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Just like that, the conversation’s over?
I try to stay chill and fuck around on my phone. I don’t know exactly what music he likes, beyond classic rock, and I don’t want to just play something random. I scroll Instagram to have something to do. Looking at it in the car makes me tired.
“You falling asleep?” he murmurs. “Put your seat back.”
I force a smile. “Okay, Dad.”
He reaches over and runs his hand up into the back of my hair. “Get some rest. I’ll go slow.” A moment later, his hand reaches for mine. “I’ll go with you. If you want.”
I shut my eyes so I can feel his hand around mine. “You don’t have to.”
His hand tightens on mine. “I will.”
Somehow, I can’t bring myself to look up at him. Embarrassment, I guess. And all my desire for him. I’ve been tripping over my feet around Ezra since the first day he got here—even during the times that I felt like I hated him. He’s so magnetic. His hand around mine right now makes my heart beat faster. Not a bad thing; he just supercharges me.
I keep my eyes closed until I feel him changing lanes, and then I open them, confirming that he’s exiting. I let his hand go. We’re getting close.
“Whatcha thinking?” he asks softly.
“Nothing.”
His hand comes back to my leg, rubbing briefly before he needs it to drive. We’re turning left into the parking lot now…driving by the big, red and blue hospital sign.
He parks in the deck and walks around to my side of the Jeep. When I get out, he takes my hand and squeezes. “You’ve got this, dude.”
“Thanks.”
He lets my hand go, but we walk mostly in step with each other on the sidewalk toward the entrance. As we step into the revolving door, his hand goes to my lower back. Then we’re in the lobby. Colorful and tall and open. I’m hit by the memories of this place—of coming here with my mom. A woman pulls a kid by in a red wagon—they have these wooden wagons kids can ride in—and my throat cinches.
Ezra’s hand is at my back again. “Where we going, brother?”
Oh yeah. “Second floor.”
In the elevator, he steps close to me and wraps an arm around me, pulling me up against him so my face could touch his chest if I wanted. His hand rubs a big, firm circle on my back as his lips brush over the top of my head. “Over soon,” he tells me. “When we go, I want a milkshake.”
“Me too.”
We sit in the waiting room together. He shows me some memes on his phone. When they call me back, he asks if he should go, too.
“You don’t have to.”
“You want me to stay out here?” His brows draw together, and I can’t bring myself to ask him to go back with me.
“For now, I guess so.”
I go back, and all the old stuff. Weight check, blood pressure, blah blah. They do the EEG, and I don’t really like the nurse. She seems too chipper. The thing comes back normal.
“We’ll just do an MRI,” she says, like it’s no bfd. “We don’t have you down for general anesthesia, just IV sedation. Is there someone in the waiting room you’d like us to get?”
“My stepbrother.” My voice wavers a little on it. Maybe it’s not a good idea to bring him into this.
I think of his hand on my back when we moved through the revolving door and shut my eyes as a nurse swabs the top of my hand for an IV.
“Just a quick stick,” she says.
I grit my teeth, but she’s right. It is quick. Nearly painless.
“This will run for ten or twelve minutes,” she says, putting her hand on the bag. “Then we’ll unhook you and send you back to MRI, and afterward, someone will need to meet you in the waiting room.”
Fourteen
Ezra
“Ezra Masters?”
I lift my head, startling slightly.
“If you’ll come with me…”
My heart starts hammering as I follow the nurse down a hall with doors on each side. “Your brother is getting a sedative before his MRI. When there’s a history of anxiety, we like to try to offer our patients access to a parent. Since your mom couldn’t be here today, you’ll be allowed back.”
I can barely swallow as she stops in front of a wide, metal door. “He’s not going fully to sleep. Still, when you see him in the post-procedure area, he may be tired or sleeping. His mother—your mother, or is it stepmother?—has arranged for the doctor to call her during the post-MRI visit, but you may want to be back there with him.”
I manage to nod. She smiles, thin-lipped, and pushes the door open.
Mills is lying on his back in a hospital bed. His eyes are shut and there’s an IV running into a vein at the top of his hand. He has a gown on. There are sheets over his legs, up to his chest.
