“Why aren’t we going in the front?” I stumbled in the dark and hissed as my injuries were jolted. Aspen moved closer, and I got the idea he was thinking of doing his hero routine again, so I pointed at him. “Don’t you dare.”
“If you can’t walk—”
“I am walking. Don’t.”
He sighed, and I’d never heard him sound so exasperated. I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or scared.
Nick called over his shoulder, “I’m not billing you, so we don’t want to check you in. Let’s go.” He opened a metal door, and I blinked at how bright it was inside the building. The clean hall we stepped into was like the back of every medical office I’d ever been in. There were closed doors, gray carpeting, and a weigh-in scale sat nearby. We didn’t go toward it, though. Nick ran his gaze up and down my body again, nodding, and touched my hand on my right side. I hadn’t even realized I’d covered my ribs. “It hurts?”
“A fuck of a lot,” I said, hating how my voice quavered.
“He probably needs to be X-rayed. He was getting stomped on when I pulled him out of the heat.” Aspen scowled at the beige walls and sighed. “I wasn’t there to stop it.”
“There is no way this was your fault,” I murmured.
Aspen shook his head at me.
“You totally saved my ass.” My pride twinged at those words, but there was no arguing with how happy I’d been to see him and the other guys.
He huffed.
Nick laughed. “Okay, I agree. Let’s go get a good look.” He took off down a hallway at top speed, and I struggled to keep up, even with Aspen helping me.
“Why have I never met this guy, huh?” I grumbled.
Aspen shrugged.
“Are we gonna talk about those kisses?” I asked, heat washing through me. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to stir him up now, but I felt bad, and maybe I didn’t want him to be so damned stable at the moment.
“No.” He made me walk faster.
“Oh, okay, that’s how it is—you don’t care unless I’m on my way to die. Fuck, why does this hurt so much? I’ve had kicks to the chest before that didn’t fucking hurt like this.”
Nick opened a wooden door with a yellow radiation sign on it and smiled as we walked in behind him. The gray X-ray equipment, a few shades lighter than the carpet, was packed tight in the room, but familiar. I’d had to be checked out more than once as a kid, and then later when I started fighting.
“Why do you and Vail”—Aspen tugged on a strand of my hair and gave me a small smile—“want to talk everything to death? Just let shit happen naturally.”
Sweat dripped off my forehead and I didn’t feel so well, but I shrugged as embarrassed heat made me feel even worse. Aspen took his coat back and helped me take off my jacket.
“Do I need to strip?” I asked Nick.
“No.”
“Yay.” I grunted and was glad I didn’t have to get my shirt off.
“Okay, let’s wrap this around your waist to protect the boys,” Nick said with a happy grin as he came at me with a gray apron. He was so different from Aspen, almost like he didn’t have a single care in the world and never had.
“Thanks, they appreciate it,” I joked, and Aspen sighed loudly from somewhere behind me as Nick cinched the apron around my waist and secured it in the back. He positioned me in front of a flat space on the wall that had a metal panel set into it and moved around an arm of the machine, pointing it at me.
“Can you raise your arms?”
“Do I have to?” I asked, feeling miserable.
I was able to get my right arm about shoulder height, and he declared that “fine.” I trembled as he took Aspen behind a half wall with thick glass on top and smiled. “Hold still!” There was a sound I knew was an X-ray being taken. He laughed and joked with Aspen, but I could tell something was wrong when he looked at a screen in front of him on a desk and his face immediately fell. Nick rushed back out, followed by Aspen, and ripped the apron off my waist. With a grimace, he lifted my shirt. I glanced down at the spot that hurt and had a moment of surrealness—there was a large, dark bruise on my chest in the shape of a boot. Two ribs sunk in as I took a pained breath and popped out as I exhaled.
“Well, that ain’t right,” I grumbled and tried to laugh. “No wonder it fucking hurts.”
“You’re going to the hospital,” he immediately declared, and I groaned.
