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“Yeah, but—”
He held up a chubby hand. “If they said maybe, they’re just covering their butts. Judging by other men I’ve seen with pins, I bet you’ll be up in a few weeks.”
For a minute, I came up out of the haze. “That’s good.”
“We’ll talk more, but there are people waiting outside to see you.”
“What people?” I grew a dim, stupid hope. Someone from my company. Captain Grayson. Frankie, not dead after all.
“Your people.” He nodded to the door. “Your kid brother and folks.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You sure? I can tell them you pressed the morphine button too hard.”
A laugh escaped. “No. Thank you, sir.”
He stood with a grunt. “Okay, Morrows,” he called. “You can come on in.”
The first to enter was Hailey, elephant-walking JJ, who was clinging to her leg, his light-up sneakers balanced on one of her sandaled feet. Then Jake, scooting past her holding a Dr Pepper and a Sports Illustrated.
I didn’t know whether to be elated or just pretend I was asleep. I wasn’t ready. I was still knee-deep in Afghan quicksand and Frankie’s dead eyes and the horde of woodpeckers that were hacking at my leg.
“Got you a DP,” Jake was saying. “They were out of everything except for that and orange soda.”
Jake had gotten me a DP. He’d not only driven from Buda to San Antonio with his wife and kid, he’d stopped at the vending machine. I wondered if it was out of pity, or the desire for reconciliation, or both. Either way I caught his eyes as I took the cold bottle, opening it to find it was the best Dr Pepper I’d ever tasted.
“Thank you, Jake,” I said, hoping whatever I was doing with my face resembled a smile. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You look like a stranger. Damn, they did a number on you, huh?” Jake replied.
“Just got out of another surgery yesterday,” I told him. The bullets had almost shattered my leg in two. It was saved by a metal plate, and five screws to hold my knee together.
Then I noticed Cassie slide in against the wall, eyes down, clutching her purse with white knuckles. She made a beeline for the bed, leaning over me for a light kiss on the cheek, her chest pressing mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
When she backed away from the bed, I noticed another body.
There, between Jake and Hailey, was my dad. Judging by the apology, I’m guessing Cassie had contacted him. Why the hell she decided to do that, I didn’t know. I searched for what to say, wondering if he was just biding his time before he told me I owed him money.
He looked thinner, paler, than the last time I’d seen him. He was chewing sunflower seeds, spitting the shells into a paper cup. I was already starting to feel inadequate and stupid all over again, frail and dumb in my thin white robe and gimp leg.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, the words like goo in my mouth.
“Luke,” he said, glancing at me for a total of about a half millisecond before his eyes went back to the TV above my bed.
“So we met your—” Hailey took her hand off JJ’s head to gesture at Cassie. “Your wife.”
“Yep,” Cassie said in her fake upbeat voice, nodding from the wall. “Great to finally meet y’all. Luke’s told me so much about you.”
“We don’t know jack shit about you,” Jake said with a half-smile.
“Babe!” Hailey scolded.
“What?” Jake shrugged, glancing at me with a what the fuck? face. “Guess out of everyone I know, it makes the most sense Luke would have a shotgun wedding. He’s always been so fucking impulsive.”
Cassie and I caught each other’s gaze.
