by Linda Kage
The door opened a few more inches revealing stringy gray-blond hair and a hopeful expression creasing her already wrinkled face. “You know Jonah?” Brown eyes that looked identical to her son’s lit with excitement. “You’ve seen him?”
“Yes.” Tess bobbed her head, growing a little excited herself. “He—”
The door flew open wider. Phyllis Abbott flinched and clutched the Chihuahua close to her breasts as a barrel-chested man with wide shoulders like Jonah’s appeared behind her, nudging her not-so-politely out of his way.
“Who the hell is it? And what’s this yap about the kid?”
He had evil eyes. Not at all like his son’s.
Unable to control her reaction, Tess slunk a step back. “Yes, I—” She cleared her throat, stiffened her spine and lifted her chin. “I’m Jonah’s friend.” Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.
Ted Abbott loomed above her as he shook a grease-stained finger threateningly. “You tell that little shit if he shows his pie hole around here again, I’ll kill him.”
Tess sucked in a breath. “I…um…” She took another step back. “Actually, I’m here to inform you he almost died.” Then she added, “He still might,” just to get some kind of reaction from him. “He’s in the hospital right now. I don’t know if you saw the report about the Granton school shooting on the news—” and they would most likely be the only two people in America who hadn’t if they said no “—but he was a victim in that and was shot three times. He has amnesia and was in a com—”
But Jonah’s dad only smirked. “Good. Serves the little fucker right. Just don’t expect me to foot any funeral or hospital bills if he keels over.”
Tess blinked. “Ex-Excuse me?”
“I told him when he left I was done with him. And I meant it. He’s probably legal age by now, anyway. I’m not responsible for none of his bullshit.”
Before she could even think about responding, he slammed the thin metal door in her stunned face.
Well.
At least that explained why Jonah’s family hadn’t gone to visit him.
Chapter Five
JONAH SAT AT A TABLE outside of a diner.
Tucking his chin deeper into the collar of his coat and redistributing his weight from one hip to the other so the cold metal chair under his butt could soak through his jeans and freeze the other cheek for a while, he sent his best friend a glare as he rubbed his bare hands together.
“I hate you right now. We could be sitting inside at a warm, comfortable booth if you didn’t have to freaking smoke. Those things’ll kill you, you know.”
“Nah.” Sean smirked and blew a lungful of nicotine toward him. “I’m sure something else will take me long before cigarettes do.”
With a sputtered cough, Jonah waved his frozen hand in front of his face to clear the air. “Thanks, asshole. Thanks a lot.”
Sean smirked. “Just sharing the lung cancer, my friend.”
“Yeah, well next time you feel like dying, don’t take me down with you.”
The waitress bustled outside, carrying two red plastic baskets loaded with greasy burgers and curly fries. Dropping Jonah’s meal in front of him, she huffed out a disgruntled breath. “Anything else?” she asked, dragging a bottle of ketchup and mustard from her apron.
“Yeah, I need a refill.” Sean lifted his empty cup, rattling it so she could hear the lonely ice tumbling around inside. She gritted out a sigh that caused a vapor cloud to escape her lungs and mix with the cigarette smoke hovering above their table.
“Sure.” She forced a totally fake smile as she jerked the cup from his hand, though it ended in a narrowed-eye snarl when she added, “Be right back.”
As she stormed away, Jonah hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at her. “You’re pissing off our waitress, too. She doesn’t want to come out in this weather to serve us. Probably spit in our food.”
“Then they should let us demon smokers eat inside. Damn.” Sean continued puffing as he scowled at his food. “Besides, the cold is good for people. Teaches ’em to be sturdier.”
“I don’t think that girl’s main goal in life is to be sturdy.” Pausing for that first juicy bite, Jonah sank his teeth into the sesame-seeded bun and moaned, closing his eyes in ecstasy as the flavors hit his tongue. God, he loved eating here, frozen ass or not. Nothing on earth beat a good old-fashioned cheeseburger.
