16
Lila
The ER had settled into that strange middle stretch where the chaos remained constant, but everybody had learned how to move inside it without wasting energy pretending it would calm down anytime soon.
Evan stood beside me at the nurses’ station, half-finished charting and half-finished complaining about a man in room six who had called him sweetheart twice and somehow made it sound insulting both times, when Blue appeared at the desk wearing the look of someone holding herself together by force.
“Hey,” she said, glancing between us. “I need a break. Can we have a minor chaos unpacking session?”
Evan straightened immediately. “Emergency caffeine and gossip? Finally, a medical intervention I support.”
Blue snorted. “Hot chocolate for me.”
I pushed back from the desk. “You’re buying if this is your emotional emergency.”
“Fine.”
Evan gasped. “Blessed be.”
We escaped to the cafeteria while we could. Evan spent most of the walk talking about frosting while Blue wrapped both hands around her hot chocolate once we settled at a small table, staring into it long enough for me to know the drink had very little to do with why she needed this break.
“So,” she said finally, “Priest came over last night.”
Evan’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, Priest? At your door again? Was he delivering a pizza or just serving up drama?”
Blue huffed a laugh. “Neither. We talked. Actually talked. He told me about his past, why he’s got all those walls.”
Evan leaned forward, mouth open in mock shock. “Hang on, are you saying the big, scary MC president actually unlocked the vault? Girl, did you have to bribe him with cookies or just threaten him with a stethoscope?”
Blue shook her head, though she was smiling. “No bribery needed. It was a lot, but… then things got heated.”
Evan’s hands shot up. “Oh, thank god! Time to call the Vatican and report a miracle. So, was it like a fireworks show? Did he pick you up and toss you on the bed? Details, Blue! Was it all slow burn or straight-up inferno?”
“Evan,” I warned, fighting my own smile.
“What? I am asking important follow-up questions.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Don’t you dare make me beg. Spill the hot chocolate, or I’ll start making up my own version!”
Blue covered her face for a second, laughing, and I rolled my eyes. “Ignore him. How do you actually feel, Blue?”
She sagged back in her chair, some of the humor leaving her. “Honestly? I don’t know. Am I insane for even thinking about forgiving him? For opening my heart up again?”
Evan pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m not answering until Lila does. I want the responsible adult opinion first. Then I’ll give you the Evan Experience: unfiltered and probably illegal in seven states.”
I reached for my coffee and gave myself a second before answering. “He didn’t cheat, right?”
Blue shook her head. “No, he didn’t.”
I nodded. “So really, he just kept you out with those walls. But before Sadie started her crap, those walls were coming down on their own, weren’t they?”
“He said so. I think I just forced the issue by running away.”
“I think you protected yourself,” I said quietly. “That matters too.”
Something shifted in Blue’s expression, but Evan had already reached the limit of his restraint.
“Baby, let me translate: that giant, broody man is pining. He may not be able to admit it yet, but trust, he’s got it bad.
This is full-on romance novel territory.
Possessive MC man, hunting you down to prove how much he wants you?
Girl, you need to hop on that bike and ride it straight to the happily ever after!
For me, at least. Let me live vicariously! ”
Blue and I gaped at him, then both cracked hard enough that she nearly choked on her drink.
“We really, really need to get you a man. Like, yesterday,” Blue gasped.
Evan straightened, smoothing his scrubs with great dignity. “Who says I don’t have my eye on someone already? Preferably someone tall, tattooed, and answering to the name Ink.”
As if summoned, Ink appeared in the cafeteria line, loading his plate with the kind of focus that made it look like he had a strategy for cafeteria food. Blue bit her lip. “Evan, I don’t know… I’ve only seen him with women at the clubhouse.”
Evan gave her a look. “Please. That man has bisexual lighting. I see the way he checks me out. If I’m wrong, may all my lattes run out of froth.”
I coughed into my cup.
A minute later, Ink reached our table, plate in hand and expression carefully neutral. “Hey, Blue. Lila.” His gaze flicked toward Evan for half a second before sliding away. “Evan.”
Evan winked. “Oh, don’t say my name like you’re trying to survive it. I’m unforgettable. I’m like glitter, you’re never getting rid of me.”
“And that’s exactly why we keep him around, he makes every day a little sparklier.” I gestured toward the empty seat. “You want to join us? We’ve got a few more minutes of break and two-thirds of a comedy show.”
