Page 17 of Property of Bob

Pearl stood. “I’m getting you food.”

“Pearl—”

“Nope.”

I looked at Shay. She lifted both hands. “Don’t drag me into this.”

“You’re useless.”

“Probably.”

Pearl headed toward the door, then stopped and looked back at me. “You’re okay in here?”

I glanced around the room. “Yeah.”

She nodded once. “Good.”

Shay followed her toward the hallway but paused beside the door. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “Bob’s had half this club camped out at the hospital since it happened. He’s got people watching him even when he doesn’t want them to.”

I smiled a little. “That sounds like him.”

Shay’s expression softened. “Yeah.”

Then she stepped into the hallway. Pearl reached for the door but didn’t close it right away. “You need anything, yell.”

“I thought this was a clubhouse full of bikers.”

“It is.”

“And your solution is yell?”

“Works surprisingly well.”

I laughed.

Pearl smiled. “I’ll set a tray outside with some food. Try to get some rest, Ramona.”

The door closed behind them.

I sat there for another minute, staring at nothing.

Tomorrow. I’d see Ashland tomorrow after twenty years. I lay back against the mattress and stared up at the ceiling.

I had spent the entire drive worrying about what I was going to say when I saw him.

Now I had a completely different problem. I had to figure out what the hell I was going to say when I saw him sitting in a hospital bed.

Chapter Two

Bob

I was getting the fuck out of this hospital soon.

Maybe not today. I wasn’t completely delusional, even if everyone around me seemed to think I’d lost my damn mind when I threatened to leave yesterday. I knew I wasn’t ready to walk out of here on my own two feet, hop on my bike, and ride back to Skull Island like nothing had happened.

But I was getting closer. I could feel it.

Every day, something was a little better. I could sit up longer without feeling like the room was trying to spin around me. I could eat actual food instead of having everything pumped into me through tubes. My voice sounded like I’d swallowed a handful of gravel, but at least I had one again. The first few days after they pulled the tube from my throat, getting more than a whisper out had been almost impossible.