling that maybe he was just shy in general.

“Oh thank God. I thought it was you.” She whistled in relief. “Take him to the emergency room if he looks that bad. Is he bloated?”

I pulled the phone away from my face just a little. “Do you feel bloated?”

Amos nodded before he let out another whimper and pressed his face closer to his knees.

Of course this would happen to me. I was going to get kicked out for talking to this kid, and I wouldn’t even be able to regret it.

“Yes. Say, Yuki, let me call you back. Thank you!”

“Call me back. Miss you. Good luck. Bye!” she said, hanging up immediately.

Slipping my phone back into my pocket with one hand, I put my free one on the boy’s knee and I gave it a single pat. “Look, I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like it might be your appendix. I don’t know though, but honestly, you don’t look well, and I think you’re in too much pain for it to be, I don’t know, something else.” Diarrhea. But I think he was fed up with me saying the D-word in front of him.

I was fairly positive he tried to nod, but he groaned in this way that had my armpits starting to sweat.

“Is your dad on his way?”

“He’s not answering.” He let out another grunt. “He’s at Navajo Lake today.”

I knew the lake wasn’t far from Pagosa, but service was sketchy all over Colorado, I was starting to learn. Is that why he thought his dad was on his way? “Okay. Is there someone else we can call? Your mom? Another parent? Family member? A neighbor? The ambulance?”

“My uncle—oh fuck.” He let out a cry that somehow went straight into my heart and brain.

I couldn’t hesitate anymore. This wasn’t good. My gut said so. The only thing I knew about appendix issues was that, if one ruptured, it could be deadly. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. But I wasn’t willing to screw around with his well-being.

Especially not when his dad wasn’t answering and couldn’t make an executive decision.

I stood up and then bent back over to slide my arm under his shoulder blades. “Okay, okay. I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re scaring me big-time. We can’t risk waiting around.”

“I don’t need to—oh fuck.”

“I’d rather take you and there’s nothing wrong than having your appendix rupture, okay?” I would rather his dad kick me out for communicating with him than this kid die or something else terrible.

Oh my God. He could die.

Okay.Time to go.

“Do you have a wallet? ID? An insurance card?”

“I’m okay. It’ll pa—fuck! Holy fuck,” he groaned long and deep, the length of his body tensing with a cry that took another bite out of me.

“I know. You’re fine, but come on anyway, okay? I don’t want your dad to see me trying to put you in my car while you fight me and think I’m trying to kidnap you. He’s not answering, so we can’t ask him what to do. I can try and call your uncle on the way, is that okay? You said something about calling your uncle, right?” I asked, tapping his shoulder. “You can’t die on me, Amos. I swear I won’t be able to live with myself if you do. You’re too young. You have too much left to live for. I’m not as young as you, but I’ve still got at least another forty years left in me. Please don’t let your dad kill me either.”

He tipped his head and looked at me with big, panicked eyes. “I’m going to die?” he whimpered.

“I don’t know! I don’t want you to! Let’s go to the hospital and make sure you don’t, okay?” I suggested, knowing I sounded hysterical and was probably scaring the shit out of him, but he was scaring the shit out of me, and I wasn’t as much of an adult as my birth certificate said I should be.

He didn’t move for so long I thought for sure he was going to keep arguing and I was going to have to call 911, but in the span of a couple of breaths I sucked in through my nose, he must have come to a decision because he slowly tried to climb to his feet.

Thank God, thank God, thank God.

There were tearstains down his cheeks.

He moaned.

He groaned.

Grunted.

And I knew I saw a couple fresh tears stream down his sweaty face. He had the beginnings of his father’s sharp features, but leaner, younger, without the rugged maturity. One day he would though. He couldn’t fucking have his appendix rupture on me. No way.

The teenager leaned against me big-time, whimpering but trying his damnedest not to.

The fifty feet to my car felt like ten miles, and I regretted not driving over. But I got him into the passenger seat and leaned over to strap his seat belt on. Then I ran around the back and got behind the wheel, turning it on and then pausing.

“Amos, can I borrow your phone? Can I try to call your dad again for you? Or your uncle? Or your mom? Anybody? Somebody?”

He pretty much threw his phone at me.

Okay.

Then he muttered a few numbers I figured were his lock code.

He leaned against the window, his face this pale bronze that bordered on a shade of green, and he looked about ready to projectile vomit.

Fuck.

Blasting the air-conditioning, I grabbed an old grocery bag from under my seat and set it on his leg. “In case you want to throw up, but don’t sweat it if you don’t make it. I was thinking about trading this in anyway.”

He said nothing, but one more tear made its way down his cheek, and suddenly, I wanted to cry too.

But I didn’t have time for that shit.

Unlocking his phone, I went straight to his recent contacts. Sure enough, his last call had been to his dad about ten minutes ago. There was still barely just enough cell service for a call, and I tried again. It rang and rang. This was my luck.

I glanced at the boy as a standard “The caller you are trying to reach is currently unavailable” recording popped up, and I waited for the beep.

