"Sassy took her to the house a few hours ago," Rhett said, lookin' up from his phone where my ex-fiancée hadfinallyresponded.
I nodded, which sent a throbbin' pain through my head that radiated down my neck and settled behind my left eye like a hot nail. "She didn't wanna come here?"
Rhett's eyes dropped to the scuffed linoleum for a beat. When he looked up, his mouth scrunched up into a cowboy's version of a sympathetic smile—one that saidyou poor, poor fool.
My mama walked in with a cup of coffee for Rhett and one for herself. The smell hit me sideways—burnt and bitter, the offending scent of hospital coffee that tasted like someone had brewed it through a dirty sock. My stomach lurched.
She looked around the room. "Still no Calvin?"
For fuck's sake.I groaned and pressed my head back into the hospital bed pillow. The thin cotton was damp where I'd been sweatin' through it for hours, and the fluorescent light above me buzzed at a frequency specifically designed to make a concussed man wanna claw his own eyes out. After I squeezed my eyes shut for a few seconds tryna fight off the pain and nausea, I pushed the call button on the bed. Repeatedly.
"I need to get the fuck outta here."
"Brody Lancaster, you quit buggin' those nurses," my mother scolded. "They got more important things to do than listen to your bellyachin' about a girl."
"She ain't just a fuckin' girl, Ma!"
I was yellin' now.
At my mom.
'Cause I knew.
Knew down to the marrow of the bones in my throbbin' skull that Calvin not bein' here meant shit wasn't right. She wasn't feelin' right about what went down, and who could fuckin' blame her?
I started to climb outta the bed—IV tape pullin' at the crook of my arm, hospital gown ridin' up in places no man wanted a hospital gown ridin' up—just when a nurse came in.
"Alright, Mr. Lancaster. You're all clear to get outta here. I just need a signature on the discharge paperwork, and we'll get that IV out."
She handed me a clipboard, and I signed where she pointed, barely readin' a single word—somethin' about concussion protocols and follow-up appointments and a list of symptoms that should send me back to the ER. Mom intercepted the patient copy before I could toss it, foldin' it into her purse with quiet efficiency. She'd be enforcin' every line on that sheet whether I liked it or not.
The nurse peeled the tape from my arm and slid the IV free. The sting barely registered against the symphony of everything else that hurt.
"Your clothes are in the bag under the bed," she said, noddin' toward a clear plastic sack I hadn't noticed. "Take your time gettin' dressed."
I did not take my time.
Rhett fished the bag out and handed it over. I swung my legs off the bed too fast—loss of equilibrium,think I'd seen that on the list Mom just pocketed—and gripped the mattress edge until the room quit spinnin'.
My jeans were dusty and stiff, one knee ground brown from the arena dirt. Gettin' 'em on one-handed while my shoulder screamed bloody murder was a special kind of humiliation, but I wrestled the button closed and shoved my feet into my boots. My shirt was a lost cause—stretched outta shape by the paramedics tuggin' at the collar to get the neck brace on. I pulled it over my head anyway, and the dried sweat and arena dust hit my nose. Smelled like dirt and horse.
I grabbed my hat off the chair where Rhett had set it. Bent brim, dirt ground into the felt. I put it on anyway because a cowboy without his hat in a hospital was just a man in dirty clothes.
Callin' myself a cowboy was a stretch on a good day. But on rodeo day, I'd always felt like one.
I'm good with bein' your boy scout.
Hell, after today, I'd hang up my hat for good if it meant keepin' Calvin Jennings.
"Let's go."
Mom had already gathered the discharge papers, the prescription for painkillers I probably wouldn't fill, and the pamphlet about concussion recovery that I definitely wouldn't read.
"Rhett's drivin'," I said, snatchin' the keys from her hand.
"Hey now, what're you?—"
"You drive too slow, Mom," I cut in as the three of us exited through the emergency room's automatic doors. The parkin' lot heat slammed into me—that thick, August warmth radiatin' up off the asphalt, smellin' like tar and exhaust. "I love you, but it's a fifty-two minute drive home if you drive the speed limit." I shot her a look—one I hoped she read asdon't even try to argue."And you drive at least ten under."
