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"I'm sorry. For a lot of things. I came tonight not just to check on Eva and be here for her, but to be here for you. Because despite all the shit I threw at you, and despite my jealousy, you are and always have been my friend."
Something inside Jake gave way, as if someone had finally cut the rope holding all the crap he’d bundled up. He'd gone for months not knowing why he didn't want to be around Clint. Now he knew. The resentment between them had gotten too heavy, the weight too intense. But the simplicity of Clint saying "I'm sorry" had been the bolt cutters doing work.
"Yeah, I've always been your friend," Jake said.
Clint nodded and that was pretty much all that needed to be said. Murphy came back with his coffee and two bottles of water for Jake and Clint. Frannie, flocked with her daughter and sister, bustled in, looking stunned, fear shadowing their faces as they hunkered down in the corner. Then Hank showed up with some of the other guys.
For the next thirty minutes, they all kept a silent vigil, waiting on any news about both Eva and Jimbo.
Finally, the man in scrubs approached them. "Is one of you a Mr. Beauchamp?"
"I am." Jake stood.
"You can come with me," the man said, not bothering to wait on Jake.
"Wait a minute," Hank called, "I'm her captain."
The man turned and gave Hank a withering look. "Well, she didn't ask for you. She asked for him." He jabbed a finger at Jake.
Jake didn't bother offering any explanation. He followed the man, who could seriously use some customer-service training, back through the double doors. The man pointed down a long corridor with patient rooms on either side and said, "She's in eight."
Then he turned and left Jake on his own.
A cute nurse in blue scrubs came out of a curtain bay and nearly ran into him. ''Oops."
She ran her eyes down theT-shirt he'd bought when he took Birdie to a K-Pop concert a couple years ago and his tight jeans. “BTS? Really?"
Jake managed a smile. "My niece."
"Who you looking for?"
"Firefighter in eight?"
"Down to the left," she said, giving him a wink. "Only a man with confidence could pull off that shirt."
A man with confidence. Right.
Not something he had a great store of at the moment.
Jake moved quickly down the hall, and then, pausing outside door eight, he knocked.
Nothing.
"Oh, sugar, go on in," a nurse from the large center desk called. "She can't talk anyhow."
Jake fought the fear at the thought of Eva being so bad she couldn't talk and pushed inside the small diagnostic room.
Eva sat up in the bed, an oxygen thing going into her nose, an IV in her arm. Her hair was still damp and plastered to her head, and soot streaked her cheeks. Someone had tried to clean it up but had done a poor job. She wore a white-and-blue dotted hospital gown.
Jake stood there, taking her in, sweet relief flooding him. She was alive. She would be okay.
"Hey," he said with a low voice, creeping inside, his knees buckling a little. So he let them and fell onto the tile, covering his face with his hands, suddenly swamped with emotion. “Oh, my God, Eva.”
Tears leaked from his eyes as he looked up at her, so dear to him. And so… irritated.
"You are a dumbass," she whispered.
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