I could do this. It wasn’t like I had another choice. “Hi, Mr. Rhodes, this is Aurora. Ora, whatever. I’m taking Amos to the hospital. I don’t know which one. Is there more than one in Pagosa? I think he might have appendicitis. I found him outside with a lot of stomach pain. I’ll call you when I know where I’m taking him. I have his phone. Okay, bye.”

Well, that lack of information might come back and kick me in the ass, but I didn’t want to waste time on the phone explaining. There was a hospital I needed to find and get to. Stat.

I backed up, made it to the road where I’d learned I got some cell reception, opened my navigation app, found the nearest medical facility—there was an emergency room and one hospital—and set it to navigate. Then with my other hand, I grabbed Amos’s phone again, cast one more glance at the poor kid who was opening and closing his fist, his body faintly trembling with what I could only assume was pain, and asked, “What’s your uncle’s name?”

He didn’t look at me. “Johnny.”

I winced and turned the knob for the air conditioner as cold as it could get when I spotted a bead of sweat at his temple. It wasn’t hot; he was just feeling that bad. Shit.

Then I pressed down on the gas pedal. As fast as I could, I drove.

I wanted to ask him if maybe he felt any better, but he wouldn’t even lift his head, instead just resting it against the window as he took turns groaning and grunting and moaning.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” I promised as we wound down the hill to the highway. Luckily, the house was on the side of town closest to the hospital and not clear on the other end.

One of his fingers lifted in acknowledgment. Maybe.

At the stop sign, I scrolled through his contacts and found one for an Uncle Johnny. I hit dial and put it on speakerphone, holding it in my left hand as I turned right.

The “Am, my guy” came clear through the phone.

“Hi, is this Johnny?” I replied.

There was a long pause and then an “Uh, yeah. Who’s this?”

I didn’t exactly sound like a teenage girl, I got it. “Hi, this is Aurora. I’m, uh, Amos’s and Mr. Rhodes’s neighbor.”

Silence.

“Amos seems really sick, and his dad isn’t answering, and I’m taking him to the hospital—”

“What?”

“His stomach hurts, and I think it might be his appendix, but I don’t know his birthday or if he has insurance—”

The man on the other end cursed. “Okay, okay. I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’m not too far, but I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”

“Okay, okay, thanks,” I replied.

He hung up.

I eyed Amos again as he let out a long, low moan, and I cursed and drove even faster. What should I do? What could I do? Get his mind off the pain? I had to try. Every noise out of his mouth was getting harder and harder to bear.

“Amos, what kind of guitar are you wanting to buy?” I asked because it was the first thing that came to mind, hoping a distraction would help.

“What?” he whimpered.

I repeated my question.

“An electric guitar,” he grunted in a voice I could barely hear.

If this were any other situation, I might have rolled my eyes and sighed. An electric guitar. It wouldn’t be the first time someone assumed I knew nothing about music or instruments. But it was still a bummer. “But what kind? Fanned fret? Headless? Fanned fret and headless? Double-necked?”

If he was surprised I was asking him about something as inconsequential as a guitar when he was trying not to throw up from pain, he didn’t show it, but he did answer with a tight “A . . . a headless.”

Okay, good. I could work with this. I pressed down on the gas a little more and kept on hauling ass. “How many strings?”

It didn’t take him as long to answer as it had a moment ago. “Six.”

“Do you know what kind of top you want?” I asked, knowing I might be irritating him by forcing him to talk but hopefully distracting him enough with the questions so that he’d think about something else. And because I didn’t want him to think I had no idea what I was referring to, I went more specific. “Spalted maple? Quilted maple?”

“Quilted!” he gasped violently, forcing his hand into a fist and banging it against his knee.

“Quilted is real nice,” I agreed, gritting my teeth and sending a silent prayer up that he was okay. My God. Five more minutes. We had five more minutes, maybe four if I could get around some of the slow drivers in front of us. “What about your fingerboard?” I threw out.

“I don’t know,” he basically cried.

I couldn’t cry too. I couldn’t cry too.I always cried when other people cried; it was a curse. “Birdseye maple might look nice with quilted maple,” I threw out in basically a shout like if I was loud enough to overpower his tears, they wouldn’t come out. “I’m sorry I’m yelling, but you’re scaring me. I promise I’m driving as fast as possible. If you don’t cry anymore, I know someone who knows someone, and maybe I can get you a discount on your guitar, okay? But please stop crying.”

This weak cough came out of his throat . . . that sounded a hell of a lot like a laugh. A butchered, pained one, but a laugh.

A peek at him as I turned right showed there were still tearstains on his cheeks but maybe . . .

I took another right and pulled into the lot for the hospital, steering us toward the emergency room entrance, saying, “We’re almost there. We’re almost there. You’re going to be okay. You can have my appendix. It’s a good one, I think.”

