Page 117

Sutton’s hand flies to her hair. “Is it bad?” she whispers.

“The happy is the most obvious part,” Nora says. She looks up at me with a grin.

I grin back, unapologetic about Sutton’s mussed appearance, but Harley, Leo, and Wilson approach just then.

“We don’t really know anything yet,” Harley reports. “He’s been awake the whole time. He is reporting a headache and some hip pain. They’ve taken him for a hip x-ray. And they want to do a head CT.”

Sutton and I both nod. That all sounds good to us, but what do we know?

“I’m going to go tell the doctor you’re here. Brewser’s asked for you and the doc wanted to know when you got here,” Wilson says.

I reach out and touch Wilson’s shoulder before he can turn away.

“Are you guys okay?” I ask. This is their lifelong friend. If Sutton and I are scared, I’m sure they’re feeling the same, if not more so.

Wilson gives me a smile. “We’ll be okay when we know Brewser’s okay.”

That is very fair.

“Come with us quickly before the doctor comes to talk to you,” Nora says to Sutton.

Nora, Andi, and Astrid start herding her down the hall. She shoots me a quick look, and I give her a wink, silently telling her it’s fine. I’ll be here when she gets back.

Hospitals suck for everyone, but for my girl and me, they’re especially hard. But we’re here together. And with people who love us. We’ll be okay.

“Here you go, honey,” Patty says, pressing a cup of coffee into my hand.

Wilson leads me to a chair along the wall near the door. “Here. You’ll be one of the first the doc sees right here.”

“Brewser bailed out of a pickup into a ditch headfirst when we were fourteen, and he was fine,” Muriel says, sitting down across from me.

I give her a wide-eyed and slightly confused look.

But Leo nods. “He always slid into home head-first in baseball. Even when Coach told him to go feet first. He said it was instinct to lead with his head.”

“Even after he was in medical school and needed his brain to stay intact, he dove off boats headfirst instead of doing cannonballs like the rest of us,” Wilson says.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask them, a little confused but mostly surprised by how reckless Brewser apparently was growing up. I’m a hockey player, and even I know that you protect the head, for fuck’s sake.

“His head is hard. And it’s been banged around before,” Muriel says with a shrug. “No way is he going down line dancing.”

Leo nods. “He’ll go out bailing out of a pick-up or diving off a dock. Line dancing is way too sweet.”

I shake my head. Got it. They’re trying to make me feel better.

I appreciate it. But I’ve been in hospital waiting rooms playing the ‘it’ll be fine’ game before. It’s not always fine.

I start to point out that he’s a lot older now and I don’t think the Parkinson’s will allow diving off of docks but…

“Why did he bail out of the pickup?” I ask, distracted despite myself.

“Because we stole it and didn’t want to get caught in it,” Muriel says.

“And we didn’t have driver’s licenses,” Leo says.

“And we’d been drinking moonshine,” Wilson reminds her.

She nods. “We would have been in huge trouble.”