Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MCKINSEY
T here are about a million and one places I would rather be right now—including on the back of Draven’s bike, cruising through Pittsburgh. In the company of Royce, of all people.
Instead, I’m sitting in the emergency department of Gettysburg Hospital, in agony from a migraine that has been stabbing away at me for a week. Draven has been threatening to drag me to the hospital the past couple days. I was able to hold him off, but even I couldn’t deny that something wasn’t right when I woke up this morning.
“What the fuck is taking them so long?” Draven curses under his breath for the millionth time.
“Draven, why don’t you go meet the guys in Pittsburgh? There’s no sense in you missing the ride. I’ll be fine, and I can message you updates as I get them.”
“That’s not why I’m irritated, and you know it. I can’t stand you being here in pain when it seems like no one in this fucking place is working fast enough to get you seen.” He curls his arm around me, careful not to knock into my head by accident. “Don’t worry about me, Kins. That ride is the furthest thing from my mind right now.”
My phone vibrates with another text from my group chat with the girls.
Olivia:
Any updates yet?
I take a deep breath. I feel bad for getting angry at everyone, but all of their questions and impatience is making my pain worse. Draven notices and takes my phone from me, texting her back.
Me:
This is Draven. No updates. I’m taking the doc’s phone because being on it makes her pain worse. When we know something, you’ll know something.
“ Draven . Be. Nice. Please.” At this rate these two are never going get along.
A sharp pain stabs through my head, forcing a sobbing moan from me.
“That’s it.” Draven stomps off before I hear him screaming at the poor woman at the front counter to get me into triage, now, before he gets all of his buddies to come down here and show everyone what the Gettysburg Bastards are made of.
Within ten minutes, I’m in a bed in the ER, shooting daggers through Draven for the spectacle he made.
“Don’t look at me like that, Kins. I’m not sorry for what I did, and I’d do it again, too.”
Before I’m able to attempt yelling at him, a nurse pushes through the curtain and into my cubicle.
“When they told me the vice president of the RBMC was here making threats to the staff, I thought to myself, not the Draven I know… Imagine my surprise to see they were right.”
With jealousy, I look back-and-forth between the nurse and Draven. But I can’t even put my all into it due to the amount of pain I’m in.
“Valerie?” My head thumps harder when I see the smile Draven gives her. “What are you doing here?”
“I pick up some shifts here and there for some extra spending money.” She looks from him to me before walking to the side of my bed. “Who’ve we got here?”
“McKinsey.” I say softly, wincing.
“Are these lights bothering you? I can turn them down a bit.” When the dimmer lighting helps me keep my eyes open more easily, I can almost forget all about being jealous of her.
“Thank you.” I sigh.
“You’re welcome. So, I see you’re here today because of head pain?”
I feel Draven grab my hand. Opening my eyes a crack, I see him standing over me, lips curved down.
“Um, just a really bad migraine. I feel silly for even coming in. I’m probably wasting everyone’s time?—”
“It’s not just that.” Draven cuts into the conversation as I close my eyes again. “For the past two weeks, she’s been a little irritable, and she’s been forgetting things, too.”
“Yes, because I’m distracted by the throbbing in my head.” I can’t even yell at him like I want to. “And I’m irritable because I’ve recently come down with a 6’4”, 200-pound pain in my ass.”
Valerie breaks out into laughter that echoes in my ears and makes my pain worse, but I can’t be mad at her. “Okay! I like her, Draven.”
I look at him through half-open lids to find him glaring back at me, unamused. Walking to the chair near the foot of my bed, he takes a seat.
“I’m just going to take a blood sample to send to the lab.” Both Draven and I remain quiet, the only sounds coming from Valerie as she works.
“Okay, I’ll send these downstairs then grab the doctor for you so you won’t have to wait much longer.” Valerie turns to speak directly to Draven. “And so you won’t have to make any further threats to the decent people of Gettysburg Hospital.”
“How do you know her?” My question comes out the moment Valerie leaves. Yes, it sounds accusatory, but I will absolutely blame it on the pain if Draven comments on it.
“She works at the facility I put my mom in when she wasn’t able to live on her own anymore. She took care of her like she was her own mother.”
All traces of jealousy I previously held toward the woman I’ve only known for five minutes vanishes.
Except for the constant vibration of texts coming in and the tapping sound of Draven answering them, we fall into silence.
“I hope you’re being nice. And not just to my friends.”
A huff is the only answer I get from him. A few more minutes of silence pass as I rub my temples, but I can hear Draven’s thoughts as clear as day. I know he’s only acting like a complete ass because he’s worried about me.
“I’m sorry I called you a pain in the ass.”
When he doesn’t reply for longer than I’d expect, I open my eyes, just enough to peer through my lids to find that he’s standing over me again.
“I just can’t stand seeing you like this.” He reaches for my cheek, but I wince preemptively because even the slightest touch hurts right now. He pulls back before making contact, settling for holding my hand instead. “And it hasn’t been that long since I was sitting, helpless on the sidelines, watching my mother die. That wound is still way more raw than I thought it was.”
