Rocky's forehead wrinkled in concern when he reached me. Someone tapped my shoulder. I couldn't turn my head fast. It was easier to just scoot my whole body around. It was a guy who'd probably spent as much time as I had at Land's End. I'd never learned his name. Our kinship went as far as occasionally lifting our beers each other's direction for a silent toast.
"Dude, I think you're bleeding," he said and pointed to something on the floor. I couldn't look down, and I didn't need to. I could feel the icky, warm drips rolling down my neck. More people around me stopped their conversations to stare at me.
"Uh, Rocky, think I'm gonna need a ride to the emergency room."
Rocky was already pulling out his phone.
"No ambulance," I said. "My insurance plan is shit. Doesn't cover ambulances."
"I'll get Joe to drive you." He tossed me the rag that was hanging over his shoulder. "Here. Stop dripping blood. I'm on mopping duty tonight." He had the phone to his ear. I tried to block out the noise and stares. I was in such a dizzy fog, it wasn't all that hard.
Rocky covered one ear and spoke on the phone. He was talking as he spotted something over my shoulder. "For fuck's sake, you too?" he asked. I shuffled my feet around. Mike was still cradling his hand. His shirt was stained with barf. Rocky hung up. "Joe's bringing the van around to take you two bozos to the ER. Now get the fuck out of here. You're ruining the ambience."
I smiled at him. "Didn't realize that dive bars had ambience."
Rocky scowled at me.
"Yep, leaving now. Thanks, buddy."
Mike lent me his good arm, so I could make it through the crowded room on two feet. Heather stood at a table with a groupof friends. She was laughing and looked up briefly to show a look of concern, then she went back to her conversation.
"Hey, Mike, won't happen again. Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm done with her."
"Good man. Now, can you do something to make this damn room stop spinning?"
two
. . .
Ronan
"We're going to release you, Mr. Wilde." I'd gone through all the usual tests just to find out something I already knew. I had a concussion. I gritted my teeth through some stitches. I'd talked the nurse into shaving only a small section of my scalp. I'd inherited my mom's thick, black hair, so a little bald spot wasn't going to hurt my chances with the ladies. Although, after tonight, I was thinking of staying clear of them for a while. I always seemed to end up with someone who was trying to outrun a bad relationship. I didn't mind being the rebound fuck, but getting my head slammed into a trash bin was too big a price to pay for a quickie in the alley.
The doctor, a short, squat woman with curly gray hair and thick eyebrows, stuck my chart in the holder at the end of the bed. They'd considered admitting me until they found out I was on an insurance plan that was just a step above carrying around my own first aid kit.
"Did you get ahold of my brother Colin?" I asked. The painkillers had kicked in nicely, sending me off to that smooth, creamy land where sharp edges had been dulled and everything felt nice. Even the harsh hospital lights no longer caused me to squint.
She yanked the chart back out and huffed a little to let me know she needed me out of the bed and out of her ER ward. "Nope. They couldn't get ahold of Colin."
"Shit, Zander, then? He's going to kill me for getting him out of bed."
"Nope. It says they talked to Finnegan Wilde, and he's on his way."
I sat up fast enough to bring back the dizziness. I grabbed the railing on the side of the bed to keep from flopping back. "No, tell him not to come. I'll find another ride home. I'll take the bus or Uber."
"We have to release you to a family member or friend. Is Finn a brother?"
"I'm his dad." The cold, harsh tone caused the doctor to spin around on her sensible white shoes.
"Oh, that's good. Your son has suffered a concussion, and we had to put twelve stitches in the back of his scalp. He'll be on pain meds for three days. No driving or heavy equipment operation." She pulled a piece of paper off the chart. "If he exhibits any of the symptoms on this paper, bring him back to the hospital." She turned back to me with the first smile I'd seen on the woman. She didn't seem to notice the ice-cold laser rays of hostility shooting back and forth between her patient and his dad.
"I'll tell the nurse to bring a wheelchair." The doctor left the room, so it was just me and Dad. He'd been in the ER himself not long ago due to a mild heart attack. His life had been one big, dangerous, chaotic party, and my brothers and I had grown up in that party. But a few brushes with death and the doctors telling him he was going to have to step back from the party or start planning his funeral had slowed my bullet train of a dad way down. The years and having a granddaughter in his life had softened him. Criminals and thugs had stopped showing up onour doorstep asking for blood or money, and all of us were grown men who could flatten his frail, old man frame with one punch, but we still knew he was Dad. He loomed over us like an iron-fisted cloud, especially when he was pissed. And given that he'd probably dragged himself out of bed or off his couch to pick me up, I knew he was plenty mad.
A series of bad decisions and shitty luck had pushed me to move back home with my old man. I'd shared a house with some friends for a few months before losing a decent job at the lumberyard due to one of those bad decisions. Just like tonight, it had to do with a woman and an angry boss. I'd had no idea they were together until he walked in on the two of us in a back room at a party. Losing that job sent my life into a shit spiral. Aside from moving back onto the ranch and into my dad's house, my new truck had been hauled off by the repo man, and I'd been banned from the Gold Rush, our local bar, due to too many bar fights and a mostly unpaid bar tab.
"I'll be out in the truck," Dad said coldly. He was giving me the rage-fueled silent treatment, which was never good. He'd left behind his unexpected fist blows and heavy-buckled belts long ago, not because he'd grown into a better parent but because we'd all outgrown him physically in every possible way. But his psychological shit, like his silent treatment, was always effective.