I wait for us to get to the hospital, and when we are there I take the cash Luke gives me, three hundred bucks, which doesn’t go nearly as far as they probably imagine it does with women’s clothing, but never mind, because I have another plan anyway.
“Don’t spend it all at once,” he grins. “Stick to the shops around here, too, okay?”
“I don’t know that we should let her go on her own,” Leo says. “Maybe we should wait until after the appointment, then all go together.”
“Do you want to stand around racks of panties? Because I don’t,” Luke says. Very unenlightened attitude from him really, but itworks in my favor, because frankly I don’t want the two of them standing around while I try to pick out underwear and clothes either.
“I might need a little more money,” I say. “Bras are like eighty dollars each.”
“Eighty…” Luke’s eyes widen. “Are they diamond bras?”
“Brother, we are worth billions. Give her more than a pittance,” Leo says.
I don’t think Luke has ever done much in the way of shopping. He seems like the most grounded of all of them, but he cannot help being out of touch.
Luke sighs and digs into his pocket, pulling out more cash. “Is this enough?”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m sorry to have to ask.”
He frowns. “No. You shouldn’t… no, don’t be ashamed to ask. It’s your money as much as it is ours anyway at this point. Go, have fun. Buy whatever you want. Meet us back here in two hours.”
“It’s going to be two hours?”
“They’re doing a scan under light sedation, then there will be a wait to see the doctor. It might be three hours,” he says. “Just don’t get lost.”
“I can take care of myself,” I grin. “I hope your wound is okay, Leo.”
Leo gives me a little wave. I don’t think he is looking forward to the sedation and such. He likes being in control too much and oh, that’s right, the time I drugged him and left him probablydidn’t help. I feel a small pang of guilt, but I remind myself that was a different time. A more innocent time, in a lot of ways.
I step out of the hospital by myself and I feel a rush of freedom that I have not experienced in, well, I’d say a long time, but running around the world with their money was also pretty freeing. That also feels like a lifetime ago now. Time moves differently around these men. I’d say it flies when you’re having fun, but so much of this has been filled with grief and misery and pain… and then the most incredible highs and emotional moments of pure joy.
A lady comes past, walking a pit bull on a leash. The dog’s big jaws are parted in a broad grin, and in that moment I miss Ethel more than I have ever missed anyone. She should have been taken with us. She should have been protected too.
I am so emotional right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s all just catching up. Living in the bunker has been like being stuck in a sexy pressure cooker. Aiden going away is like a release valve. Everyone is doing things and feeling things they didn’t when he was there.
It sounds like he’s a monster, and that’s because he is, I think. Aiden has a way of occupying every space he is in completely, of turning the people around him into satellites of his influence. He might be the most naturally charismatic man I’ve ever met. In his absence, I find parts of myself that were either soothed into silence, or just straight up suppressed by his presence.
Probably a red flag, but in our world, what fucking isn’t. My life is a parade of red flags, and the one guy who wasn’t got shot. So here we are, all struggling to survive while having everything people think they want. I have a pocket full of cash, three hotboyfriends, and the world at my feet. But right now, all I want is my little dog.
They said she was being looked after at home. I let it slide at the time because arguing when you’ve just been chased into a hole in the ground doesn’t really make much sense. But now I’ve poked my head out again, and I need the one thing in my life that remains innocent and untouched. God knows that description no longer applies to me.
The house isn’t that far from here. Not really. An hour, maybe, by car. I don’t have a phone on me, because those can be tracked, and that means I can’t call a ride share, but fortunately there’s still a few old-fashioned things in place. Like a taxicab sitting outside the hospital on the rank.
I guess this is a place people come to in taxis often, owing to how much the human body can suck a lot of the time. I tap on the window, and it is wound down to reveal the impatient face of the sort of guy who knows the city inside and out and isn’t going to want to go all that far.
He’s a guy in his forties who looks like he’s been pissed off since his twenties. He’s got at least two decades of road rage building up in him. When I look into his eyes, I see a potential fucking Vesuvius.
I tell him where I want to go. He starts to wind the window up. Asshole. I’d let him do it, but the rest of the rank is empty and I want to go now. So I put my hand in the window and thanks to the people who make new cars, it stops going up. He looks at me, instantly pissed off.
“If I give you five hundred bucks, can you drive to this address, wait for me, and drive back?”
“I’m a taxi,” he says, winding his window back down. “So. Yes.”
“I know you’re a taxi. I was asking if that’s enough money.”
The driver nods, acting like he never tried to taxi ghost me in the first place. “That’s enough.”
I get in the cab, knowing that I am going to piss everybody off doing this, but I’ll have Ethel by the time they work out what I’ve done, and that is the most important thing. I keep leaving her behind in order to go and do stupid things. She deserves for me to do at least one stupid thing in order for me to be with her.
