“He’s like a teenager sometimes too. I’ve got my hands full.”
Simon chuckled. “I can imagine. But you love him anyway.”
John laughed while I was busy turning red. How did he know about us?
“I’m going to go see if I can get radiology to move a bit faster. Hang in there a little longer. I can admit you if you’d be more comfortable.”
“Fuck no,” I said. “I’ll have my own personal nurse. He’s used to taking care of me.”
Simon nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back.”
He walked out of the room as Daredevil and Phantom stood guard by the door like I was some kind of dignitary. Dare looked furious and probably blamed himself for not having my six, but it wasn’t his responsibility anymore. Phantom typed away on his phone, probably already working on finding the car.
“You two don’t have to stand guard. Commander’s here.”
“The fuck we don’t,” Dare said. “Someone tried to shoot you, Brent. And we’re not going anywhere until we catch that motherfucker.”
“Won’t be long,” Phantom added. “The asshole must not be from around here. It won’t be hard to track him down with all the cameras.”
“Think it was Turner? He’s the only one I think I’ve pissed off lately.”
“And we’ll be stopping that shit,” John added, making me smile and my friends laugh.
Phantom shook his head. “Not likely to be him. The Rush have been in Cleveland for the last two days.”
His phone pinged with a string of messages. Three phones from around the room started pinging with text messages from the group chat. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was GQ since he was the only one of us not present.
Phantom laughed at whatever he was reading, but my best friend didn’t bother to pick up his phone. Neither did the man of my dreams.
“They’re on their way back. Said he’ll be here to check on you as soon as he can.”
Simon walked into the room carrying a stack of papers. “Everything looks good, but you are definitely concussed. I’ll let you go home as long as you’re not alone.”
John looked at me when he replied to Simon. “If I have my way about it, he’ll never be alone again.”
CHAPTER 23
JOHN
All my lifeI’d heard bad things happen in threes. Was it a superstition or a wives' tale, or maybe me just looking for bad things to happen? Who knew? But we’d already had two and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Brent had been home from the hospital for less than forty-eight hours when the call came at four-thirty a.m. We were both sound asleep when the phone started ringing. I rolled over from where I was spooning him to blindly reach for it on the nightstand.
“Who in the hell is calling at this hour of the morning?”
I swiped to answer the call without looking.
“Hello?” I grumbled into the phone.
“Brent, he’s gone. He’s gone. Just like that, he’s gone,” the woman wailed on the other side of the line. Whipping the covers back, I got up out of bed. As I walked toward the living room, I pulled the phone from my head and looked at the screen. Mom.
“Mrs. Trainor? This is Commander John Langdon. Who’s gone?”
“Oh my god,” she wailed. “My husband. He’s gone. He died. Where is Brent?”
I rubbed my hand over my face in shock.
“John, what’s going on?” I heard him ask as he moved toward me.
