Chapter 30
Andi
When they finally bring me into Kevin’s room he’s mostly still and quiet, pale and statue-like, his wounded leg propped up and his hospital gown stretched tight across his wide shoulders. After the nurses finish hooking up all the things that need to be hooked up, they show me the call button and tell me to let them know if he seems restless or tries to get up. They reassure me they’ll be in frequently to check on him, and then they leave us alone.
There’s a recliner beside his bed. I tug it around backwards so I can face him and hold his hand, my own feet up. I watch his face and the monitors. Breathe with the rise and fall of his chest. Celebrate the warmth of his fingers in mine and the thump of his heartbeat when I press my hand there.
It’s not long before his eyelids begin to flutter.
“I’m here, babe.” I raise his knuckles to my lips for a long moment.
His slow eyes-still-closed smile has me sitting up straighter. Leaning closer.
“You called me ‘babe,’” he murmurs, voice soft and rough and dreamy.
“Yes I did.” I blink away a tear so he won’t catch me crying. “How you feeling?”
His eyes open a fraction. “Glad…to be here. Glad you’re here. They check you over?”
“Mm-hmm. I’m fine. Better now that you’re awake and talking.”
He squeezes my hand. “You are so dang cool, Salazar.” His eyes drift closed on another smile.
That surprises a laugh from me. “What?”
“When I was shot. You were so calm. Practical.” He swipes his thumb across my palm. “So comforting. Ha!” His laugh is cut short by a grimace. “Okay, no laughing just yet. But dang, woman, when you leaned over and called that guy ‘Asshole’…and begged him to give you reason to shoot him…” He gives me a ridiculously soulful look. “Probably would’ve made my dick hard if I’d had enough blood left in my body.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Are you still doped up, Mahoney?”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I am.” He closes his eyes, gives my hand another faint squeeze, his voice drifting a bit. “Maybe I’m just high on my partner.”
He falls quiet then, his breathing slowing into sleep rhythms, and I cradle his words to my heart like treasure. High on my partner.
Yeah. Partner.
Never had a partner before.
Didn’t realize it could feel so good.
The next time he stirs, he asks me to find his phone and cancel the plane tickets. “And help me figure out how to tell my folks about…this…without scaring them.”
But when I pull his phone from the bag of personal possessions the nurses had hung in the little wardrobe near the bathroom, it’s blinking with messages, and when Kevin gives me his passcode, we find several texts from his family.
Kevin, the vice principal from your school called and let us know what happened. We’re on our way.
Hang in there, honey.
We love you.
Turns out they’d checked flight times and found it would be just as quick to drive through the night. Kevin’s parents, his brother, and his niece CeCe had left Lincoln already. His sisters, grandparents, and the rest are going to rent a big van and leave in the morning.
We cancel his airline tickets and then I use Kevin’s phone to text his family to tell them he’s doing well and resting after surgery. I give them my own cell number too, and his mom immediately texts me. She and I have a whole little conversation while Kevin slides in and out of sleep.
In the wee hours, we both wake up when a nurse comes to check his vitals. Kevin thanks her, his eyes clearer and his voice stronger than they were earlier. He watches her leave and then turns his head back my way. “What are we going to tell my folks about Lil Bit?”
Not something I’m prepared to deal with yet. I thought I’d have more time to think about it.
I survey my sweats-clad body. Since puberty I’ve had a big, exaggerated hourglass shape. In loose clothing like this my figure’s not obvious, which is the whole point except when I’m onstage. I doubt anyone would know I’m pregnant. My only-slightly-rounder-than-usual tummy is well hidden.
I think I catch a hint of worry in Kev’s brown eyes when I look back up at him. “Do we really need to talk to them about it so soon? Maybe they won’t be able to tell.”
“Is there a reason you don’t want them to know yet?” His tone is guarded.
I shake my head. “It’s more about me than about them. I’m—We—I’d like a little time to enjoy—Well, we feel different to me now. You and me. I’d like a little special time for us to have this new stage to ourselves. So much has changed in the last twelve hours. I’m kinda spinning from it.”
His eyes soften as we link hands. “Okay. Sure. It does feel different now.”
***
Kevin
I hear them coming from down the hall. I’ve been arguing—seriously arguing , for cripes sake— Me !—with the nurse, who doesn’t want me to have real food yet. Andi’s here quietly smirking in her comfy chair…but she’s got to be hungry by now too.
I wave the tiny bowl of jiggly blue stuff the aide had dropped off with toast and broth as my lunch. “I’m not saying I won’t eat the Jell-O. I’m just saying I need some meat, or some potatoes, or something I can chew , too.” To Andi I say, “Brace yourself. Incoming…”
And then they’re on us like a Great Plains tornado. Mom and Dad, Pete and CeCe, all talking at once. “Oh, honey!” and “You’re awake!” and “We finally made it!” and “What are the doctors saying?” all at the same time.
Andi’s eyes go round and she struggles to extricate herself from the recliner and the flimsy hospital blanket someone had brought her in the night. She makes it to her feet and everyone turns to her and…I think we all see the dried blood on her sweats at the same time.
I reach for her hand. “That’s mine, right? That’s not yours or…?”
Andi looks from me to my mom, who is pressing her fingertips to her lips, as distressed as I’ve ever seen her. “Hello, everybody. Kevin, I think I, uh…should go take a shower and get cleaned up and let your family have some time with you so they can see everything’s all right.” She leans down and kisses my cheek, then says to the rest of them, “I’ll meet y’all properly later. I’m so glad you got here okay,” and scoots out the door, leaving an actual silence in the room.
