Guilt flashes in his eyes, his teeth clenching as he realizes his screw-up. “Uh… coffee, Boss. I didn’t realize she required micromanaging at a dietary level. Now I do. I’ll ensure it’s taken care of tomorrow.”
A whole fucking day with nothing in her belly but caffeine. And she probably didn’t have dinner last night, either.
“I’m sorry, Boss. I?—”
“It’s fine.” I sweep my hat off and scratch my itchy, sweaty hair, dragging my nails along my scalp and digging in. I fill my lungs until the tang of antiseptic and death accompany the oxygen in my veins, then, releasing it again, I plop my hat back where it started. “You didn’t know, and Doctor Emeri is typically around to place food in front of her chief between the hours of nine and five.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “You can go.”
His eyes flare wide, panicked and stricken. “You’re dismissing me? If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to st?—”
“I’m giving you an hour.” I press my back against the wall, mimicking his prior posture, and settle in to wait. “Do whatever you need to do. If she didn’t eat, you probably didn’t either. Go to the bathroom. Take care of your business. She’s gonna be laid up here for a bit, and knowing Nicki, she’s not going anywhere for a good long while. I’ll stay, but out of sight.” I tilt my head toward the doors. “I’ll call you if she’s done earlier.”
He considers for a beat… but takes a step toward the doors. Considers a little longer… another step. Finally, as I bring my foot up against the wall and unlock my phone screen, he drops his chin in a nod and darts through the doors.
“Forty-five thousand dollars is criminal!” Minka snaps from deep inside the ER. “It’s horseshit. What about the folks who can’t get insurance? Or the folks who can’t afford it?”
My lips quirk up on the side, my heart just a little less achyfor every angry word Minka bites out. Sadly, my smile drops away when the answer plays in my head, like a fuckin’ drum slamming inside my skull.
They die, babe. Those people die.
Ten minutes after Harrison leaves, I shuffle six feet along the hall, closer to my wife, but still hidden in case she tears her curtain aside and attempts to escape. Ten minutes after that, I move another six feet. At the thirty-minute mark, I stop where Harrison started, allowing myself a view of both the entrance and the ER. And at the fifty-minute mark, when a hand grabs onto her curtain, I shoot out of my meditative state and prepare to run.
Fortunately, Nicki’s is the face that emerges, and like she knew I’d be nearby, her eyes swing to mine and soften, her lips folding down unhappily as she steps out of the small space and pulls the curtain most of the way shut behind her.
I slip my phone and hands into my pockets and wander closer, my throat burning as I peel my focus from my friend and stop on my wife instead. Asleep. She’s curled onto the uncomfortable stretcher, her hands pressed between her knees and her shoulders hunched from bad posture. Long lashes kiss her cheeks, and pouty lips droop forward… thick and thoroughly kissable.
But not for me. Not for today.
“Detective.” Nicki doesn’t speak in a whisper, but she sure as fuck doesn’t shout, either. She meets me halfway across the ER and blocks me from coming any closer. Dragging gloves off herhands, she bundles the pair and drops them into her pockets. “I’m surprised to see you here, and yet…” She shifts, forcing herself into my line of sight. “Surprised she’s here at all… without you.”
I can’t help myself. I can’t fucking stop myself; I swing my gaze back to Minka’s sleeping form.Nicki who? “She doing okay?”
“Mmhm. Routine infusion.” She releases a heavy breath, the warm breeze tapping my chin in the otherwise chilled ER. “It’s not my place to pry, Detective, but if you wanna talk about it or whatever…”
Talk to another woman about the temporary breakdown of my marriage?Hard no. “I appreciate you treating her. Shit was getting dicey…”Evidently.“Please send the bill directly to me.” Finally, I peel my focus away from Minka and stop on Nicki. “She’s asleep. Does that mean she’s in for the night?”
“Officially?” She shakes her head. “Not only is she not admitted, but she’s not even here.” Her lips shift into a soft, almost playful grin. “I heard some things about insurance and the cost of medication being out of reach for regular Americans. There was some stuff about poor people dying, andthis is why her parents worked so damn hard. Figured there might’ve been some administrative concerns on the chief’s part, so I didn’t technically write her name down anywhere. However, I’m involved now, so I’m led to askwhat the hell, Archer?” She swings out and smacks my shoulder. “No insurance? Can’t afford her meds?”
“She has insurance,” I groan. “She can afford her meds. She’s just going through some shit right now, and that shit led her here.”To the fucking hospital, because I told her not to come home—where her meds were.I scratch the back of my neck and try, so fucking hard, to work through the frustration in my blood. I’m frustrated with her. Frustrated with me. Frustrated with Anthony Agosti and Sophia Solomon. Estefan Cordoza, too, and while I’m going, I’m frustrated with Timothy Malone the Second’s entire fucking existence. “I’ll get her stock sorted so she doesn’t run out in the future. Don’t worry about it.”
“Archer—”
“Infusion always makes her tired.” Sighing, I search Nicki’s troubled eyes. “But it’s barely six o’clock. This is early, even for her.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not entirely sure she slept last night. The shadows under her eyes say she didn’t, and the couple of times shealmostlost her battle against showing absolutely no emotion at all prove she’s exhausted.” She reaches across and squeezes my arm, right where she hit me. “Whatever’s going on, I’m confident you’ll fix it. Together.” Releasing me again, she settles back on her heels and offers a gentle smile. “She can stay for a few hours and sleep this off if that’s what you want. If you have no issue paying for her treatment, then I can have her admitted, and since we’re going, I can hook her up and pump some fluids in, since her dehydrated veins are proof she’s living on caffeine and not a damn thing more at the moment. Or…” She peeks over my shoulder as Harrison comes to a stop on my right. “You can take her home. She’s your wife, after all, and she didn’t tell me you couldn’t.”
“Did she speak about us at all?”God, I’m such a fuckin’ pussy.“Did she say?—”
“Not a single peep about you. Just that she was having insurance issues and had run out of time to find alternate solutions.”
“Doctor Cleary?” A nurse on the opposite side of the ER slings a stethoscope around the back of her neck. “Can I get a consult, please?”
“Sure.” She dips her chin for me. And again for Harrison. Then she meanders away, but spins and walks backwards. “Also, I’ve been meaning to suggest a double date sometime soon. Chief Mayet would hate it, no doubt. But that’s what friends do, right? They hang out.Gasp. They sometimes even hang outoutsideof the hospital.”
A soft, shaky chuckle rolls through my chest and up to tickle my lips. But then she turns, gone to help her next patient, so I start toward Minka and step into her curtained cubicle, comfortable in the knowledge she’s not waking up anytime soon. We’ve been together for eighteen months now. That’s approximately two hundred infusion nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms. Two hundred times I’ve carried a stubborn woman from the couch—where she was determined to infuse and continue working—to our bed. Not once in all that time did she ever wake while I moved her.
Restless, I inhale through my nostrils and fold over the bed, resting my elbows on the mattress until my nose stops just two inches from hers. For as long as I have this moment with her, a moment she’ll never remember, I drag, ever so gently, the pad of my thumb along the swollen shadow beneath her eyes. “I’m sorry for doing this to us,” I rasp, licking my lips and releasing a heavy sigh. “As soon as I’m allowed, I’m coming back for you, okay?” My heart thunders as I inch forward and press a feather-soft kiss to her temple. “I picked up a rock for you today. Picked up a few, actually. Already knew I can’t live without you, but the last twenty-four hours proved it. Thought you should know.”
“Boss?”
