“What do you meanagain?”
Glenn shrugged. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, man. But you internalize like a motherfucker, and you shut that kid out. He’d probably like it better if you punched him intheface.”
Glenn’s turn of phrase cut deep and disturbed the wreckage of yet another time in my life I’d rather forget. In the aftermath of an accident that had claimed a slice of my liver, I’d turned into the world’s biggest asshole. I’d left Ash, and he’d told me since, nothing he’d been through had hurt him more.Fuck.I put my head in my hands as Glenn rolled back to whatever he’d been doing before he torpedoed my bubble of self-absorbed misery.I really am an asshole.I’d always known it, but never more sothannow.
“Ah, thereyouare.”
I raised my head to stare blankly at Ellen, my supervisor. “Do you need me forsomething?”
“No, quite the opposite, in fact.” She waved December’s scheduleatme.
I cringed. Despite Ash’s prophecy, I hadn’t taken any extra shifts for his time away, but I wouldn’t say no if Ellen asked. How could I when I had nothing else to do? “Is there a problem with theschedule?”
“You could say that. It’stoofull.”
“Excuseme?”
“I thought Samantha was away for the whole month and that Manoel wouldn’t be back from Brazil until January. Turns out I was wrong on both counts, which is going to work in your favor. You have the most holiday time owed, so I’m here to play your fairygodmother.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”And I wish you’d fuck off. But I didn’t say it. Ellen had made my life a million times easier since Liam had come to Chicago, and whatever she was saying now that I was too pigheaded to understand was likely something she considered to be in my bestinterests.
She swatted me around the head with her clipboard. “I’m saying that you can have two weeks off, Pete. In December. Why are you glaring at me like I’ve run overyourdog?”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again. I’d spent the last two days drowning in a fog of knowing how badly I was fucking up but seemingly unable to stop. And even now the worst had happened and Ash had gone, I still couldn’t thinkclearly. “What?”
Ellen turned her gaze to the heavens and slapped the schedule against my chest. “Read it and weep. Then come and find me and tell me youloveme.”
She stomped away, leaving me to stare at the schedule and the thick red lines that had been struck through my name. Starting from tomorrow, I wasn’t due back at the hospital until the day beforeChristmasEve.
In the time it took my brain to compute what that meant, my body was already in motion. Ignoring Glenn’s snort, I shot after Ellen and pretty much tackled her to the ground before she went into one of the trauma rooms. “I needtogo.”
“What?”
“The personal time you’ve given me. I need to startitnow.”
Ellen glanced at the watch pinned to her scrub top. “Your shift doesn’t end for another threehours.”
“Iknow.”
“And I’m not supposed to be here yet. I came in early to fix theschedule.”
“I know that too, and I’m sorry andthank youfor giving me so much time off, but if I don’t go now, it won’t matter. Please, Ellen. I’ll make it uptoyou.”
I was going whether she allowed me to or not, and something in my face must’ve given that away. Her head moved in the barest hint of a nod, and I was gone, racing through the ER to the locker room and then out of the hospital without even changing myclothes.
Heart in my mouth, I dashed the two blocks that stood between Ash and me. The frigid winter air bit into my skin, but I didn’t care. He was going to Portland with or without me, but I wouldn’t survive it if I didn’t get to him in time to have his back like I should’ve done allalong.
He’d brought the van home from Ted’s garage last night. As I rounded the corner onto our street, the sun reflecting off the icy sidewalk blinded me, leaving nothing but empty space outside our building. My stomach dropped to the floor, but as I ran a few more steps, my vision cleared, and the van’s dark blue form tookshape.
Ash gunned the engine and began to pull away. I ran harder and made a grab for the passenger side door, pounding on the window with myfist. “Wait!”
Whether he heard me or not, I’d never know, but the van slowed enough for me to wrench the door open and hurl myself inside. “You fucker.Nowyou candrive.”
ChapterSix
Ash
Pete seemed as surprised as me to find himself in a heap in my lap. I stared at him as he struggled to catch his breath, and unease prickled the back of my neck. Had I dropped into another world? The one where Pete wasn’t so unhappy he’d rather stay home by himself than be with anyone who loved him? Or was Pete’s warm presence a figment of my desperateimagination?