It only lasts a second, but still. With my family, that’s a first.
“Was that Andi?” my mom asks.
CeCe snorts. “She’s a lot prettier than that picture. Was that photoshopped?”
My dad’s frowning after Andi. “But she’s okay? She wasn’t injured?”
“No, Dad, she’s good, but you should see the other guy. Andi was so cool…” I spend a few minutes telling them the story, and then an exhausting hour answering ten questions at a time, and then Andi’s back, scrubbed and so fresh I want to taste her. She’s wearing jeans and a bulky sweater I don’t recognize, her wet hair pulled back in her usual braid.
I tug her over to perch on the side of my bed and formally introduce her to everyone.
My family is in proper awe of her after hearing what happened, but Andi’s not having it. “I think y’all are mistaking who saved who here. Kevin is the one who tackled the guy with the gun .” And before they can argue, she says, “Have y’all made sleeping arrangements yet?”
My mom and dad glance at each other. “I have another couple of places to try,” Mom says evasively.
“They’re full, aren’t they?” Andi actually looks happy about that, for some unfathomable reason. “Don’t worry. There’s no need for you to get rooms.” She turns to me. “I showered at July’s apartment. Joe’s turning over his whole building to your family while they’re here.”
To Mom she says, “There’s a nice little apartment with kitchen and full bath and bedroom and couch upstairs, and a big empty space with another bathroom downstairs.” And to me, “July and Joe are stocking the kitchen as we speak, and Rose and Angus have already inflated a bunch of those thick air mattresses and put fresh bedding on them downstairs. Between that and your apartment—and Rose and Angus’s guest room, if we need it—I think everybody’s set.”
I glance at Mom to see how she’s taking this evidence that she’s finally met her organizational match. To my surprise, she looks relieved enough to cry. She closes her eyes and for the first time I notice the lines of fatigue and worry and stress on her face. “It’s okay, Mom. Everything’s okay.” She’s close enough that I can reach her hand, so I take it.
She squeezes mine and a tiny tear streaks down her cheek. “I know. I can feel it. I’m so, so…glad.”
CeCe steps in and wraps her arms around Mom and everything is really…moist…for a few minutes.
Andi’s charming my dad and Pete when a nurse comes in and says the doctor has given the okay for me to have a real dinner. Andi turns to me, grinning. “How about I go get you something?” and CeCe says, “I’ll go with you!” and they’re gone before I can answer.
Pete and Dad say something about getting something to drink from the cafeteria. Mom sinks back in the recliner. I’m not sure which of us is more exhausted. She holds my hand and we both close our eyes and doze off.
Sometime later I wake up to the smell of heaven and the rustle of paper bags.
“Mmm!” my dad says, sniffing the air.
“What you got there, Cec?” Pete reaches for one of the grocery bags.
I know what it is.
Andi meets my hopeful eye and nods.
“Woman, you are the absolute best .” The words fly out of my mouth before I can grab them back. My family turns to stare at me.
CeCe leaps into the rare silence. “Uncle Kevin likes Pakistani food now.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. “ Really .”
Oh come on. I may have been a little less adventurous before my move, but I wasn’t really picky.
Andi steps over beside me with a foil pan. “Mr. Ahmed wouldn’t let me pay. He’d heard what happened and said to tell you to eat and build your strength back up. I got all your favorites.”
Yep, that’s the heaven I was smelling. She hands me a fork and I dig in, trying to remember my manners enough to not choke to death in my hospital bed.
Mom watches with a look I interpret as amazement. I ignore it.
“Honey, come fix yourself a plate,” Dad says to her. “We’ve got a feast here. Fried chicken, shrimp and grits, macaroni and cheese…” He elbows Pete aside and waves my mom up to join them.
CeCe hangs back, watching. “And guess what else ,” she says dramatically, as if no one else had spoken since her last announcement. “Andi’s never seen him wear his Nebraska hoodie!”
Aw, geez. Here we go.
“No, I’ve seen him wear the gray one. He just doesn’t like red,” Andi says, and I wince, knowing all hell’s going to break loose. But before Pete and Dad can start hollering, she says, “We stopped by the apartment. I brought you the gray one and the black Cornhusker T-shirt and some sweats.” She sends me another tiny wink because somehow she knows that just like that, she’s gotten me back out of trouble.
“We changed the sheets and tidied up your apartment, Uncle Kev. And picked up the key to that other building from your friend Joe.” CeCe’s given up on Mom fixing her own plate and has handed her one with a little bit of everything on it, including Ahmed’s incredible pimento-cheese hush puppies.
I register what she said. Your friend Joe. Not “Andi’s friend.” Mine.
Andi must have read my mind. “Everybody was here last night,” she says softly, beside me. “Joe and July, Angus and Rose, the restaurant crew, the high school folks, people from the shelter…”
“And they all gave blood for you!” CeCe is just a never-ending spout of information. “Andi got all misty-eyed when she mentioned it.” She shoots a now-what-you-gonna-do glance and a grin at Andi, who just laughs.
“Kevin failed to tell me what a brat you are, kid.”
“Yep, she’s already got you pegged,” Pete says, and tugs CeCe back to the food. “Let’s see if you can get that mouth busy chewing instead of trying to cause trouble.”