“I don’t know.”
He shrugs. “Fair answer.”
We keep walking. “You remembered my license plate?”
“I remember everything.”
We’re almost at the ER. “Do you normally go around memorizing things?”
“It just happens.”
“That doesn’t happen to me. Or most people.”
“I know.”
“Wait.”
Connor stops. “What?”
“Exactly, what are we talking about here? Are you gifted somehow?”
“Yeah. Eight and a half inches. I’d say that’s gifted, but you’ve seen more dick than I have, so you tell me.”
“Forget it. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He’s chuckling as he walks behind me, since I’m marching into the ER now, upset that Connor can’t have a normal conversation with me.
“How can we help you?” the woman at the front desk asks while reading the computer screen in front of her. From the corner of my eye, I catch Connor walking past the desk.
The security guard steps in front of him, just before he reaches the authorized area.
Serves him right. Can’t just walk in here. Even if he is a Crossbow twin.
“Mr. Crossbow,” the guard greets him, then he opens the door to the “authorized personnel only” area.
I walk after him while the woman from the front desk shouts, “Hey! You can’t go back there. Hey!” She leaps from the behind the desk and meets us in the hallway.
“That’s Connor Crossbow,” I say, because that seems to be enough in this city.
The woman pinches her lips. “Damn. I almost died shouting at him.”
Perhaps I should rethink Connor’s brand of educating people about their approach. It’s effective, if terrible. “I’ll take care of him,” I say.
She looks me up and down, taking in my blue scrubs. “Do you work here?”
“Shoot. I need to clock in.” I move toward the back of the ER, where the check-in station is located, but the woman gently touches my shoulder. “There’s a staff clock here you can use.”
She shows me where it is, and I swipe my card.
“Which floor are you on?” she asks.
“Cardiac.”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
The damn accent. I’m working on it, but the native Selnoans know. “No, but maybe we can catch up over lunch. I have to go. Sorry.” I take off across the floor of the ER, looking between the curtained-off spaces for Connor, and find him sitting on the lastbed in the hallway with his hands interlocked in front of him and his feet swinging.
Since people can’t help but gather around him as if he’s a zoo animal, I close his curtains. Now we’re enclosed in a very small space, and I work my way around his six-foot-something frame to gather the wound-cleaning supplies.