56. Present Day
Present Day
“How are you feeling?” Lindsey asked. “You look…good.”
There was something very strange about telling her ex-boyfriend he looked good even if his skin was a normal color and he wasn’t crumpled on the kitchen floor.
“I’m fine,” Graham said.
“You sure?”
“I’m not worried about me.” He nodded to the couch a few feet in front of them at Luke Adams playing video games in his boxers, knuckles crusted with blood. “What are you going to do about him?”
“What do you think I should do?” Lindsey asked.
“You don’t think he should go to the hospital?” Helen asked, coming up to hand them cups of coffee.
“He’s a doctor. He should know if he needs to go to the hospital, shouldn’t he?” Lindsey asked.
“He needs a shower,” Graham said. “Before he ruins the couch.”
Both women smacked him, the kind of joint attack that was becoming common.
“Well, he does,” Graham said, rubbing his arms. “Whatever, I guess it’s your couch now.”
“Is there anyone you can call?” Helen asked Lindsey.
“I mean, there’s my dad—”
“Don’t call Dad,” Luke said, his attention fixed on the screen.
Lindsey traded looks with Graham and Helen and said, “Luke, you need help.”
“I’m doing fine, Linds. Don’t worry about me.” He glanced back at Graham. “I have the number of a good psychologist for you, and I can get you a prescription for an antianxiety medication if you want. Let me finish this level and we’ll talk.”
“Pass,” Graham said.
“Not pass,” Helen said. “He’ll talk with you.”
“You seriously want me taking medical advice from a mostly naked, drunk doctor?”
“I can hear you, and I’m no longer drunk,” Luke said. “And only mildly hungover.”
“Oh, well, if you’re only mildly hungover,” Graham muttered. “You’re still mostly naked.”
“Found you some clothes!” Jase called from the back hall. “They should work. Might be a little tight.”
He paused in the alcove when every eye in the den swung in his direction.
“Thanks, man,” Luke said.
“I see you survived the night,” Jase said to Graham. He gave Lindsey a wide berth and sat beside her brother, picking up a second game controller. Last night was the first night they’d slept in the same bed without sleeping together.
“Yeah. Are those Dad’s?” Graham asked about the pile of clothes Jase set on the arm of the couch.
“I said they’ll work,” Jase said. “Unless you have something that’ll fit him.”
“Pass,” both Graham and Luke said.
Graham held up his coffee cup and headed toward the kitchen. “I’m going to need something stronger in this.”
Helen flung her head around so fast, her hair whipped Lindsey in the face.
“Sugar,” he assured her. “Just sugar.”
Once he was out of earshot, Helen leaned in and asked Lindsey quietly, “How was it last night?”
Last night with Chloe in the spare room, literally on the other side of the wall.
“Did you guys talk?” she pressed.
“Just about Graham,” Lindsey said, peeling strands of Helen’s hair out of her lip gloss. “He’s okay, right? I doubt he’d tell me the truth.”
“He needs to get his anxiety under control.”
“I bet he had ideas about how to do that.”
The look Helen shot Lindsey down her nose as she smoothed her hair suggested she was unwilling to joke about her sex life with Graham’s ex.
Though Lindsey knew damn well if he was knocking on death’s door, Graham would insist a blowjob could cure him.
“What’s-her-face still sleeping?” Helen asked, her features returning to their normal level of iciness.
“Don’t care,” Lindsey said.
Charlie appeared in his boxers, scratching his mop of brown hair with one hand, holding a shirt he should’ve been wearing with the other. “Hey, guys,” he said far too cheerfully. “Is there coffee?”
“I’ll put on another pot,” Helen said.
“Great, I’ll take a cup after I run out to Chloe’s car,” Charlie said.
“Get the whistle,” Jase was telling Luke. “The whistle.”
Lindsey sipped her coffee and turned away from the overgrown children hunched over their game controllers. If Jason could see them all now…
“Hey, you’ve got a package,” Charlie called from the front door. “It’s big.”