Chapter 9 #2
“Hi.” I dump my car keys and black leather wallet in the top drawer where we both keep our private belongings while we’re working.
I close and lock it again with the keychain I keep attached to my belt loop that holds the master keys to everything in this building.
“And by the way, you’re on the bachelorette party tonight.
I did the last one, so it’s your turn to get your ass smacked, groped in the crotch, and multiple phone numbers slipped into your pockets. ”
“You say all that like it’s a bad thing. Man, when are we going to get you out of this slump? That liquor rep that replaced Felix has been eyeing you up and down every time she comes in to see us. She’s gorgeous. Why don’t you ask her out?” He leans back in the chair and looks at me seriously.
“Can you not? I’m quite content with my life.” I pick up the cash drawers off the desk that he just finished filling.
“I call bullshit. This is your best friend you’re talking to. I know you better than you know yourself.” He smirks at me.
“If that was true, then you’d know why I’m not interested,” I answer and try to keep a straight face while I wait for his reply.
“I do, but I want to hear you say it. And if you try to tell me it’s because of the boys, I will have to call you a blatant liar.
” Adrian pushes the chair back from the desk, then stands and walks around to me, placing his arm around my shoulder.
“So don’t even bother opening your mouth.
And just so you know, I’ll happily take one for the team with tonight’s women. ”
“Of course you will.” I groan. “They don’t call you a manwhore for nothing.”
My comment earns me a shove between my shoulder blades which makes me stumble a little, trying not to drop the cash trays.
“Asshole,” I mumble at him as he opens the door, and I keep walking past him.
“That’s why you love me,” he jokes, following me out the door and closing it behind him.
“You wish,” I snap back at him. But we both know how much we love each other like brothers. I wouldn’t be in the position I am today if he weren’t the one who picked me up and kept me putting one foot in front of the other after Lucinda died.
And then just as we reach the main bar area, I start putting the cash drawers into the register while he walks over toward Charlene, and he calls back to me.
“Oh, and I may have given Helga, the stunning liquor sales rep that took over from Felix, a free entry pass for tonight with a couple of drink vouchers on your behalf.” He steps behind Charlene, pretending to use her as a human shield. “You’re welcome,” he adds.
“For fuck’s sake, you will pay for that. Karma’s a bitch, buddy, and I have a very, very long memory.” I’m fuming on the inside, but I don’t want to show it as I hear a couple of the staff arriving for their shift.
Now I have to work out how to let another woman down kindly thanks to my so-called best friend. He knows why I’ve sworn off women again, so why is he still pushing me to date?
There is only one woman I want, and it’s like the universe has summoned her.
Pulling out my vibrating phone from my back pocket, the shock of seeing her name on the caller ID has me almost dropping it to the floor.
Accepting the call, I push the phone to my ear, struggling to speak.
“Landon,” she whispers.
My feet are moving so quick that I’m almost running to the office.
“Poppy, what’s wrong?” My voice is harsh, and I can feel my heart almost beating out of my chest as I slam the office door behind me.
“I need you.” The sniffle I hear tells me she’s in trouble.
“Start talking,” I demand as I unlock the drawer and grab my wallet and car keys, because I already know I’m leaving right now. Adrian will have to manage without me.
Poppy needs me, and that’s all that matters.
POPPY
Opening my eyes, the bright lights above me hurt them.
Trying to adjust my vision, I blink a few times. Looking around the room, I begin to understand I’m in the hospital. As I start to wake, the noises around me get louder, and it’s like I’m coming out of a fog.
“She’s awake,” I hear a man’s voice that I think is Rosco’s calling out to someone. “Get the doctor in here now,” he demands.
I feel disoriented, and my head hurts. But visions of what happened rush in so fast I need to close my eyes again to try to process everything I remember. Nothing makes sense, and as fast as the memories rushed in, they disappear again.
“You’re okay, Bert. Just relax, you’re going to be okay.” Rosco’s voice is closer now, and then I feel him pick up my hand and squeeze it. “You’re going to be fine.” I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince more, me or him.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly open my eyes and look up at him. Rosco has soot all over his face and is still in his turn-out gear from our call-out.
