"Still, I'm glad you can joke," he said. "That's a good sign."
"Is it though?"
Tolliver kept glancing at me. It was starting to make me paranoid—though to be fair, I was already kind of there. Sure, hesaidit was a gear bag presumably with his hockey stuff inside. But I didn't know that for sure. He was playing the apologetic bad boy-nice guy jock now, but maybe he was plotting my imminent demise, sizing me up for a shallow grave he dug earlier, taking me to his "spot." I'd watched enough crime shows and movies to know better than to get in the car with a stranger. I probably should stay awake—but I refused to be stared at like some kind of sideshow.
"What?" I mumbled.
"What what?" was his brilliant reply.
"I was trying to nap."
"I know," he said, "but you can't. Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because as previously stated, you may be concussed, and the number one thing you can't do when you have a concussion is sleep."
I frowned. "Had a lot of those, have you?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders. "A couple. My brother and teammates have had a ton more though, so I know the protocol."
I did too.
Unlike him, I'd learned that little fact through TV.
But I wasn't about to agree.
Lifting my phone, I looked down and…
"Don't," he said.
My eyes snapped to his. "Excuse me?"
"You shouldn't be looking at screens right now."
"Thank you, Dr. Tolliver, I'll keep that in mind," I snarked.
Instead of getting mad, he just shook his head.
I defiantly pulled up Aurora’s name and pressed call.
"Hey, Frey," she said. "Where are you?"
"Hey. I'm glad you picked up."
"Of course, is everything okay?"
"Yeah, fine." I paused. "Well, fine-ish."
"No idea what that means."
"I need to tell you something, Ror."
Aurora sounded different somehow when she said, "Okay, I have something to tell you too. A big something. Are you almost here? The bus is leaving soon."
"That's why I'm calling," I said. "You go ahead and get on the bus. I'm on my way to?—"
Absolute silence.
