While she thinks I’m in pain as we walk down the hall, it’s actually due to the urgency my stomach is suddenly putting on me and not my wounds. Once that’s handled, I study myself in the mirror.
I look like roadkill, I think. God knows that my breath is pretty ripe and I could use a shower, instead I use the deodorant that she bought before I break open the toothbrush packaging.
“Are you alright?” she asks through the closed door.
“Yep. But now I know why you laughed when I told you I’m a badass,” I call back as I start brushing my teeth.
“My dad always said not to argue with crazy,” she quips right back and I grin at my reflection, the toothpaste making me look like I’m foaming at the mouth.
Overall, I start to feel human again, at least until I reach for the doorknob. Opening it, I look at Everly then fall to my knees. “Oh, fuck.”
Just as the world goes blurry, she catches me.
*
“I don’t care,” Everly is growling into the phone. “I’m keeping him. He passed out after walking ten feet. He’s in no shape for whatever shit storm it is y’all have planned.”
After that outburst, it may as well have been a landline, the way she slammed her phone down.
Looking over at me, she gasps and taking a step toward me, Everly slaps her hand against my thigh. “Don’t you do that again!”
“Ouch! What did I do?” Jerking my arm up, I notice that there’s an IV line in my arm again.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she announces, placing her hand against my forehead.
“Was that Thunder again?” I ask her.
“What? No, some grumpy asshole. Bull, I think?” she answers me with a shrug, and my jaw drops open just before my soul leaves my body.
“Bull’s the president of our chapter,” I tell her when I’m able to string words together.
“And you’re my patient,” she replies, defensively crossing her arms in front of her even though I can see from the expression on her face that she understands that no one talks to him that way. “Anyway, I think you were getting dehydrated, so that’s what this line is for. Thankfully, you were smart enough to open the door before you passed out.”
I let out a long sigh, trying to figure out how I’m going to get her to take me back to Kent tomorrow, dope me up enough that I’ll be useful, and not miss my chance with her.
“Will you lay down with me?”
“Don’t you bat your eyes at me,” the stubborn minx growls at me even as she climbs up beside me.
“But you get all flustered when I do,” I tease her, shifting onto my good side so I can face her.
“What did you mean earlier when Thunder asked what I looked like?”
“He tends to go for party girls,” I tell her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off of her face while I carefully try not to put my foot in it with her. “I don’t get that vibe from you.”
“You two are really close, aren’t you?” she asks, seemingly retreating from trying to figure out if I think she’s hot.
“Yeah. Our parents died in a flash flood when I was fifteen and Lincoln fought like hell to get custody of me. He was nineteen and all of a sudden had to take on all these responsibilities. Buteven before that …” I stop talking, not wanting to whine about my daddy issues.
“Tell me.”
“Lincoln was Dad’s favorite. It was like he was perpetually angry at me, he wasn’t outwardly hostile, Mom wouldn’t have stood for that, but he knew how to twist the knife when there was something important to me. Mom and Linc were always trying to make up for it.”
“So, you followed him into the Kings?” she asks, pulling the blanket up under chin.
“Well, him and Bull.” I can’t keep the smile off of my face when I think about the shit the three of us got up to as kids. “Bull’s father and uncle were Kings. I can’t even remember meeting him, but he was like another brother to us and then we were obsessed with hanging out at his house. It sounds shitty to say it now, but his mom had left, so really the only rules over there were don’t get hurt and keep the noise down when his dad was home.”
“Don’t get hurt, huh?” she lifts an eyebrow at me, hiding her smile behind the blanket. “That’s one solid rule to live by.”