He didn’t say he wanted it, but I was pretty sure he tried to give me a thumbs-up as I parked in front of the glass doors and helped Amos out of my car, one arm around his back, taking his weight into me. The poor kid felt like melting Jell-O. His knees were buckled and everything, and it seemed to take everything in him to put one foot in front of the other.

I had never been to an emergency room before, and I guess I had expected someone to come rushing out with a gurney and everything, at least a wheelchair, but the woman behind the counter didn’t even raise an eyebrow at us.

Amos hobbled into a chair, groaning.

I had barely started telling the woman behind the desk what was going on when a presence came up to my side. I met dark brown eyes set into a dark face. It wasn’t familiar whatsoever. “You’re Aurora?” the stranger asked. It was another man.

And my God, this guy was handsome too. His skin was an incredible shade of milky brown, cheekbones high and round, his short hair a deep black. This had to be Amos’s uncle.

I nodded at him, tearing my gaze away from the whole of him to just focus on his eyes. “Yes, Johnny?”

“Yeah,” he agreed before turning toward the woman and sliding his phone across. “I’m Amos’s uncle. I have his insurance information. I have a power of attorney to make medical decisions until his dad can make it,” he rattled off quickly.

I took a step to the side and watched him answer more of the woman’s questions then fill something out on a tablet. I learned as I stood there that Amos’s name was Amos Warner-Rhodes. He was fifteen, and his emergency contact was his father even though, for some reason, his uncle had a medical power of attorney. I backed up right after that information dump and headed over to sit beside Amos, who was back in the same position I had found him: groaning and sweating, pale and terrible.

I wanted to pat his back but kept my hands to myself.

“Hey, your uncle is here. They should be coming to get you in a second,” I told him quietly.

His “okay” sounded like it came from some deep, dark place.

“Do you want your phone back?”

He tipped his head farther toward his knees and groaned.

It was right then that someone in scrubs came out with a wheelchair. I was still holding Amos’s phone when they wheeled him out of the waiting area, his uncle following after him.

Should I . . . leave?

It might be hours until they knew for sure what was wrong, but . . . I’d brought him here. I wanted to make sure he was fine; otherwise, I’d stay up all night worrying. I remembered to move my car before it got towed, then sat down to wait.

An hour passed with no sight of Amos’s uncle or his dad. When I went to ask the employee at the front desk if I could have an update, she narrowed her eyes and asked if I was family, and I had to back away feeling like a stalker. But I could wait. I would.

I had just come out of the bathroom nearly two hours after getting to the ER and was heading to my seat when the doors leading outside opened and a big mass of a man came storming in.

The second thing I noticed was the uniform he had on, which seemed poured over a whole lot of impressive muscles and bones. His belt was tight around his waist. Someone deserved a catcall.

What it was about a man in uniform, I had no idea, but I was pretty sure my mouth watered there for a second.

Mr. Rhodes’s shoulders seemed broader, his arms beefier under the bright white hospital lights than they had under the warm yellow of the garage apartment. His scowl made him look even more ferocious. He really was a big, old hunk of a man. My God.

I swallowed.

And that was enough to have his gaze flick toward me. Recognition crossed his features. “Hi, Mr. Rhodes,” I stated as those legs that were just as long as I remembered started moving.

“Where is he?” the man I’d spoken to twice demanded, sounding just as pleasant as he had before. And by pleasant, I meant not pleasant at all. But this time, his son was in the hospital, so I couldn’t blame him.

“He’s in the back,” I told him instantly, letting his tone and words slide down my back. “His uncle is here. Johnny? He’s in the back with him—”

One big, booted foot brought him closer to me. His thick, dark eyebrows knit together, faint lines crossing his broad forehead. The brackets along his mouth were deep with a scowl that might have burned the hair off my eyebrows if I wasn’t so used to my uncle making faces every time someone aggravated him. “What did you do?” he demanded in that bossy, level voice.

Excuse me? “What did I do? I drove him here like I said in my voice mail . . .”

Another big, booted foot stepped forward. Jesus, he really was tall. I was five-six, and he towered over me. “I specifically told you not to talk to my son, didn’t I?”

Was he kidding me? “Are you joking?” He had to be.

That handsome face dipped closer, his scowl plain mean. “I gave you two rules—”

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at him, indignation flaring up in my chest. Even my heart started beating faster at what he was trying to imply.

Okay, I didn’t know what he was trying to imply, but he was giving me shit for driving his kid to the hospital? Really? And had he tried to make it seem like I’d done something to make his kid end up here?

“Hey!” an unfamiliar voice called out.

We both turned to where it was coming from, and it was the Johnny man standing by the elevator bank, one hand on the top of his head.

“Why the hell aren’t you answering the phone? They think he has appendicitis but are waiting for the scan results to come back,” he explained quickly. “They’re treating his pain. Come on.”

Tobias Rhodes didn’t even look at me again before he quickly walked toward Johnny. Amos’s uncle, though, nodded at me once before leading the other man toward the elevators. They were talking quietly.

Rude.

But I guess that sort of counted as an update?