I don’t have time to think about it now. I need to find Eric. I can’t accept that he might be gone, so I keep moving, making my way around the building, when an arm wraps around my belly from behind and grabs me off my feet.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Manny hisses in my ear. “If something happened to you, King would have my ass in a body bag.”
“Doubtful,” I muttered before turning to him. “We have to find Eric.”
“I have to keep you safe,” he returns.
“No. I can’t let it be because of me.”
“It was his duty—” he starts, but then I see something and interrupt him. It looks like Eric’s shirt.
“Look!” I point. Manny turns, and with his arm still on me, we race toward where Eric lays prone, face down.
We both drop to our knees on either side of him, and after Manny assesses his injuries, we roll him over. Eric blinks a few times and opens his eyes. Blood trickles down from above his left eye.
“What happened?” he asks as he blinks away the confusion.
“There was an explosion,” I answer while Manny slips his cell phone from his pocket and dials 9-1-1. Eric closes his eyes and slips back into unconsciousness.
When the paramedics arrive, they load up Eric, who is now grumbling about riding in an ambulance but also knows he needs to be checked out, so he goes willingly. It also helped that his phone chimed with a text, and it was King yelling at him to get his ass in the ambulance. He slips in and out and is asleep when the ambulance pulls away. I want to know what the connection is between these three men. They seem so close to one another but are clearly all a little different.
After they take him away, Manny deals with the police as quickly as possible. Everyone is accounted for, thankfully. Over one hundred people work here on a day-to-day basis, so it’s no minor miracle that everyone is safe and accounted for, including Bobby, who was obviously shaken.
Manny finally breaks free from the commotion and leads me to his SUV, where we climb in and he makes his way to Grossmont Hospital where Eric is being treated. King never showed up at the track. I can’t help but wonder where he is or what he’s doing. I’m scared. For Eric, whose status is still unknown to me. I’m scared for me, and I’m scared for Manny and King. This is serious.
We make our way into the hospital after Manny parks the car, and we ask for directions to the Emergency Department.
“Hi, how can I help you?” a nurse prompts when we walk up to the desk.
“We’re here for Eric Goodnite,” Manny says, and I think what an interesting surname that is. I feel like a livewire inside me with all the nervous energy and anxiety. I don’t know what to do.
“He’s still being seen to,” she replies once she looks Eric up on her computer. “If you could follow me this way, someone will be with you when they know more.”
We follow her through a locked door to a waiting area. It’s empty. I guess that’s a good thing. At the same time, I wish we weren’t here either. I need to know what’s going on with Eric, and I know Manny feels the same way.
“Should we call his parents?” I ask, because it’s something to be considered, and also because I can’t handle the silence.
“His parents are dead,” Manny says. “But King will call his grandparents in New Jersey and talk to them.”
“What about his girlfriend?” I add and wish I hadn’t, because Manny goes on and breaks my heart.
“He hasn’t talked to her in about ten years.”
“That’s sad.”
“That’s life, Addie. No one’s story is easy.”
“What about you?” I ask, wanting to pass the time with a friend.
“My story is perfect,” he says with a smile. “Marisol, my wife, was the most beautiful girl in my high school. So obviously I knocked her up after a football game and married her.”
“And you’re desperately in love with her,” I add to his tale.
“Oh yes.”
“And the baby?”
“That baby is now thirteen and has five siblings,” he says. “They turn my hair gray, but I love every one of them.”
