Chapter Three
McKenna
BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT
Performed by Luke Bryan
My eyes were blurry from another twelve-hour shift as I headed toward the doctors’ lounge with nothing but my bed and sleep in mind.
As I came around the corner, I almost ran into a lanky, red-haired teen.
I put out a hand to stop us from colliding, and it hit his chest. He groaned, almost doubling over on himself, and my eyes grew wide.
I’d barely touched him, definitely not enough to cause pure agony.
My heart pounded viciously as I recognized Dr. Gregory’s son. Concern swept away my tiredness, and I asked, “Layton, what’s wrong?”
He pulled back, wrapping an arm around his middle and trying to straighten to his full height, which easily met my five-foot-ten. Layton leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing heavily.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” he said, grunting through the pain.
“You’re not fine. At all. Shall I call your father?” I whipped out my phone, and his eyes grew rounder until they took over his whole face with sheer panic.
“For fuck’s sake, don’t call him,” he hissed.
I hesitated, and when he saw it, he looked down and away, throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.
“Dad knows,” he said quietly, still avoiding looking at me. All my senses went haywire. A shiver went down my spine for no reason that I could name except a gut instinct and a well of memories that threatened to overtake me if I didn’t push them away.
“Do you mind me asking what happened?” I asked softly, keeping my tone as neutral as possible in an attempt to be soothing without raising Layton’s red flags.
He still wouldn’t meet my gaze and was running the toe of his shoe over the lines in the tile flooring.
“Got hurt climbing,” he said. “It’s just a bruise.”
But as he talked, his breathing remained shallow in an attempt to keep the pain at bay.
“Your dad looked you over?” I pushed, warring with myself.
It wasn’t my business. He was a minor. His dad was my boss and a well-respected man at the hospital and in the community.
My stomach clenched, unsubstantiated thoughts based on nothing more than instinct filled me, and I knew―with a panicked sense of certainty―that this was exactly what I’d spent the last ten years of my life working and waiting for.
And yet, now that it was here, I was terrified because it came in a form I couldn’t be sure would end well for me.
“It’s just a bruise,” Layton insisted, and this time, he raised his chin defiantly at me, as if daring me—or begging me—to say something different.
Half of me was screaming to just let it go―to walk away. The other half of me, the girl from nowhere who’d promised herself she’d be a shield for those who needed it, was yelling at me to push him into one of the ER beds and demand an X-ray.
He pushed off the wall, took two steps away from me, and then listed sideways as his knees started to crumble. I caught him under the arm with my shoulder so he wouldn’t hit the ground, and he yelped.
We darted looks in both directions down the hall, and I knew I was right. I hated that I was. I hated that I was going to have to do this, but I didn’t have another choice.
“Let’s get you into a bed so I can take a look,” I said quietly.
He didn’t argue. He could barely stand, breathing so erratically I thought he might actually pass out, and I’d have to call for a gurney. If I did that, his father would be called, and this kid wouldn’t stand a chance.
I opened the door of the closest hospital room, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw it was empty.
I got him over to the bed, and he sat down, whimpering again as I helped him lie back.
When I went to move away, he grabbed my hand, clutching it so tightly his nails almost broke the skin before he dropped it.
“Please, don’t call my dad.”
I swallowed hard, pulled the rolling stool from the corner, and sat next to him.
“Did you really get hurt climbing?” I asked, but I already knew he hadn’t.
He closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Crap on a cupcake . I debated one last second before saying, “Normally, I can’t conduct an exam or provide any medical care without getting permission from one of your parents, but there are certain circumstances that allow me to sidestep that rule,” I said gently, wanting to reassure him I could look at him if I suspected there was abuse without actually saying the words and scaring him off.
If I found what I thought I’d find, I’d also have to report it.
I’d have to report the head of my department, and I already knew that would bring hell down on me.
Roy Gregory was a narcissistic ass who I’d already gone toe to toe with several times after I’d wounded his pride by discouraging his sexual overtures.
Layton’s mouth turned grim, jaw clenching.
“Do you want me to call your mom?” I asked, tightening my ponytail and pushing my toes up and down like a ballerina, which sent my knees into a seesaw motion.
Both moves were old tells. Ones I’d thought I’d gotten past. Ones that had irritated my mother.
But then, any movement I’d made had irritated her.
He shook his head and bit his lip. “She knows.”
My heart fell. Having one parent who filled your life with fear was bad enough. Being afraid to tell the other parent was a different kind of torture that I knew acutely. But I couldn’t even imagine having the second parent find out and do nothing.
My dad, Trap, had turned vicious when he’d found out about Mama. But it hadn’t been his fists he’d used, even when he was known in three counties for doing just that―for being a violent man you didn’t want to cross. It had still been too little, too late.
