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I shivered and shifted my focus. Sitting in the driver’s seat was My Angle—I couldn’t see him well, but I recognized his scent. Axe.
“You’re My Angle!” I said, the words distorted and easy to mistake.
Blue Streaks laughed. “Wow, Quinn, he must have had quite a fall to think you’re an angel.” She turned to me with a cheerful grin. “That’d be Quinn, and I suspect he’s more spawn of the devil than anything.”
That earned her a whack across the arm. “I just found out my boyfriend’s cheating on me,” he said in a deep voice that vibrated in the air and stirred the hairs on my arms. “Just like that I’m apartment-less, and instead of holing myself up in your room with Super Mario and Pringles, I’m dropping this guy off at the emergency room. You can be nice to me, Shannon.”
She laughed as she shook her head, hair falling in waves over her shoulder. “No. Not happening again. Even after cleaning my sheets, I still had crumbs in my bed for weeks!”
“What’s a few crumbs to my grief?” Quinn asked, turning the car onto College St. and passing my apartment; it was the only floor with all the lights out. “Why not think of it as an opportunity?”
“Opportunity?”
“Think of it as a chance to exfoliate or something.”
“Eww, boys are so gross.”
“One person’s gross is another’s creative.” Quinn angled the rearview mirror. He winked at me. Or was it a trick of the light? Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought. “Help me out here, man,” he said. “Together we can prove just how damn awesome us guys are.”
Shannon snorted, and Quinn growled, low and playful.
“I think it depends on the guy,” I said, tenderly touching the back of my bruised head. Luckily I didn’t feel any blood.
Shannon agreed and settled a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “This one straddles the line between grossest and most awesome guy in the world.” She gave him a fond smile and swung her gaze my way. “You hanging in there all right?”
I nodded and rested my head back on the seat.
“We’ll be there in a minute.”
I shut my eyes as she continued bantering with Quinn. The sound of their voices comforted me, and I suddenly began to laugh. Quietly at first, but then the bouts got louder and my breathing became more labored. Tears tickled the edges of my eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Shannon asked, and Quinn frowned in the rearview mirror.
Funny? No idea. Nothing. Everything.
I shrugged and burst into another uncontrolled bout that squeezed my stomach so hard it hurt.
“Jesus,” Quinn said with a half-laugh, sending me into another episode. “I think I better drive faster.”
Antiseptic and linoleum, the smell markers of a hospital. The walls were covered with pictures of superhero-doctors that must have been donated by a local school. I took off my glasses and cleaned the lenses with my shirt.
“I’m fine,” I said again to the rather tired-looking Doctor Carter who was scanning her clipboard of notes. “I don’t need to stay here.”
It wouldn’t be the end of the world to be admitted overnight. Hospitals didn’t bother me like they did some. But my laptop was at home and my report needed writing. Ideas gnawed at me, sentences rolled through my mind—and it didn’t help that My Angle, Quinn, was right there. My column seemed to be hanging in front of my nose, but I couldn’t write it with doctors prodding and poking and policemen asking questions.
I slid the glasses back on.
Other than a bit of tenderness and slight headache, I really was fine. Perhaps still a little jumpy from the attack, but on the whole, I was okay. Certainly good enough to go home.
I smiled at the doctor as she narrowed her eyes and gave me an assessing once-over.
Shannon and Quinn stirred somewhere near the door, talking in hushed whispers. Except, they really weren’t so hushed.
“Lee should stay here,” Quinn said, “to be on the safe side, right?”
“Pretty sure it’s Liam. Let’s see what the doctor says, but we’re not leaving until we know he has a ride home if he needs it.”
“Fine with me. Not like I have a home to go back to anyway.”
Shannon sighed, but it sounded fake. “If you promise there’ll be no Pringles, I suppose you can crash with me and Travis.”
Doctor Carter glanced over my shoulder at the two of them. “If one of your friends here will take you home and keep an eye on you overnight, then I’ll sign the release forms.”
“Oh. No, I—” The urge to laugh overcame me again. “They’re not my friends.”
“Do you have someone to call? To take care of you?”
“Well, I . . .” I pushed my glasses higher up my nose. My shoulders slumped forward. Of course the answer was no. I leaned forward and asked quietly, “For future reference—though I’m hoping this will not occur again—would it be enough to say I owned a cat?”