“Please, Poppy, can I call your mother now?” Rosco pleads with me. A vague memory surfaces of me screaming at him as they were loading me into the ambulance that he was under no circumstances to call my mom unless I died.
“No,” I try to say with conviction. My voice is raspy and not very loud, but I can tell he gets the message.
Especially when I squeeze his hand back as hard as I’m able to.
“She doesn’t need to know, she worries too much.
” Forcing the words out, I already know they’re going to tell me I have smoke-inhalation burns in my throat. I have seen it so many times before.
“But it’s her job to worry,” he scolds me. Rosco is about twenty years older than me and has kids of his own.
“No. I’ll…” cough, cough “…call her soon.” Taking another breath, I continue. “I’m going to be fine… you said so.” My voice is fading the more I try to talk.
“Damn, you’re a stubborn shit,” Rosco mumbles as he slaps my phone down on the hospital tray table. “The captain went and got it out of your locker at the station for you.”
We don’t carry our phones with us on call-outs and only the captain has the master key to open the lockers in the station.
“Your bag is over there, and all the crew are pacing in the waiting room.” As he finishes speaking, a doctor and nurse walk into my room. “I’ll go tell them you’re awake, and then I’ll be back.”
Trying to conjure up a smile is too hard, I don’t have the energy, so I just nod at him instead.
“Miss Bertrum, I’m Doctor Warren. I’ve been looking after you since you came into the ER a few hours ago. Don’t try to talk because I know it will be hard. I just want you to listen for a few minutes.” He looks down at me with the kindest eyes.
“You took quite a lot of smoke into those lungs, but thankfully, there are no serious burns in your throat.” I relax into the bed a little at that good news.
“We’ll keep an eye on you overnight to make sure your breathing continues to improve and that your oxygen saturation stays up where it should be. But your leg wasn’t so lucky.” He pulls back the blanket for me to see. It then occurs to me that I can’t even feel my legs.
“Don’t panic, we gave you an epidural so we could control the pain for you and manipulate the bones back into the correct position on your right leg.
That’s why you can’t feel them. It’s temporary.
You have snapped both your tibia and fibula bones in your lower right leg.
You will need surgery tomorrow to insert a plate and screw them both back together so they heal correctly and quicker than just putting you in a cast. Besides both those things, you took a knock to the head when the beam fell on you, so I would expect you have a pretty good headache right now. ”
“You guessed right,” I reply.
“Okay, we’ll give you some pain relief for that too.
But right now, the most important thing is that you rest and just let your body do what it needs to do.
” Dr. Warren then turns to the nurse beside him and rattles off what I’m guessing are the instructions for my medication and care for tonight.
She types everything into the computer she’s standing in front of that is attached to a tall mobile stand on wheels.
“Now, is there someone we can call for you? I was given instructions from the EMTs that brought you in that we weren’t to contact your mother who is listed as your emergency contact.
Normally I would ignore that, but your lieutenant who arrived not long after they brought you in insisted that was your wish.
So, is it okay to call her now?” He looks confused as to why I didn’t want her called.
“My father was a firefighter and died on the job.” I’m gasping with the effort it takes to talk.
“I don’t want her to worry when she lives so far away and can’t…
” Cough, cough, cough. Every cough feels like it’ll be my last as I try so hard to draw in the oxygen I need.
I wheeze as my chest constricts around my lungs, and the pain is so bad, I’m sure they’ve missed a broken rib or two.
“Take a sip of water, not too much at once.” He pushes the table closer to me, with a cup of water and a straw.
The small amount of ice-cold water sliding down my throat is so soothing.
Then the nurse readjusts the nasal prongs on my nose that’s feeding me oxygen to assist my breathing.
They both just stand there, watching and waiting for my breathing to level out, and I lie back on the pillow, trying to settle.
I close my eyes, but that just freaks me out, so I open them and look up at the doctor again to signal he should keep talking.
“I understand you worry about your mother, Miss Bertrum, but I suggest maybe you change your emergency contact to someone else who won’t panic.
A friend, perhaps?” My mind goes straight to Autumn, but she would be just as bad as Mom and is also not close by either.
“Especially in your line of work. You were lucky this time, but next time might be a different story.”