He shakes his head, but he’s wincing and still grabbing his arm.
“Who the hell was that?” Bob asks. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him raise his voice. My stomach drops again.Fuck, could I lose my job?Someone is saying they’ve called the police. My head spins. I pull Nate to his feet, trying to usher him toward the car.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Bob says. “Come inside, let me get you cleaned up.”
“We’re fine. I’m sorry, I can’t get in trouble with the cops.”
“You won’t get in trouble,” Bob says.
One of the women pipes up. “We all saw, those guys jumped you, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were defending yourself. It was three on one.”
“I called an ambulance, too,” one of them says.
“We’re fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Bob says. “You’re hurt, and so is he.”
Nate’s really wincing now, holding his arm to his chest like a broken wing.Fuck, no.
“Come on.” Nate’s voice snaps me out of my fury.
“Let’s go inside like your boss says.”
I nod, picking Nate’s cap up off the ground as I follow them inside.
Bob’s office has a first aid kit. I sit in one of the plastic chairs in front of his desk while he opens it and takes out some antiseptic and cotton balls.
“Are you gonna tell me what happened out there?” Bob asks.
He looks from me to Nate, but we both keep our mouths shut.
“I guess not.” He dabs some antiseptic on a cotton ball before holding it to my eyebrow. “This might sting.”
I flinch and hiss when he dabs the cotton against the cut.
“Sorry.”
“You’re not gonna say anything to my ma, are you?”
Bob takes a deep breath. “I think it’s a bit too serious for that, Evan. Plus, your mother has a right to know if you’re hurt.”
“She’s got enough to worry about.”
He nods. “I know that. But we’ll let her decide.”
He dabs some more antiseptic in my cut and I manage to hold back a hiss this time.
“Who were those guys?”
“Just some friends.”
Bob scoffs. “Some friends.”
“And this guy?” Bob gestures to Nate, sitting in the other chair, looking at us with big eyes while Bob cleans my cut out.
“That’s Nate. An old friend.”
“Guess old friends are better than new ones, huh?”
