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18
Blake startled awake as the door to his son’s hospital room opened.A nurse entered, and he sat up straight as if the man cared if Blake had fallen asleep.“How’s he doing?”he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.They had turned down the lights on the floor a couple of hours ago.Maybe.Blake wasn’t sure when.
“He’s sleeping,” he said, looking over to Tommy.“The doctor said he’d look at his arm in the morning and see if it needed surgery.”They’d put a semi-permanent cast on it anyway, and Blake had spent most of the night trying to get Tommy to calm down, then on the phone with Jacinda, explaining what had happened.
He wasn’t supposed to have Tommy until Sunday night, but his ex had wanted to go on a last-minute weekend trip with her boyfriend.He wasn’t doing anything, and he’d gone to Carter’s Cove to pick up his boy.He was planning to take him to his mother’s, then meet Lauren for dinner.
Lauren.
His heart wailed at the thought of her.She’d called a couple of times, and each time he’d been too busy to answer.First, he’d been laying over his son as Tommy thrashed against the doctors and nurses trying to give him a shot.By the time he’d calmed from that, and Blake thought he might have five minutes to send a text, Jacinda had called in a sheer panic.She’d wanted to board the first plane back to South Carolina, and Blake had had to take and send no less than thirty-seven pictures of their son so she’d know he was okay.
I’m handling it, Blake had told her.Stay in Cayman.
He wished he had a significant other he was friendly enough to take a trip with, and as the nurse took Tommy’s vitals and started to leave the room, Blake once again thought of Lauren.It was the middle of the night—seriously twelve-thirty-two—and he wasn’t going to call or text her now.He’d stop by in the morning.She had one more day here on the island, or rather on Hilton Head, as he and Tommy had never made it off Carter’s Cove, and Blake could maybe salvage the situation.
He started calculating how much time he’d need to drive from here to the bigger island next door, and if Tommy didn’t have to have surgery tomorrow, they’d probably send him home.His momma would fillet him alive if he left the now-injured minor home alone to go talk to Lauren…
Blake sighed.No matter how he sliced and diced the numbers—something he was very good at and did for a living—he couldn’t find a spare half-hour to get over to that pristine waterfront community and talk to her.She wouldn’t just be sitting around her friend’s house, waiting for him to show up.
So you’ll call in the morning, he told himself as he yawned.Yeah, he’d call in the morning…
Morning came,and with it, Tommy’s pain and extreme fear of needles.Blake was so going to use this incident the next time his son wanted to skateboard, do “stunts” on his bike, or anything besides walking.His feet had grown too big for his body, which was lanky and all out of proportion as it was.He stood nearly six feet tall as a twelve-year-old, and his hands barely seemed attached to his body.
Awkward was not a strong enough word to describe Tommy.Blake stood at the side of his bed, blocking the work the nurses were doing with the needles, and said, “Good news, bud.No surgery.”
His son looked at him with those dark blue eyes that mirrored Blake’s.“So we can go home?”
“Yes, sir,” he drawled.“And we’ll get breakfast on the way, and I’ll get you set up in the living room, and you’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be able to do my swimming lessons,” he said, already pouting.
Blake’s impatience swam forward, and he pulled on it hard.“We’ll sign you up another time,” he said.
“What about the campout next weekend?”
Blake glanced over to the door as a herd of doctors walked in.“Herd” probably wasn’t the right term, but did they seriously have to travel in packs?This was a teaching hospital, so there were always three times as many staff around—including doctors.
“We’ll ask,” he said.He didn’t want to miss the campout either, but he didn’t want his son’s shoulder and arm to be hurt for any longer than necessary.That was practically a death sentence in the summertime.Blake already struggled to keep his son busy during the day, and now he couldn’t even play video games.
His friends were split between here and Carter’s Cove, with his closer ones on this island instead of where Blake lived, as he went to school here on Carter’s Cove.
He greeted the doctors while Tommy sulked, and Blake once again called on his patience.His son hadn’t thought once about his accident had upset Blake’s life.And why should he?Blake had no life that Tommy knew of.
“Good morning,” he said to the doctors.“Can we take him home today?”He hated himself for using the royal “we” as if he had someone to help him stashed away in his pocket.
Doctor Midas, who’d been on-call in the ER last night, smiled and beamed at Tommy.“Yep.We do need to keep you in the sling for at least a week.Then I want another x-ray so I can see what’s happening in that shoulder.”
“Okay,” Blake and Tommy said together.
“But you don’t have any broken bones.”He turned to a colleague and pulled out some films.He stuck them to a lightbox on the wall and started showing Tommy and Blake the inner workings of Tommy’s arm and shoulder.“So since you’re growing, that’s why the bones were able to slip instead of break.So it’s good news.You’ll be bruised and sore, probably.”He switched off the light and faced them again.
“No more tricks on your bike, young man,” he said with that blinding smile still in place.How he did that after working all night, Blake would never understand.He felt like he’d rubbed sand in his eyes, needed a toothbrush with a lot of minty toothpaste, and a fresh set of clothing.
“No, sir,” Tommy said.
“The ligaments and tendons are stretched and sore.”Doctor Midas addressed Blake now.“That’s why he’s in pain.We’ve got a prescription sent downstairs for you for that.And once his discharge paperwork is printed, you’ll be good to go.”He clapped Blake on the shoulder like this would happen soon.
Blake had been in the hospital with his mother for her hip replacement surgery, and an hour in this place was like a lightning strike everywhere else.So he settled back into his chair, ignored his son when he ordered breakfast from the cafeteria, and tapped out text after text to Lauren.