Painful memories threatened to overwhelm me in a day full of them as I scooted the stool over to the room’s computer. I typed in my ID and password and then asked Layton for his social security number. I was officially crossing the line—the right line, but still one that wasn’t easy to step over.
I eyeballed his file, my stomach growing tauter with each entry I read.
Fractured wrist from a tee-ball injury. Displaced shoulder from a climbing accident.
Bruised cheekbone from a fall off a skateboard.
I wondered how many of those sports Layton actually participated in.
I’d heard Dr. Gregory bragging about his extreme-sports addict of a son, but maybe it was all a ploy to cover the abuse.
I donned gloves from the box by the door and took Layton’s temp and blood pressure when normally a nurse would have done it for me. I could have called Sally. She was still on duty in the ER. But there was no way I was bringing her into this.
I gently probed Layton’s chest and ribs, and his eyes rolled back.
“Stay with me, Layton. Tell me about your favorite sport.”
He drew his gaze back to me, brows furrowing as he concentrated on his motocross escapades.
After the exam, I placed an order for an in-room X-ray.
I didn’t want to wheel him about the hospital.
Hopefully, the name on the file wouldn’t send someone scurrying to ask Dr. Gregory about it, but it couldn’t be helped.
I had to have a name to log the request under, and I wasn’t prepared to make one up.
I had to keep as many of the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed as I could if I wasn’t going to lose my residency over this.
It was at least an hour later before the tech had come and gone and I’d received the results—cracks to ribs seven and eight, but nothing that would endanger his heart or lungs.
It would hurt like hell for weeks, but he’d recover.
I explained what I saw to Layton and what he needed to do to take care of himself.
Then, I sat at his side on the rolling stool, moving silently back and forth as I pushed my toes against the ground, first one and then the other.
“Want to tell me what really happened?” I asked.
He looked toward the window. “I already told you.”
“Bullshit.” I pulled the sleeve of my white coat up to reveal my forearm.
“These were from boiling water ,” I told him, showing off a dozen faded-brown scars that were perfectly round.
I could still feel the butt of the cigarette as it singed and the smell of burning flesh.
I dragged up the other sleeve to reveal a jagged scar running from my elbow almost to the wrist. “This time, I fell out of a treehouse we didn’t have. ”
His eyes grew wider, but he still didn’t say anything.
I pointed under my chin, lifting it so he could see the faded-pink line.
“This one was the last one. I supposedly fell skateboarding. At seventeen. When I didn’t own a skateboard and never had.
That was the one that finally allowed them to pull me away.
I was lucky. I had a…friend…whose family took me in until I graduated. ”
My throat clogged with emotions and memories, recalling Maddox and his anger that day. My body relived the utter despondency I’d felt and the pure joy when he’d said he’d never let me go back.
The screech of tires and the roar of Maddox’s 1972 Ford Bronco filled the street outside my house, and I did the only thing I could. I ran for it.
The screen door crashed shut behind me as Mama screamed my name followed by curse words that were all slurred together from the drink in her hand. My heart was slamming against my rib cage, a violent struggle going on inside me, but I didn’t stop until I was pulling myself into the passenger seat.
“Go!” I screamed.
Maddox obliged, hitting the pedal so hard my head flew back against the vinyl seat as the wind swirled around me. He had the hardtop off, and my long hair whipped into my face, sticking to the blood on my chin, as we drove away at a speed that was sure to get him a ticket if he wasn’t careful.
We were halfway to the lake before he finally spoke, drawing my eyes to his newly muscled body, dark-caramel tousled hair, and bright-blue eyes that glimmered in the fading sunlight.
What he saw made his hands jerk the wheel, and we almost went off the road before he corrected, straightening the tires back onto the pavement.
“You’re bleeding!” he growled.
My stomach churned, acid burning. I hated that Maddox knew about this part of my life—the drunken mother who hated me enough to strike out when I breathed the wrong way.
But he’d been the first to know. The only one I’d ever risked telling the truth to since the day he’d found me hiding as my mother screamed obscenities from the door of our shitty duplex.
“Do I need to take you to the ER, McK?” His voice cracked, worry and heartache in every syllable.
“No,” I told him, pushing a kitchen towel that I’d grabbed against my chin. Another thing for her to hate me for. Another thing I’d cost her.
We were quiet the rest of the way. The lake was where we’d spent most of our free time since he’d gotten his license.
Maddox four-wheeled out to the edge of the water, and I climbed into the back of the Bronco.
The insides of the vehicle were still a mess with torn seats and rusted sides, but the engine was strong and steady.
Maddox had spent every last dime he’d earned schlepping hay and horse manure and bussing tables at Tillie’s to save money for a paint job and new seats. The entire thing would be redone soon.
I reached for a fuzzy blanket Maddox kept in the back, and it revealed a small cooler.
I stretched the blanket out as Maddox joined me.
