Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(42)

“That’s not fair. You know how hard it is for me to take care of her on my own here.”

“It doesn’t have to be that hard.”

“And it’s just going to get worse,” she said as if she hadn’t heard. “You’ll be out of work. Your skeezy landlord has probably already thrown your stuff out onto the street. And now you’ll be up to your ass in hospital bills.” She cocked her head. “How are you going to continue the child support?”

“Dammit, Georgia, I said I’d figure it out.” The pain in my chest grew stronger. “You’re not moving to Sitka.”

She bit her nail again. “The hearing is in two days.”

“Don’t do this,” I said. “At least wait until I get out. You have to wait until I can be there. There’s probably some law that says I get to be there.”

Georgia threw up her hands and got to her feet. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll tell my lawyer to move the hearing. But it’s still going to happen, Cory.”

“You do what you have to do, Georgia.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and I instantly felt guilty for my snappishness and disgusted with myself at the same time for letting her manipulate my feelings so easily, like a puppeteer.

“I thought you were dead, you know?” she cried. “I didn’t know what to say to Callie.”

“Nothing scary, I hope.” The pain in my chest ticked up another notch. “You tell her that I’m okay. Because it’s true. I am okay.”

Georgia nodded, her tears drying as fast as they’d come. “I’ll bring her by later this week.” She turned to go just as the nurse—Nicole—came in with a syringe of pale yellow liquid. “What’s that? Pain meds? Another three hundred dollars...” She stormed out.

Nicole wore an amused expression as she fit the syringe into the one of the tubes that fed my arm. “How are you feeling, Mr. Bishop? Any discomfort? I’d guess the pain is starting to wake up.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“On a scale of one to ten…?”

“Six.” Six going on fifty.

“This should help.” Nicole finished administering the meds, and made a notation on the whiteboard in my room. “Was that your wife?”

“No,” I said. “It’s… complicated.”

Nicole laughed. “Like my Facebook status.”

She checked the machine that monitored my pulse and oxygen levels, then moved to my side and gently leaned me forward. “I need to check your wound.”

I felt her pull aside the hospital gown and examine the place below my shoulder blade. It ached like it’d been hit with a hammer.

“Beautiful tattoo back here. I’m not usually a fan, but that looks like a work of art.”

I wanted to tell her most people considered their tattoos art but I couldn’t speak. My teeth were clenched too tightly against the pain.

She eased me back down “The wound site looks clean. No sign of infection. Dr. Lownds will be in later today to check on you, and we’re going to try to get you to walk a bit later this afternoon.”

“So soon?” My chest ached more just to think about it, and I wondered when in the name of everything holy the pain medication would kick in.

“What?” Nicole pretended to be shocked. “Big strong guy like you? Be up in no time. Plus it prevents bedsores and embolisms. And despite how crappy you feel now, your prognosis has the docs thinking you’ll be out of here in two weeks.”

“Really?” Relief that it wasn’t months surged through me but two weeks was too long, too. I mustered a smile. “That’s sooner than I’d thought. Okay, good. And uh…I’ll probably need to talk to someone about arranging payments. I heard there’s someone appointed in hospitals to do that.”

“There is,” Nicole said, adjusting the IV bags on their hooks above me. “But I don’t want you to worry about that right now. You need to concentrate on getting better, okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded dully. No sense in worrying about what I couldn’t change.

“You want some TV? What you did is all over the news. They’re calling you the United One Hero!”

I closed my eyes. “Oh no…”

“Oh yes! You don’t want to watch?”

“Absolutely not.”

Nicole put her hands on her hips. “Honey, fifty-three people are alive because of you. You got to own that.”

“I just want to rest.”

“Mmmhmmm.”

She started to leave when something caught her eye. She bent and retrieved the baseball cap off the floor, the one Alex had been wearing when she came in last night. “Your pretty red-haired friend…she left this here.”

“Alexandra Gardener,” I said softly.

Nicole handed me the cap. “Maybe I should track her down and tell her to come and pick it up?” She gave me a wink and a knowing smile, and then left me alone.

I turned the hat over in my hands. The pain in my chest was lessening. The medication had come to carry me someplace else, and I hoped Alex would be there, waiting for me.





Chapter Seventeen


Alex



I raced back to the house in Pacific Palisades, wondering how on earth anyone survived in the age before cell phones. I’d reached for mine to call Drew at least ten times on the drive, to apologize for staying out so long with his car. Relax. He took the Range Rover. No big deal. Only the guilt that nagged me wasn’t so easily defeated and didn’t have much to do with the car. So you fell asleep visiting Cory. That’s not a crime either.