ENEMIES(29)

Stone would never look at me like we had a brother/sister relationship. One of us would’ve murdered the other long ago.

And yep, I was content with keeping the snarky jokes to myself. I didn’t think anyone else would appreciate my sense of comedy, though I was rolling in it myself.

“I had a job interview at the Quail.”

The awkward silence that filled the room told me something had happened. I’d done something. Then the doctor closed his mouth and I clued in. I’d completely interrupted him and that was a no-no.

Stone moved to rest his shoulder against the doorframe, his arms still folded over his chest. “That bar on your campus?”

“Yes.” Eureka. He knew what I was talking about.

The doctor and nurse shared a look over my head. I didn’t want to look. I was pretty sure it wasn’t favorable to my recovery.

“They hired me. I think.” I frowned. How would I know if I’d been hired or not? My phone. I focused on Stone. “Do you have my phone?”

He nodded, resigned to whatever was going to happen. It wasn’t a happy look of resignation, but you know, the actual definition of resignation. A reluctant acceptance of what shit show was to come. I was the shit show, and he knew it.

He added, “I have all your shit at my place.”

“My keys?”

He nodded.

“My phone?”

“You already asked that.”

The doctor moved forward, bending to peer in my eyes again. “How many fingers do you see?” He was holding up three.

I said, “Four.”

I was lying.

Instant concern filled his gaze.

A deep, aggravated sigh left Stone again. “She’s fucking with you. She used to do the same thing when she skinned her knee as a kid. Her mom played along and it drove her dad nuts.”

My dad.

I felt punched at the mention.

Stone shoved off from the doorway and strode forward, getting in front of the doctor and bent down to peer at me, face to face. “Stop fucking around. Stop hiding. Stop lying to yourself. All your shit’s at my place. I know you. We have ties. Come to my house. I will help you through this. I promise.” He wasn’t being gentle as he was saying all this. It was being delivered in a matter-of-fact way, but then he faltered, and he lightened his tone. “I never went to your mom’s funeral and I’ve always regretted it. She’d want me to help you, and I can right now. Stop fighting me.”

He didn’t get it.

I was already crumbling, though.

I felt it happening.

But I still whispered out, “I fight you, I fight them.”

He got it immediately. Understanding dawned, and he nodded. His eyes clouding a second, then he straightened, but his hand came out to touch my face. Fingertips tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and his words undid me.

“Let’s go to my house. You can yell at me all you want there.”

I was falling. Slipping. Tumbling.

The tears were coming, but my God, no. I didn’t cry in public.

He saw them, and he chided softly, almost mocking me, “Pull yourself together, Phillips.”

It worked.

I sucked them in but nodded to the doctor. “I’ll go home with Stone.”

This time it was late, after midnight when he rolled me out in the wheelchair. His truck was there, and I didn’t fight. Standing, climbing into the front seat of his truck this time. Before he could, I did my own seatbelt saying quietly, “I got it.”

He nodded, stepping back.

A few guys were outside, waiting, because I was realizing this was Stone’s life. He put the wheelchair away, then paused to sign autographs. A few pictures were taken. He waved them goodbye before climbing behind the wheel.

“The pharmacy?” There was a list of meds they wanted me on.

“I already filled them.” He was pulling out onto the interstate soon after. “You hungry?”

“I can eat?”

“Unless something’s wrong with your stomach, and in that case, I’m turning right back to the ER, but yeah. They didn’t say you couldn’t.”

I pondered it. I felt my stomach growling, but I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.”

“You sure? You haven’t eaten since they pulled the feeding tube out of you yesterday.”

Yesterday. Was it wrong to wish I could go back to that coma? No? Well, then. I might keep that one to myself.

“No,” I said faintly, watching the city lights flashing by me. “I’m not hungry.”

Then I remembered something about Stone. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? When do you have to be at the stadium tomorrow?”

“I have time.”

Oh, yeah. That was right.

I settled back, beginning to feel my eyelids growing heavy, but I didn’t fight it. At this point, I was hungry for any amount of sleep I could get. It was my only escape from this new reality.





Stone’s house was huge. I wasn’t surprised.

He hit a button and the gate opened, then he drove into an underground garage for his own house. He parked next to a Hummer and between a G Wagon on the other side. The rest of his garage was spacious and clean. He noticed my looks concerning both vehicles and grinned. “I indulged. My signing advance.” Then he was walking, opening the door to a back room. This was where he helped me take off a sweater a nurse gave me because I got chilled. He tossed it on a clothes washer and turned the lights on in the next room, proceeding into the house.