I lift a hand to touch her face, but it’s held back by a long tube with fluid in it. Scanning the white room, I roll my neck to the side, agony searing up my spine. A sharp breath cuts my dry lips. This can’t be the afterlife. Heaven wouldn’t hurt this much.
“Where—”
She brushes some hair from my forehead. “You’re in the hospital. You’re safe. You’re okay.”
“Hospital?” My head feels stuffed with cotton. Half-floating. And half-sucked into a woodchipper. “Why?” The events are all fuzzy. So’s my brain.
“You have a broken leg and a concussion. Your back…two fractured lumbar vertebrae. But you don’t need surgery. Not unless you do something stupid.”
It takes forever to process what she just said. All I know is that I sound broken. The only concern I have rises to the surface like an urgent need.
“Can I still fuck you?”
A loud grunt and a couple of gasps have me looking beyond Scout, where both sets of our parents stand. G’s redin the face. Kinsley and my mom turn away, but Dad looks amused.
“It’s the drugs,” I say. Then clear my throat and find my wife’s steady blue eyes again. “But can I?”
“Apollo!” my mom admonishes as she squeezes my free hand.
Scout practically lays across my chest, coming in for a hug. “Yes. Of course. But only when you’re better.”
“Only because you saved my daughter, will I refrain from killing you,” G says with a gruff warning.
Kinsley wags a finger at me. “But no jumping off buildings or soccer for a while. And you need to rest.”
I nod as the room spins. “Noted.”
Dad turns my chin so I have to look at him, and the emotion on his face tells me everything. “You did good, Son. I’m proud of you.”
“Are you in pain?” Mom asks with worry suturing her forehead.
I glance up at the tubes and wires coming out of me. “I think I’m okay right now. I don’t know. It all feels…numb.”
Scout’s face sets like flint. She’s locked into game mode.
“Good. Because as soon as you’re better, mister…”
I swallow at her fierceness. The same that she had the night we met. “What?”
“We have a POT to run.”
forty-six
GEORGE
The keyto surviving this horror is appointing the right people to do it for me. Fortunately, there are good ones willing to do the work.
Sharp turpentine and varnish flood the office. Fresh paint and carpet, too. I didn’t ask for any of it. But Sins wanted my fancy dean’s space to look professional.
“So when we take over, we’ll leave the legacy for the kids.”
Grimacing, I brush a thumb over the gilded plaque outside the door.George Turner, MS, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.My mom would’ve been proud.
In her own way.
“Dean Turner? I have your coffee. Black and hot.” It startles me when Miller, my assistant from my last job, uses the new title. I was fortunate that he came with me when I begged him to. Can’t do anything without him. Sins thought it was genius to start plugging spots with people who don’t know Northview University.
“Thanks, M.” I give his area a once-over. “Fancy, huh?”