She smiled weakly in return, then said, “So, who are you here to see?” before letting out a roll of slightly hysterical laughter. She scrubbed at her tired eyes. “I’m just kidding, of course. If you’re visiting someone in these rooms, chances are you don’t want to talk about who you’re visiting. Bad PR, being in the hospital.”
“Is this a VIP wing or something?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not officially. But money talks. And this is one of those times when I’m glad. My dad’s here,” she went on to say. “And I’m going a little bit crazy.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
She shrugged. “I need to go home and sleep.”
I looked over at her, wondering why she was so chatty. I didn’t necessarily mind; it was just odd. And she was right about needing sleep. “Yeah, you don’t look so good.”
She let out another burst of tired laughter. “Believe me, I know.” She turned to me. “So, who are you here to see?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. She was the one who’d just said no one in this corner of the hospital discussed it. Plus, she was in her twenties. Just the age to be a raving Sean Amity fan. “Looking to sell a story?” I asked without trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice.
She snorted. “Hardly. I don’t talk to the press unless I absolutely have to.” She let her purse slip to the floor and turned more fully toward me. “I meant is it family? Dad? Sister? Husband?”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No, just a friend.”
“How long have you two been friends?”
“Um…” I tried to gather my thoughts enough to answer. “Eight years.” I focused my eyes back on the floor.
“That’s a long time to stick by someone, especially when their life is complicated.”
Her chattiness and assumptions continued to leave me off-kilter. “How do you know his life is complicated?”
She turned her hands up at her sides, as if presenting the area around us. “You’ve got a guy in a suit outside your friend’s door. His life is complicated,” she said with a sardonic smile.
I let out a surprised huff. “Yeah…” I admitted.
“I mean, I know why I’m here. I’m the daughter. I really don’t have a choice. You, however…”
I didn’t bother looking up at her again. “He’d do the same for me,” I said, the words falling mechanically from my mouth with no conviction.
“And there’s that.”
“What?”
“It’s a he you’re talking about.”
“So?”
“So, any ‘friendship’ with a he that involves a personal security guy is going to be complicated.” She gave me a knowing but commiserating grimace.
I really hated that she was right.
“Do you love him?”
That blunt question earned my full attention and I looked over at her with mistrust. If it turned out that she was some ultra sneaky gossip columnist, I was going to be seriously pissed off.
“You don’t have to tell me. I know it’s none of my business.” She lay her head back and closed her eyes. “But I’m a fixer. It’s hard for me to turn off the urge to ask questions in order to diagnose a problem.”
“A fixer? Like a political fixer?” My only experience with those was on TV shows.
She laughed again. It was strange to see someone so tired—so obviously stressed—laugh so easily. I envied that. “No,” she said. “Being a fixer isn’t my job title, it’s just my personality.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say in response to that.
“I’d better go,” she said as she got up and reached for her bag. “I’m sure I’ll see you around if your ‘friend’ ends up staying here for more than a day.” She smiled, waved, and walked off, her footsteps dragging.
Her easygoing manner gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get up and walk into Sean’s room. I did so tentatively, taking in the bed and the monitors, and Sean lying there. His eyelids fluttered open, and he managed to focus on me with tired, watery eyes. He gave me a weak smile and lifted his fingers in greeting before closing his eyes again. I avoided looking at the IV that went into the back of his hand. I would pretend it wasn’t there. I assumed they were giving him pain killers since he wasn’t writhing in agony.
The doctor brought the x-rays in a while later, telling me and a barely lucid Sean that his hand would need surgery. “Someone will be in to take him up soon.”
“Now? It’s the middle of the night,” I pointed out.
“If we wait until morning, he could lose nerve function,” he said calmly.
Good thing I was already sitting down. I looked over at Sean, who blinked but didn’t comment.
I was grateful that he was so out of it. If he had been fully cognizant, enough to realize that it was his left hand—the hand he used on the frets of his guitar—he would have popped a blood vessel.
As they wheeled Sean off to surgery a while later, I stepped out of the room and leaned against the wall, watching as the orderlies pushed his bed down the hall.
“You okay?”
I turned to see the same nurse going through a med cart and marking something off on a tablet. I looked at her badge to remind myself of her name. Claire.
“Um…” I didn’t know how to answer that. Any honest answer would be long-winded and complicated.
“Is his family going to come?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s just me.”
“You consider yourself family?”
“Yeah, I do.” Which was one of the reasons I couldn’t just cut and run. I loved Sean, not in spite of who he was, but because of it. Even the parts that I hated, that I resented, were things that made him who he was, and I couldn’t unlove him, despite the bad.
“He’s lucky to have you, then,” she murmured as she continued to adjust and organize whatever supplies were in front of her.
I looked at her, wondering who got the privilege of working with these sorts of patients. “So how did you get this gig anyway?” I asked.
She looked up, puzzled. “You mean this job?”
“No. Taking care of Sean.”
“Ah. That’s a funny story, actually.” She marked off something else. “My boss gathered those of us who were at the beginning of our shift and said she had a couple extra tickets to a Sean Amity concert. She asked if anyone wanted them.”
I quirked an eyebrow.
“Hands shot up so fast. Lots of people trying to be professional, but there were several nurses that were almost jumping up and down. She pretended to write down the names of those interested, but really she was writing down the few people who didn’t jump at the chance. We’re the only ones who even know he was admitted and the only ones allowed near him.”
“Oh,” I said, blinking. “That’s actually brilliant.” I chewed for a second then asked, “You’re not a fan?”
She chuckled. “I like his music fine. I just knew it would mean a lot more to the other girls.”
“Is it a pain working on a case like his?” I asked.