"I look as though a children's hospital threw up on me."
"You look mine." My grip firms on her waist. "In dinosaurs. Which shouldn't work. But here we are."
She breathes a laugh against my jaw. "You're ridiculous."
"You married ridiculous."
Frankie's phone buzzes on the bar. She glances at the screen, and her face changes. Just a flicker. There and gone, smoothed over before anyone else spots it. She pockets the phone, murmurs something to Candace about needing air, and slips out the side door.
I track her without turning my head. Thirty seconds later, through the window, I catch the shape of her crossing the lot toward her car. She doesn't get in. She stands beside it, phone pressed to her ear, one hand on the roof. Her other hand is shaking.
Arden materializes from the far side of the building. He must have been waiting. They talk, close, heads angled toward each other. Frankie's posture breaks for half a second, shoulders caving before she pulls them straight. Arden's hand finds the back of her neck, holds for a second, drops. He walks toward his bike, and she walks back toward the door.
By the time she steps inside, her face gives nothing away. She picks up her water and takes a sip, settling back into the noise without a ripple.
Nobody noticed. I did.
Sloane moves beside me, her grip tightening on my thigh. She's tracking Frankie too. Caught the same white-knuckled hold on the water bottle, the face wiped clean a beat too fast.
Sloane looks at me. I look at her.
Chapter 42
Sloane
Thefloorhumsundermy shoes. It's a low vibration I barely register anymore. The rhythm of twelve-hour shifts, double backs, and late charting. Fatigue settles into my bones instead of knocking me over. I move with it.
"Room four's pressure's been creeping," Jenna murmurs as she passes.
"I'll recheck after rounds."
Chart. Vitals. IV line. The tubing is warm under my fingers. The monitor ticks steadily. A patient asks for ice chips; I promise and mean it. I exchange a look with a nurse I've worked beside long enough that we don't need words, just a lift of brows in the narrow corridor.
Everything functions because it has to.
I'm tired. The kind that lives in the shoulders and the base of the neck. But I stay upright. Drink lukewarm coffee from a reheated paper cup. Burnt and thin.
"Still alive?" someone calls from behind the desk.
"Debatable," I reply.
A monitor alarms down the hall. My body pivots before thought catches up.
"False alarm," Jenna calls from the doorway. "He rolled over."
"Tell him to stop," I call back.
I finish charting at the station, tapping the last entry, eyes flicking to the clock. Meds. A discharge that's going to drag. A family meeting scheduled too close to lunch.
Knox texted an hour ago. Picking you up tonight. Don't argue.
I didn't argue.
Between entries, my gaze drifts left without permission. Fire exit. Stairwell. The elevator bay with its silver doors. I've worked this floor for months, and my body still runs the inventory every time my hands go idle, counting steps, measuring distance, cataloging which routes have blind corners and which ones don't. At the grocery store, it's a habit. Here it feels a betrayal.
Movement in my peripheral pulls my attention up.
The waiting area is busy. Chairs scrape. Someone paces with a phone. A volunteer pushes a cart of folded blankets.
