Page 129 of The Backup Plan

I clear my throat and hope it does the same to my mind.

“Try not to move,” Clark says as he finishes positioning Lucas.

“I’m excellent at following instructions,” Lucas says. “Doc’ll vouch for me.”

“I will not. In fact, I have documentation to the contrary.”

He laughs softly knowing damn well I’m squirming in my shoes over the things we said to each other last night in the heat of the moment.

“I’m going to need this arm to lay flatter,” Albert says as he places one hand on Lucas’s bad shoulder and then tries to press his elbow down.

There. Right there. Lucas’s jaw tightens—just a flicker of it—but I catch it.

That wince he gave during the game, the one he said I was making up, wasn’t nothing, he just did it again.

Shit.

Then again, he’s battle scarred, and if I moved anybody on this team’s body in a certain way they’d grimace too.

Keep that in mind, Em. A wince doesn’t necessarily mean something bad.

“How’s it feeling?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral.

“Great,” he says too fast. “Five stars. Would recommend on YELP.”

I don’t call him out on it. The scans will tell me the truth neither of us can see, but only one of us can truly feel.

“It’s just a follow-up diagnostic,” I explain even though he already knows. “It’s been a couple of weeks since the last one, so this is just standard protocol.”

“Standard is good,” he mutters. “Big fan of boring here.”

“Let’s hope we keep it that way.” I look over at Albert. “Everything set?”

Albert nods and Clark gives Lucas a few instructions, ones he’s probably heard a dozen times before the three of us move outside the room so the scans can begin.

The machine begins to whirl as Albert and I stand in front of the monitor so we can watch the images come to life. A grainy black image begins to load on the screen, but then it freezes at about twenty-five percent. In the room beyond the window, the machine continues to do its scan of Lucas’s shoulder, but the screen in front of us is frozen.

“Shit,” Albert mutters as he looks at Clark, the machine, and then back to the screen.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“I don’t know. The system’s lagging. Not pulling the full image set,” Albert says.

“But it’s still sounds like it’s scanning.”

“It probably is,” he murmurs. “It’s just not transmitting it to the screen. If that’s the case, though, it’ll at least save the images to its memory.”

“You sure?” I ask.

“No.” He laughs out. “But there’s only one way to find out—and that’s waiting.”

“Worst-case scenario we have to run them again once it’s fixed,” Clark says. “I have a tech coming out later for the CT machine, so I’ll have him take a look at this.”

“Okay. Do we stop this then?” I ask.

“Nah. We’ll let it finish just in case it’s a relaying issue.”

“You two are the experts. I’ll follow your lead,” I say, twisting my lips while we wait it out.