“Yeah, I can see you’re real torn up about my choice of restaurants.”
The euphoria of the moment ruined by Sean’s dry tone, Jonah opened his eyes to scowl. “So, what’s up?”
Sean had called him this morning to meet here for lunch, saying he wanted to discuss something important.
“I’m gay,” Sean said.
Jonah choked on his hamburger. As his best and only friend calmly kept smoking, he managed to get his bite the rest of the way down with a couple painful swallows. His face was no doubt ten tones of red as he picked up his drink to take a hefty gulp.
When he had his digestive system back under control, he slammed the cup down and focused on Sean. “What?”
“I’m gay,” Sean repeated, his expression refusing to alter. He looked so blasé about his announcement he might as well have pointed into the air and said, “There’s the sky.”
“What the hell,” Jonah demanded. “Are you fucking with me?”
“No, I’m dead serious.”
Shaking his head, Jonah realized he wasn’t going to clear the chaos filling it. “But…since when have you been gay?”
Sean shrugged. He calmly pinched off the smoking cherry of his cigarette before tossing it into the ashtray and picking up his chicken salad sandwich. “Since birth, I guess.” Then he took a healthy-sized bite.
Lifting both his hands and stunned out of his mind, Jonah gaped. “How can you be gay? You date women all the time.”
Jonah teased him relentlessly about being a man-whore, actually. With his blond-haired, blue-eyed, pretty-boy looks and easy smile, Sean had women flocking to him constantly. And he rarely turned them away.
Instead of cracking one of his easy smiles now and saying he was just joking, Sean sighed. “They were all a front.”
“A front? But…” Jonah stared at him hard. When he realized Sean was telling him the honest-to-God truth, he shook his head once again, denying it. Seriously, though, how could he not even suspect something like this of his very best friend on earth? He’d had no clue at all.
How much more didn’t he know about Sean? Jesus, did he really know the guy at all?
Feeling betrayed and abandoned, he worked his mouth a few moments before managing to ask, “So…Jesus, why’re you telling me this now? We’ve known each other for twenty years.”
Sean screwed up his mouth thoughtfully. “Fifteen, technically. We didn’t meet until kindergarten.”
“You know what I mean, asshole!”
Finally beginning to look unsettled, Sean grumbled something under his breath and shifted in his seat. Jonah noticed it then: the fear in his friend’s eyes.
“Look. You’re not exactly the most accepting person when it comes to someone who’s not…you know…like you. I didn’t want you to drop me flat when you found out. So, I’ve been keeping it under wraps for the past couple of years.”
“The past couple of—Christ, Thompson! You’re the only fucking friend I have. Did you honestly think I was just going to write you off because you decided you prefer cock over pussy?”
Ditching all pretenses of casual, Sean stared dead into Jonah’s eyes, and Jonah could see just how much it was taking his buddy to drop this bomb on him.
“Yeah, actually, I kind of did.”
Hissing another curse under his breath, Jonah wiped a hand over his face. “Well, fuck you, then. Your faith in me is astounding, you know. Holy shit.”
“Look, I…I’m sorry. I just thought—”
“Oh, shut up.” Scowling, Jonah waved him silent. “You are like a brother to me. The only family I have. I woul
d stand beside you no matter what. And if anyone gives you shit about this, I’ll be the first person in line to ninja kick them in the face. Got it? Nothing is going to make me drop you. You idiot.”
When Sean nodded and blinked as if he was about to start bawling, Jonah sighed and rolled his eyes. Time to scale the drama down a notch.
“But seriously,” he grumped. “Did you have to go and make your big reveal here, today, in this frozen-ass weather?”
Shoulders loosening, Sean grinned and leaned back in his chair to recapture his cool, collected front. “Sorry, bud. But I met someone, and I don’t want to hide my relationship with him. Besides, I thought bloating you full of your favorite food first would help ease the shock. I know how food calms you down.”
