“Wait—” I called after her. She paused, turning to me.
“I – uh… where are they taking him?” I asked. Something tugged at me to go put eyes on him. “So I can let Jelani know.”
“ICU. He’ll be there for observation before they move him.”
I moved to the elevators. My finger hovered over the button for the lobby. I could go home and follow Monica’s lead—grab some wings and make myself a nightcap. Lord knows I needed one. But curiosity got the better of me. Biting my lip, I hit the button for the ICU floor instead.
The ICU was eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the chaos in the ER. The security guard on duty barely looked up from his phone as I walked past.
What was I doing? I should be clocking out right now.But my feet kept moving, like they had a mind of their own. Halfway down the hall, I spotted a nurse flipping through charts outside a patient’s room.
“Excuse me,” I said softly. She looked up.
“Do you know which room Cash Banks is in?”
“Two doors down on the left,” she replied, going back to her work.
My pulse quickened as I approached his door. I paused and took a deep breath before pushing it open.
The room was dimly lit, with the only sounds coming from the soft beeps of the monitors that said he was still here. Cash lay motionless, with tubes attached to his arm and chest.
I moved closer, stopping at the side of his bed.
Even banged and bruised up, he had this… presence.
His deep mahogany skin was dull from the blood loss, and a few cuts marked his face, but none of that took away from how fine he was. His sharp jaw, his full lips—Cash Banks had the kind of face that would make you do a double-take. The kind that had you doing silly shit like staring at him while he was comatose at 1 a.m.
My gaze drifted to the bandages across his chest. I reached out, fingertips grazing the edge of the dressing, feeling solid muscle underneath. The minutes stretched as I stood lost in thought, my exhaustion blurring the lines between sense and reason. Maybe it was the delirium of being in the hospital for over eighteen hours, but I couldn’t pull myself away.
And then, for reasons I still can’t explain, I leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
“Aye yo, the fuck you doing?”
I jumped, spinning around to find Jelani standing in the doorway, his eyes blazing with rage.
“I—I—” I stammered, caught completely off guard.
He stormed across the room and shoved me so hard that I slammed into the side of Cash’s bed.
“You trying to kill my brother?” he growled, pressing something cold and heavy against my head.
It took a second for my exhaustion-laden brain to register what it was.
“No!” I yelped, panic rising when I realized it was a gun. “Oh my God, no! I was just checking on him. I was about to come downstairs to get you.”
“Then why the fuck were you in his face for?” he barked, jamming the muzzle harder against my temple.
“Nigga, I’mtired!” I snapped, tears finally spilling. The stress of the entire night—mass casualties in the ER, working six hours past my shift, and now this nigga holding a gun to my head—all broke through at once. “I’m so fucking tired,” I sobbed, falling to my knees.
Jelani’s face shifted, the anger leaving it a little as he lowered the gun. He stepped back, looking around uncomfortably. “Come on, ma. Don’t cry,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head with the gun.
“Don’t cry?!” I let out a hysterical laugh. “I was supposed to clock outsix hoursago! And then you run up in this bitch, damn near shot the hospital up—while I’m the one who got the nigga in surgery!Me!” I slapped my chest, standing up. “I did that! Why the fuck would I try to kill him?”
I shoved Jelani hard in the chest.
He blinked at me, stunned. After a moment, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, holding it out.
“For your troubles,” he said stiffly.