Evan scooted over, looking far too pleased with himself, while Ink sat with the distinct air of a man reconsidering every choice that had brought him to this table.
He cleared his throat. “So… how’s the pregnancy going, Blue?
Priest has been showing off those sonogram pics like a kid with a new toy. Never seen him so hyped.”
Blue blushed. “It’s good, actually. No complaints.”
Ink nodded, some of the tension leaving his face. “Good. And, uh, thanks. To both of you. For keeping Deacon alive. Would’ve wrecked us to lose him.”
The teasing faded. “We just did our jobs. But yeah, I would’ve done anything to save him. And I know Blue would’ve fought just as hard for Priest.”
Blue squeezed my hand. “Always.”
For a moment, even Evan stayed quiet.
Blue glanced at the clock and pushed herself up. “Okay, we’ve got to hit the restroom before we get back to the land of bodily fluids and impossible family members. Evan, don’t seduce anyone while we’re gone. Ink, tell Deacon I said hi.”
Ink nodded while Evan gave us an innocent wink. “I’ll be good.”
I paused beside Blue and looked back at him. “Your version of good or the legal version?”
Evan smiled sweetly. “Those are two very different journeys.”
Blue and I left them together and headed into the hallway. Once the cafeteria noise fell behind us, she looped her arm around mine and lowered her voice. “Any idea what you’re going to do about Jade and Deacon?”
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “I haven’t a damn clue.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “That’s okay. There’s no due date on these things.”
A breath slipped out of me. “Feels like there should be. Like the longer I wait, the more complicated it gets.”
“It was always complicated,” Blue said gently. “You’re just finally looking straight at it.”
I gave her a tired smile. “Rude, but accurate.”
We kept walking, the fluorescent hospital corridor stretching ahead of us, until uncertainty crept back into Blue’s expression. “Lila,” she said, hesitating, “do you think it’s possible to love somebody who’s hurt you? Can you ever really go back?”
Jackson rose immediately in my mind, eighteen by the lake and thirty-five in a hospital bed, with seventeen silent years between them.
“Maybe it’s not about going back. Maybe it’s about moving forward. Together.”
Blue nodded, something settling behind her eyes. “Yeah. Moving forward. I could get behind that.”
We disappeared into the restroom, then returned to work.
The rest of the shift should have been manageable.
It wasn’t.
About an hour later, our charge nurse caught Evan and me at the station wearing the expression that always meant somebody was about to lose a chunk of their evening. “I need you both to stay over,” she said. “We’re short.”
Evan groaned like a man receiving a prison sentence while I glanced at the clock and reached for my phone. “I need to call my daughter.”
Jade answered on the second ring. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, baby. I have to stay late.”
A brief pause followed before she answered, “That’s okay, I know the drill. I can go hang out at Chloe’s for a while so you’re not worried that I’m just sitting at home alone. I’ll be back before too late.”
Relief loosened something inside me almost immediately. “Okay. Text me when you get there.”
“I will.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up feeling steadier. Not good exactly, but better.
The next few hours disappeared the way they always did once the floor accelerated.
Chest pain filled one bay while another held a busted hand.
A toddler burned with fever down the hall, and a drunk man tried to fight triage because the wait offended his personal brand.
Evan and I moved through it the way we always had, trading supplies and reading one another’s expressions fast enough to keep the floor from tipping too far into madness.
Then the radio call came.
MVC. Teenagers. Suspected alcohol involved.
The gurneys burst through the ER in a blur of fluorescent light, noise, blood, gasoline, and vomit.
One girl had a head wound and an obvious injury to her arm.
Two boys were loud through their pain, booze heavy on their breath and their pupils telling me alcohol wasn’t the only thing in their systems.
My hands were moving before my mind caught up with their faces.
Then I saw the girl.
Chloe.
Cold swept through me so quickly I almost lost the rhythm of the room. “Where’s Jade?” I heard myself demand before I consciously decided to speak.
One of the boys laughed, high and ugly with intoxication. “Not here, lady.”
The other smirked through a split lip. “That frigid little prude wouldn’t be caught dead with us.”
Heat replaced the cold.
The first boy looked at me, sensing the opening with the cruel instinct boys like him always seemed to possess. “It’s like nobody can get in her pants the way this town gets into her mom’s!”