He turned on our favorite radio station, using the ancient boombox he’d found in the shed at his uncle’s that was stuffed with memorabilia from his great-grandmother’s time on sets in Hollywood.
When Maddox opened the cooler, it held two beers he’d likely swiped from his older brother’s refrigerator. He opened them both and handed me one.
Was it a problem to be drinking when my mama was an alcoholic? Probably. Did I care at the moment? No. I needed to relax. I needed to escape her violent words. I needed to pretend I didn’t have to go back there when the night was done.
Maddox lay down, reaching for me and tugging me up against him.
My body tingled at every single touch, the heat of him pushing away the cold and heartache. My body yearned to feel more than just these sweet touches. I wanted to feel his lips on mine. I wanted his hands sliding over my skin, making me feel alive.
But he was my best friend, and I didn’t dare risk his friendship for a chance at something more.
I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost the one beautiful light in my world.
We’d been Maddox and McKenna, M&M, to everyone who knew us since we’d been in the third grade.
There hadn’t been a day since then that I hadn’t talked to him, even when he’d had to sneak over and throw rocks at my window to do it.
He was the one stable, good, perfect thing in my life.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
The feel of Mama’s hand shoving my face into the sink, and the splintering pain rushing through my jaw hit me all over again as if it had just happened, and I closed my eyes against it.
I’d made the mistake of asking her for grocery money.
That was all, but it had been enough to remind her I was there.
That she wasn’t the free-spirited, no-responsibilities thirty-two-year-old she wanted to be.
I shook my head, opening my eyes to stare up at the sky as the colors faded from it. The hazy pink and orange slowly blended into gray and then finally black as we drank our beers and comforted each other by just being together.
A trail of light shot across the sky―a shooting star.
Of course, it wasn’t really a falling star, but rather bits of dust and rock colliding with the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.
Still, I liked thinking of them the way I had when I was a child and hadn’t known better.
I liked pretending I could wish on them and that those wishes might just come true.
I sent my two secret desires out into the universe and hoped with all my heart that one of them would become a reality.
When I looked over at Maddox, he’d moved so his body hovered slightly over mine, and his eyes were scouring my face.
“What did you wish for?” he asked in a deep gravely tone that had become his in the last few years. The tone that made my stomach quiver with want and need.
“You know I can’t tell you. It won’t come true, then.”
“I wished…” he started and then shook his head. “Why don’t I just show you.”
And before I could even think about it, he laid his lips on mine.
A soft kiss that wasn’t weak as much as it was hesitant, as if he thought I might shove him away.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged so his body collided with mine like the meteor had with the earth.
Light and fire and burning particles. Every warning skipped from my head as his tongue slid along my mouth, and I opened it, letting him in, forgetting everything but the all-consuming need to be closer to Maddox than we’d ever been before.
He groaned, and my body seemed to think it was a call, because it arched into him automatically.
Too many days of wanting this had the simple kiss turning ragged and raw in mere seconds.
Lost in the moment, the bottle I still held tilted and sent a stream of beer over his neck and back, causing us to jerk apart.
“Oops,” I said, smiling up at him as he chuckled. He pulled the bottle from my hand, setting it with his on top of the cooler, and then turned back to me.
“Tell me you wished for it, too,” he said.
There was a beg in his voice that I responded to by pulling him back to me, placing my mouth on his and mumbling, “I’ve been wishing for years.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as an enormous smile took over his face, transforming him from a bright star to a supernova.
We lost ourselves to kisses and hands and skin.
Beautiful touches that turned breaths into pants that trailed up to the sky and the stars.
We spent hours exploring the last parts of each other that we hadn’t yet learned.
Bodies we’d only partly seen in swimsuits at the lake.
Bodies that had filled out in muscles and curves.
Hours later, we were still touching. Eventually, the batteries on the boombox died, the moon crossed above us, the crickets went to sleep, and an owl hooted somewhere in the dark.
He pulled his lips from mine with a sigh but didn’t let me go. His arm was wrapped firmly about my waist, holding me against him. I placed my head on his chest.
“It’s late. We should probably head back,” he said reluctantly, and for the first time in hours, my stomach clenched, the burning acid returning.
“One more minute,” I begged. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to lose the love I felt flowing between us to walk into a cold house filled with hatred.
“Okay, one more minute, but then you’re coming home with me,” he grunted.
Tears hit my eyes. It wasn’t possible, and he knew it. I shook my head.
“I’m not taking you back there, McK. Not ever.”
For the next few minutes, I let myself believe that both my wishes had come true. I let joy overtake the fear and worry. I let us both stay in the bubble world we’d created where nothing but stars and kisses existed.
Lost in my memories, I didn’t hear the hospital-room door open or the curtain being yanked aside until it was too late.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” a deep, angry voice boomed.
All I could do was wish, as I had a decade ago, that Layton and I had one more minute. One more wish to keep our worlds from tumbling down around us.