Page 16 of Crowbar

“Guessed it already.” Another pause, longer this time. I could picture Preacher reading between every line I wasn’t saying, the same way he’d read the situation with Trent before the rest of us had caught up.

“Take him,” Preacher said. “Use the club card for the bill. I’ll let Sledge know a charge is hitting the books. And, Crowbar?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring him back when he’s patched up.”

The line went dead. I pocketed the phone and walked back to Spencer, who hadn’t moved. Gunner had somehow escaped the backyard and found him, her tiny body pressed against his hip, nose buried under his good hand. She looked up at me with brown eyes that said fix this as clearly as if she’d spoken English.

“Working on it,” I told the dog.

“Did you just talk to the puppy?” Spencer’s voice was thin but steady.

“She started it.” I crouched in front of him, elbows on my knees. “Here’s the plan. I drive. You sit. We go to the urgent care on Green Road. They look at your arm, do whatever they need to do, and you let them. Then I bring you back here for food, because you haven’t eaten anything tonight except your own fingernails.”

“I haven’t been…” He looked at his right hand. Three nails were bitten to the quick. “Shut up.”

“Can you stand?”

“I’m injured, not paralyzed.” He pushed off the wall with his good arm, wobbled, and I caught him by the waist before his knees buckled. The contact brought his face close to mine, close enough to count the freckles I’d noticed at the register. Seven across the bridge of his nose. Three more scattered along his left cheekbone.

“Steady,” I said.

“I’m steady.” He wasn’t. But his chin was up and his jaw was set, and something in the angle of it told me Spencer had been standing on shaky legs for a long time and had gotten very good at pretending otherwise.

“Stay here with Gunner,” I told him. “I’ll grab my keys.”

“Noodles.”

“We’re not doing this right now.”

“We’re always doing this. It’s our thing,” he volleyed back.

When I returned, I kept my hand on his back as we walked to my truck. Not the bike. No way I was putting him on the back of a motorcycle with one working arm. The truck was parked behind the row of motorcycles, a black pickup with a crew cab. I opened the door for him. He climbed in without protest, which told me the pain had gotten bad enough to override his pride. Gunner went on his lap, immediately burrowing into the space between his thighs and his stomach, and Spencer curled his good arm around her like she was the only anchor he had left.

Which was the reason she was going with us. I knew enough people who worked there that would look past bringing a puppy inside the clinic.

The drive to urgent care on Green Road took twelve minutes. Spencer was quiet for the first five, which was long enough to concern me. The man hadn’t stopped talking since I’d met him. Silence from Spencer was like silence from a smoke detector during a fire.

“The banana bread has chocolate chips in it,” he said at minute six, staring out the window. “I put them on one half. The other half is plain. I’m picky sometimes.”

“Thoughtful of yourself.”

“I’m a thoughtful person. It’s my tragic flaw, aside from never knowing when to shut up. I think about things until my brain eats itself, and then I bake about it.” He shifted in his seat, wincing when the seatbelt pressed against his arm. “I made four dozen cookies last Tuesday. Four dozen. I live alone. Who needs four dozen cookies?”

“What kind?”

“Snickerdoodle.” He turned his head to look at me, and the streetlights caught the green of his eyes. “You’re distracting me.”

“Is it working?”

“A little.” He looked back at the road. “I’m scared. Not of the doctor. Of what they’re going to find. And what you’re going to think when they tell you. Because I’ll give them permission to tell you since you’re persistent enough to find out anyway.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Already told you. No questions tonight.”

“I know what you promised.” His voice dropped. “I also know what you’re thinking. You’re not stupid, Crowbar. Nobody gets an injury like this from stocking shelves.”

The silence between us filled with everything neither of us was saying. I pulled into the urgent care lot, killed the engine, and sat there for a beat, staring at the glowing sign above the entrance.