My heart breaks. I didn’t even think about how hard this must be for him. I promise to be nicer, even when his overbearing nature can give my mother a run for her money.
I hear my phone vibrate again before Draven speaks.
“Olivia wants to know if she should call your mother.”
Speak of the fucking devil.
My eyes shoot open, the sudden movement causing me to cry out in pain. I cover my eyes with both of my hands, trying to calm the throbbing.
“Absofuckinglutely not. I can’t even believe…” Draven looks between me and the screen of my phone. “You have my permission to tell her that if she breathes even a word of this to my mother, I’ll never speak to her again for as long as I live. And I’ll leak those pictures from senior year spring break all over the internet. And you can phrase it in whatever asshole speak you want. Get creative—she deserves it for even asking.”
Apparently, my reaction forced him into a state of shock because he doesn’t move for a second. He doesn’t even give me the look he normally does that tells me I should try to be nicer to my mother.
“I’ll just tell her no … thank … you .” He types the words out in a reply to her as he says them out loud to me.
“If I had the ability to roll my eyes at you right now, I would.” Damn it. I told myself I’d be nice to him. “I didn’t mean that. You did the right thing. Thank you.”
He caresses my shoulder as he looks down at me.
“Listen, I just… I have no chance of this headache ever going away if she’s around. I promise, I’ll tell her I was here, but not until I’m feeling better, okay?”
“Deal.” He returns to his chair and picks it up, carrying it to the side of my bed before taking a seat. Reaching through the bars of my hospital bed, he grips my hand then rubs his thumb across the back of it.
Head throbbing, I’m grateful that we don’t speak until the doctor comes in about thirty minutes later. It’s exactly what I needed—to be able to lay quietly with my eyes closed, not having to think or speak or anything else.
“Ms. Caraway, hi. I’m Dr. Bennett.” A man in a white jacket with glasses and an uninterested tone of voice comes in with Valerie in tow. “You’re here due to some extended migraine pain?”
It sounds so miniscule when he says it, and I feel like an idiot who has blown my pain out of proportion.
Apparently, the question was rhetorical because he continues without letting me respond. “Your vitals are good, and all the lab work came back normal.”
“Will you do a brain scan next?” Draven asks on my behalf.
I feel like an idiot for not considering it first, but again, it makes me feel like a hypochondriac, thinking I’d need one.
“No. If your vitals or bloodwork came back with anything even mildly alarming, we’d go ahead. At this time, we’ll move forward with something called a migraine cocktail.”
“What the hell is a migraine cocktail?” Draven looks at the doctor like he doesn’t trust that he actually went to medical school.
“ Draven , please.” He rolls his eyes when I scold him, and I don’t miss the smirk Valerie tries to hide.
“It’s basically a mixed drink consisting of aspirin, anti-nausea medication, steroids, magnesium, and saline. Valerie will get you hooked up to an IV, and you’ll be out of here in no time. I’ll also give you a prescription you can take at home as needed.”
“Thank you.”
Both the doctor and Valerie leave, and Draven stews in his chair while we wait for Valerie to come back with the migraine cocktail the doctor ordered.
* * *
“Hey, what do you know about this quack?” Draven questions Valerie as she sets up my IV. “Why isn’t he ordering a scan?”
“Stop distracting her while she’s poking holes in me, Draven. I’m sure the doctor knows what he’s talking about.”
“How long have you guys been together? You bicker like you’ve been married for sixty years.” Draven scrunches his face at Valerie, ignoring her question as I laugh in my head. “Dr. Bennett is very knowledgeable. But I will say, if you don’t start feeling better in a couple days, come on back, and make it clear that you want a scan. You can never be too careful with your health.”
After she finishes inserting the IV and administers all of the medication into the line, she leaves, letting us know she’ll be back when the bag is empty. I close my eyes again, and Draven is silent until his phone starts ringing.
“Hey, Atty.”
“All right, I guess? This quack doctor has her on an IV with enough shit in it to make her fucking overdose.”
Cracking open my eyes again, I grimace at him, but Draven waves me off.
“Yeah, she’ll be able to leave as soon as this bag is kicked.”
It takes a second for the fact that Atticus has called to see how I’m doing to hit me, and I smile weakly.
“No, I’m staying at her house tonight. How was the ride?”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mmm…”
“Yeah, okay, thanks. I’ll tell her. You guys get home safe.”
“Yup. See ya.”
He’s quiet for a second, staring at the screen of his phone before speaking again. “Atticus and everyone say hello and they hope you feel better soon.”
“That was nice of them.” And I truly mean that.
After church that night at the clubhouse, I got to talk to a few of the guys as more than just someone in the passenger seat of their cars who didn’t want to be there. With the pretense of scary, threatening gangsters stripped away, I got to see that they’re really just a group of normal fucking dudes.
And Royce.
“Yeah. I told you they like you.”
“I’m actually a little bummed that I didn’t get to go on the ride today. And I still feel bad that you had to miss it.”
Draven takes my hand in his again, squeezing it firmly between his palms before kissing the back of it. Through the pain, I melt.
“Kins, I was exactly where I needed and wanted to be today.”