Evan lunged.
He didn’t get far before I caught his arm and yanked him back. “Evan.”
“I will kill him,” he hissed.
“No, you will not. Not on my shift.”
Every muscle in him remained locked for another second before training finally won over fury. We got Chloe stabilized together, and I passed her parents’ information to another nurse with instructions to make the call. When Evan moved away for supplies, I leaned closer to the bed.
“Chloe,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “Where is Jade?”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Tears had started running down her face, whether from pain, guilt, alcohol, or some ugly mixture of all of it.
“Chloe.”
Her mouth trembled. “She’s not with us.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She stared at her lap, and the shame in her expression knotted my stomach before she said another word. “We’re not really friends anymore.”
For a second, I thought I had heard her wrong. “What?”
Her crying worsened. “We haven’t been since high school started.”
Something inside me went very still.
“No one’s nice to her,” Chloe choked out.
“Not really. Because she doesn’t have a dad, and because you keep who he is secret, and people talk about you and they passed it all down to her and...
” She sobbed and covered part of her face with her good hand.
“She keeps to herself. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
I didn’t want to be a social pariah too, so I...
” Her shoulders shook. “I was mean to her too. I stopped being friends with her.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath me.
I stepped backward without meaning to, and Evan went rigid behind me with gauze still in his hand. “What a little bit...”
One look from me cut him off.
Chloe’s parents rushed in a moment later, pale, breathless, and already panicked. Her mother’s expression changed the instant she saw me beside the bed.
“What happened?” her father asked.
“Car accident,” I said, reaching for professionalism because if I lost it now, I wasn’t sure I would get it back. “She was drinking. The boys she was with were drinking and driving.”
Chloe’s mother turned toward me with sudden venom. “So this must be your daughter’s influence, no doubt.”
Chloe gasped. “Mom!”
I straightened slowly. “Actually no,” I said, my voice cool enough to frost glass.
“My daughter is at home doing homework and studying.” I held her mother’s gaze until she finally looked away.
“Perhaps if your daughter hadn’t been bullying my daughter and had remained friends with her, that influence might have kept her from making a decision like this. ”
The silence afterward was absolute.
I refused to fill it emotionally. “X-ray will be here shortly to take images of her arm and wrist. Then the doctor will be in. She needs to keep the stitches on her head clean and dry. The call button is right there if you need assistance.”
Then I walked out with my head high and my pulse beating hard in my throat.
Evan followed immediately. The moment we cleared the bay, every word he had been holding back broke loose.
“Those people are unbelievable, and honestly so is this whole damn town. Wicker Falls loves to dress itself up in pearls and Bible verses, then spend the rest of the week chewing people to pieces behind closed doors. It is shiny on the outside and slimy underneath, and I am this close to setting something expensive on fire. I swear to God, if I had five minutes and no witnesses, I would ruin that whole family’s week. ”
I stopped walking.
So did he.
The adrenaline began draining out of me now that I knew Jade was physically safe, leaving my hands trembling and my legs suddenly unreliable. I braced one palm against the wall and tried to drag air into my lungs without letting it turn into panic.
Evan’s face changed immediately. “Hey.”
I shook my head once. “Tomorrow,” I said. “Tomorrow I’ll figure out what’s going on with Jade.”
He stepped closer, all the fury in him settling into something gentler. “You want me to come over? Help talk to her? If anyone knows what it feels like to be ostracized, it’s me.”
That nearly undid me.
I turned and wrapped my arms around him hard, and Evan held me just as tightly.
“Yeah,” I said against his shoulder. “Actually, that would be great.”
He squeezed once before releasing me. “Done.” Then affection and fury collided in his expression in that particular way only Evan could manage. “And for the record, I still hate those people.”
A laugh escaped me, shaky and worn thin but real. “Get back to work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We turned toward the nurses’ station, but my thoughts stayed with Jade. My girl had been walking through something I hadn’t seen clearly enough, carrying humiliation and loneliness while I accepted a friendship that had apparently ended years ago because she let me believe it still existed.
Another truth rose beneath that one, quiet and unwelcome.
Tomorrow, I was going to ask questions I should have asked sooner.
Depending on the answers, Jackson Hayes might not be the only ghost I dragged into the light.