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From what Tray had said, his dad would, I was almost sure. “Just look it up.” When she hesitated, I gripped the phone tighter. “Please. Hurry. It’s important.”
“Ame, where are you? What’s going on? I’d thought maybe you were embarrassed to be bump-and-grinding it with Fox so you didn’t call, but that’s obviously not it. And you’re not with him if you’re calling his parents.” She gasped. “Was there a fight tonight? Is he all right?”
“I’m with him at the hospital.” It was all I could say before the ever-present lump in my throat grew to maximum density once more. “Find some numbers for me to call. I’ll go crazy waiting around to hear something. At least I can keep busy.”
“Okay, okay.” Rustling noises sounded over the line before a spate of furious typing. “His last name is Knox?”
“Yes.” I didn’t question how she knew that. She paid more attention than I gave her credit for.
I made the mistake of glancing down the hallway and sucked in a breath. A pair of doctors in scrubs walked toward the waiting room and the image brought back a flood of memories, none of them good. The walls seemed to swell and contract right along with my head.
“Do you have paper and a pen?”
Dizzily, I looked around and saw a woman writing a check. I didn’t hesitate. I snatched the pen out of her hand, mumbled “sorry, emergency,” and flipped over my arm. And I absolutely did not think of Tray writing his number in the very same spot. “Go ahead.”
“So far I have four—no, five contenders. Start with these and I’ll keep looking. If none of them are right, I’ll give you more names.”
“I’m ready.”
She rattled them off and I wrote as fast as I could. Then I handed the pen back to the frowning check-writer.
“Got them all?” Carly asked.
“Yeah. I’ll be in touch. Thanks, Sis.” I hung up and started dialing.
Three misses later, I blew out a breath and returned to my list. My spine locked as I read the fourth pair of names, Elliott and Sarabeth Knox.
I called and waited through five rings before an answering machine picked up. The voice sounded eerily like Tray and my heart squeezed like a fist. Halfway through the message, the voice clicked off and the real live Tray-imitator appeared on the line. “Yes?”
My voice deserted me. Flat-out left the building.
“Hello?” he boomed again. And boomed was truly the only appropriate word. The phone wires were probably quivering.
I know I was, and that pissed me off.
“Hello. My name is Ame—” No. Dammit. That wasn’t my name anymore. “Mia. I’m with your son. At least I think he may be your son? Tray—”
“If Tray knocked you up, that’s not our problem.”
The cool, emotionless reply had me sinking to the floor right where I stood. My knees simply folded out from under me. Whose parents said something like that when they got a late night phone call? Tray’s, evidently. No wonder he hated them.
A couple people rushed forward to help me, but I waved them off. Delayed shock had dulled my reflexes until I couldn’t do more than wiggle my fingers to show I was okay. I had bigger problems at the moment then nonfunctional body parts and rusty senses.
“No. I’m not…knocked up.” Breathe in. Breathe out. Just say it. “Your son was hurt in a fight tonight.”
A long, empty pause. I didn’t even hear his father breathing. Then, “How bad is it?”
Finally, something resembling a human response. “I don’t know yet. We’re at the hospital. He was unconscious and there was a lot of blood…” I couldn’t say any more.
“Which hospital?” He bit off the words.
“Brooklyn Presbyterian. If you want, I could—”
The dial tone sounded in my ear.
I lowered the phone to my lap and tried to force out air through the constriction in my lungs. What had I just done? Had I made a huge fucking mistake?
“Mia?”
