My stomach fell to my toes. “Oh no. But why did they call you?”
“Jealous?” he snarked.
I frowned at him as the headlights from a car going the opposite way lit up his face in sharp relief. “Why are you being a dick?”
He sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Sorry.”
“Wow.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “Did that hurt?”
“Shut up.” He smirked at me.
Arriving at the hospital was a blur. We parked in a garage and raced to the front doors and inside so fast I suspected he wouldn’t be able to find Shakira later, which would be awhole thing. He talked to a man at the front desk, then before I knew it, we were in a room in the ER and I was dodging a nurse to throw myself at a sheepish-looking KC.
“Watch the IV!” Ren half shouted, but I was busy cocooning KC in my arms. His hospital gown was scratchy against my cheek.
“What happened?” I mumbled against his chest. He smelled slightly sour, which wasn’t right.
His warm breath gusted into my curls as he groaned. “I passed out on the field for a few minutes.”
“Shit, did you get your bell rung?” Worry laced Ren’s tone as he stepped up to our side.
“No, nothing with a story that good to tell,” he mumbled.
“Well—” I bolted upright. “—what happened?” I searched for bumps, bruises, or bandages, then frowned when I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, other than the IV.
“He’s been drinking about a gallon of protein smoothies a day, which is not good.” A confident feminine voice slid into our conversation. She was an older lady with silver-threaded black hair and a friendly smile that made laugh lines stand out on her face. “I’m Doctor Mansfield. And in my line of work, we refer to that as overkill.” She glanced around at us. “I asked for you two to be called in at the request of my patient. Now we’re all here.” She sipped from a cardboard coffee cup and winced. “We can have this intervention the easy way or the hard way.”
KC surprised me when he slapped his hand down on the bed and scowled at her. His cheeks flushed as red as his hair, and for the first time ever, I spotted anger blazing in his pretty blue eyes. “How do you know it was my protein smoothies?”
“You drink way too many of them,” Ren said immediately, crossing his arms like he was getting ready to withstand a tornado.
“I knew they’d tattle on you.” Dr. Mansfield smirked at Ren, and KC groaned, rubbing his face as it went pinker, which couldn’t be healthy.
She stared me down and made my heart hammer harder than a judge might’ve if I was on the witness stand.
“What about you? Do you think he drinks a lot of them?”
I tilted my head and nervously cleared my throat. “I can’t actually remember the last time I saw him eat a meal.” I glanced at Ren in surprise. “But he always has a smoothie.”
She beamed at KC, whose eyebrows dipped. “I already knew that, thanks to years in this ER and a couple of blood tests. You have to knock that off or you’re going to destroy your kidneys by the time you’re thirty. I know that seems far off now, but trust me, it isn’t.” She frowned at KC as he covered his face with his hands, then peeked between his fingers at all of us.
“My trainer recommended them.”
“There is no way your trainer told you to drink that much.” She sipped her coffee and raised her eyebrows. “But maybe I should get you a seventy-two hour hold for a psych eval so I can make sure you rest and hydrate properly for the next three days. What do you think? Are you delusional? Hearing voices telling you to drink too many smoothies?”
“No,” KC groaned. “No, don’t do that. I thought drinking more of them was a good thing! If two is good, six must be great?” He tried to smile at her but caught Ren glaring and attempted to shuffle back into his raised bed. There was nowhere for him to go.
“You weren’t trying to kill yourself with this regimen?” She gestured at him with her coffee cup.
“He will stop.” Ren’s tone was dangerous and he only had eyes for KC.
“Perhaps I should call Quain?” I said softly.
“No!” KC nearly bucked me off, he jolted so fiercely. “I had them call you two for a reason. Pa can’t know about this or football will be over for me.”
“You’re an adult. He can’t stop you from playing,” Ren said with a frown.
“Scared parents can be highly motivated.” Dr. Mansfield patted Ren’s shoulder. “You promise to lay off that protein powder? You do realize it’s almost impossible for the average American to not reach their protein quotient for the day,” she said with a small flutter of her eyelashes that seemed to stand in for an eye roll. “You need to hydrate. Your kidneys will thank you.”
