Dr. Adams smiled, but his eyes were all squinty. Maybe he didn’t believe me. I wasn’t about to tell him my life story, though. Since Casey knew Dr. Adams, I was able to get into the back faster, but I still had to sit in a drab waiting room outside of the radiology unit for a while. I picked a seat and collapsed onto it. The walls were blue. The chairs were blue. Nothing seemed truly clean except the floor. I hated it. Casey took the chair next to me and his shoulder knocked against mine.
“Tell me something about yourself,” he said, picking up my good hand in both of his. I stared at the way his palms engulfed mine and rubbed my finger along a callus on his thumb. The heat of his skin had tingles dancing over my arms and shivered warmth down my spine. He smiled at me.
“Um… I like music.”
“What kind?” He turned to stare down into my face and heat crawled up my neck. He was so big, and now that I wasn’t scared anymore… I liked it—maybe.
“Trippy Red, Frank Ocean, Death Cab for Cutie, Modern Baseball… lots of older stuff, too. I’ll listen to the radio in a pinch.” I found myself smiling at the furrow that formed between his eyebrows. I wanted to touch the little crinkle.
“I don’t know any of that stuff.”
I laughed. “What about MCR? You know, My Chemical Romance? I listen to them, too. I stan Gerard Way forever, even if he has Dad Bod Classic now.”
He shook his head.
“You’re killing me. Uh, I like Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Sting.”
“Hey, I know those bands,” he said and his shoulders wiggled like he was proud of himself.
I laugh-groaned at him, and he tickled his fingertips on the back of my hand. “Maybe we could chill and listen one day. I’ll introduce you to the new millennium.”
He let out a pained sound, and it was my turn to laugh.
Dr. Adams came back and interrupted our conversation by pointing me out to an older woman in a turtleneck sweater. She came at me with paperwork first, and I sat and filled out forms for a red-hot minute. Casey was nice enough to hold the clipboard steady on my knee while I wrote. I’d barely had a chance to finish dotting the lasti, when I was being whisked away by a different woman in scrubs to a room with a gray buzzing machine that took up too much of the available space. She had to stand near enough that I could smell her flower perfume. She smiled and forced me to put my hand on a glowing sheet of clear plastic with a bullseye in the middle that gave me the serious unhappies, and then she adjusted my wrist. I held in seven thousand curse words at the agony she caused as she smiled and angled my hand to her liking.
“It’ll all be over soon, sweetie. I know it’s not fun.”
I only nodded because I wouldn’t have said anything nice. The bone pics took too long. When it was all over, I was relieved to see Casey sitting in the same worn-out chair waiting for me. I was happy to collapse beside him again, and while I did jump as he rested his arm along the back of my chair, I didn’t hate it when he drew me against his solid chest.
“So, do you want to try to track down your dad while they check your X-rays?” He smiled at me, flashing straight white teeth. “Gotta admit, you’re cool under pressure. If it was me, I would have flown in here like a nutcase and harassed every person until I saw my dad.”
I shrugged, lightly rubbing at my wrist. “Maybe your dad deserves that.”Mine doesn’t.
“Angel?”
“Yeah?” I stared at the floor.
He cleared his throat and his body heaved with a sigh that moved me, too. A quiver of alarm raced through me, even though he hadn’t done anything threatening, and I both wanted to shove him away and not move. I hated the conflicting sensations that battled it out inside my belly and left me anxious.
“Um, I don’t know the right thing to do here.” He gave me a little squeeze. “I know I want to help you. I’m sorry I don’t know what that should look like. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know anything about your family.”
“You’re right.” I glanced up, and his concerned blue eyes were aimed right at my face. The pressure of that much attention had me glancing down at his nice shoes and my mud-stained Vans. They didn’t belong together. My breath caught. “I should probably find Dad.”
“If you don’t want to do that… he doesn’t sound like a nice guy if he’s getting arrested.” Casey tickled his fingers along the nape of my neck, and I sucked in a breath. He rested his hand on the spot he’d been teasing, and his fingers wrapped around the back and both sides of my neck. I was surprised when I found myself leaning into his warm touch. He shifted and the chair underneath him let out an unhealthy creak.
“No, Dad’s an asshole. He’s also my dad. If I don’t go, who will?”
Casey nodded and squeezed my neck. It felt so good on my tense muscles—a nice counterpoint to the pain thrumming in my wrist—that a small moan slipped out of me. “Do you want me to find him and see if he’s okay? Let you know? That way you don’t have to go?”
My heart hopped, and Casey haphazardly worked his fingers over an aching muscle that ran along my shoulder. How did he know to do that? Could he feel the tension? It was amazing. I closed my eyes. “You would do that?”
“If you want.”
“Oh my God, yes. Please. Just see if I need to do anything tonight. Otherwise I’ll wait until tomorrow to try to figure out everything else.” I fumbled my wallet out of my pocket, hissing when I hurt my wrist as I rushed. He tried to help, but between us we only managed to knock my wallet to the floor. He held up a hand and picked up the wallet. I let out a groan as he opened the money section for me. There were no bills inside, but I pulled out Dad’s insurance card. He took the shiny plastic and glanced down at it, and then he stilled while I tugged my wallet from his fingers. He didn’t move a muscle as I stuffed my wallet back in my pocket.
“They’ll need that,” I said. “They always ask for the card when I bring Dad in.”
“Is your father’s last name Gaffin?” He blinked at me and there was definitely something off about him. His skin washed out pale, and I thought for a second he was going to puke as he lifted the back of his hand to his mouth.
