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"Yeah," she breathed. "He was right about you, Cody. You are one of the good ones."
I ended the call and stood there for a little too long, trying to take in all of that. J.D. had told his mother about us. About all three of us? And from the sounds of it, he talked to her often. A hell of a lot more than I'd realized, at least.
My eyes jumped over to the side only to find Tanner watching me. Pulling in a breath to brace, I put J.D.'s phone in my other back pocket and headed back to fill him in. Jake was going to make this a little awkward, though. There were things I couldn't - wouldn't - say in front of him, but I was still trying to process this.
All of this.
"She ok?" Tanner asked when I was close enough.
I nodded. "Yeah. Sounds like she knows more than I expected, too. She said not to let him have any opiates. Well, pills, but I'm assuming that was what she meant."
Tanner nodded. "Yeah, explains why he vapes cannabis."
"Yeah," I said, sitting down again. "And I'm going to call her when we know something."
As if my words were the magic we needed, the door to the ER opened and a man in a white coat walked out. "Cody Jennings?"
"That's me," I said, moving to stand.
He waved me down even as he made his way over. "J.D.'s headed to surgery. He has some internal bleeding we're worried about. It's possible we might need to remove his spleen. If we're lucky, we'll be able to stop the bleeding, but if not, then we'll do what we have to."
"Prognosis?" Jake asked.
"Good," the doctor said. "His injuries are impressive, but from the radiographs, he's done this before. J.D. has plates and pins in almost every joint. Tonight, we're adding a set of broken ribs to that, but right now the internal bleeding is our big concern."
"And his leg?" Tanner asked. "Doc thought it might be broken."
"Not broken," this doctor assured us. "It seems he was wearing a metal knee brace. That took most of the concussive force. The brace didn't make it, but his leg did. Now, his knee is going to be bruised and tender, but there doesn't seem to be any new ligament tears and none of the bones in that area are broken."
"But his ribs are," Jake said.
The doctor nodded. "The entire side has trauma. I've only ever seen damage like that from high-speed car accidents."
"Or two thousand pounds of livestock jumping on someone's chest," Jake muttered.
"Oddly, it's not as bad as I'd expect for that," the doctor admitted. "His safety vest worked. From the description of his accident, this man should be in a lot worse shape, so right now we're going to get him stabilized and count our blessings, ok? He should be out in about two hours. If you'd like, I'll have a nurse show the three of you up to the surgical waiting area."
"Thank you," I said, pulling out J.D.'s phone again so I could update his mom. "Just take care of him, ok?"
"That's exactly what we do," The doctor said. "It's going to be a long night, but this isn't as bad as we feared."
And right about now, I was counting that as a win. I just had a bad feeling J.D. wouldn't agree.
Chapter25
My eyes cracked open,feeling like they'd been stuck together with superglue. For a moment, I closed them again and sighed. Right now, I didn't hurt none. That was kinda nice. Nice enough that I could just relax a little more and dose off.
I was almost out again when a sweet female voice whispered, "C'mon, José. Open those eyes for just a moment, ok?"
I tried. Damned if I didn't try, but these fuckers were heavy. Putting my all into it, I forced my lids up, and it was so fuckin' worth it. My eyes landed on the most beautiful woman in the world. She was sitting right beside me, holding my hand, but it weren'thervoice I'd heard.
"Cody?" I asked.
"There he is," the woman said, making Cody look over.
My eyes decided to close again. For just a moment, everything was good. I had my cowgirl's hand in mine. This bed felt like it was made from a cloud. My entire body was either numb or disconnected. I wasn't sure, and I sure didn't care. But just as my head lolled to the side, my eyes jumped open again.
There was pink on her shoulders. Some green too. I couldn't focus enough to read it, but I knew the words that ran down her sleeves. "Girls Do It" was on one side, and "Better" was on the other. Right now, I couldn't remember which was which, though.