Jonah made a face of understanding. The man had a point. With cheeseburgers in his belly, he really couldn’t stay pissed. But then something about Sean’s explanation struck him. Mouth flapping open, he gawked. Sean had been spending all his time lately helping the drama department get ready for their big end-of-the-year play.
“Wait, you met someone? Oh, God.” He moaned out his biggest fear. “You met someone recently? Please don’t tell me he’s some artsy-fartsy douchebag from the drama department.”
Sean let out a loud belly laugh. “Why, yes. Yes, he is. He’s an actor.” When his guffaws tempered to a snicker, he taunted, “You’re going to totally hate him.”
Oh, hell. Jonah moaned, unable to stop frowning. “Thanks, dick-breath. Thanks a lot. If you’re going to turn gay, couldn’t you have at least fallen for someone I could actually get along with? Like another athlete, maybe. I’ve heard gay baseball players are pretty bad-ass.”
He didn’t want to have to play nice with some freaking actor who probably dramatized every wordy sentence he spoke. Good Lord, the agony of that very thought made him shudder. For Sean, he’d gag his way through it and play nice with an actor, but he’d hate every second.
“Too late,” Sean announced, looking entirely too pleased with himself, his chest all puffed up with pride. “I’m already in love with this one. Aubrey is…amazing.”
Jonah lifted a non-impressed eyebrow. “Aubrey?” Geez-uz, the guy even had a freaking actor’s name.
Could his day get any worse?
Apparently, it could.
“Hey, Abbott,” a voice called from across the street, interrupting his coming-out-of-the-closet conversation with his best friend.
Jonah glanced over to see a familiar figure marching his way. Einstein, the kid genius—a.k.a. the bane of his existence—waved once before dropping that hand and lifting his other to show off what he held. “Thanks for letting me borrow your gun.”
Mouth falling open, Jonah looked wide-eyed at the rifle Einstein bandied about as if it were a water pistol.
Surging to his feet, he roared, “What the hell?” How had that little pissant gotten his gun? He’d had it locked in its case under the backseat of his locked truck. Taking a step toward Einstein to snatch his property from the idiot’s careless clutches, he skidded to a halt when the end of the barrel swung his way without warning, aiming at the center of his chest.
“Eins—” He started to yell the warning, but the sixteen-year-old college student had already pulled the trigger, and surprisingly, the kid had found bullets and loaded it too, because it fired.
At first, he had no idea he’d been hit. Something slammed into his leg, and he felt like he was in one of those dreams where he wanted to move but couldn’t. Then a sharp needle dug its way into his gut.
Confused, he glanced toward Sean to see if he found everything to be all wonky, slow motion, and dreamlike too. But he no sooner looked at Sean than Sean’s head exploded like a melon.
As he watched his only friend—his family and a man he thought of as an extension of himself—die, a scream pierced his ears. The waitress who’d just stepped outside the cafe with Sean’s refill dropped the cup, spilling soda all over the ground. She spun around to race back into the diner when another blast ripped through the air.
Jonah finally began to topple over then. As he fell, he watched a bright red spot appear and grow on the waitress’s back as she, too, fell.
The world veered sideways.
Right before he landed, the third bullet entered him. This one burned and screamed through his organs until everything went blank.
Jonah jerked awake with a gasp. Body tense and mind racing, he stared up at the ceiling of his hospital room until he could orient himself. Tears filled his eyes, and dry pain crowded his throat. He shoved the damp moisture off his eyes before one of his hateful nurses came in and found him sobbing like a baby.
He hated sleeping these days. Bad dreams always came whenever he lost consciousness. Haunting memories he refused to grasp. Filling his chest with more hospital air, he pushed the disturbing images from his mind and tried to focus on the here and now, which honestly wasn’t all that much better.
When he couldn’t help it a minute longer, he glanced over to check the time on the wall.
Fuck. She’d lied to him.
The little redhead had completely deceived him. Jonah had actually believed her when she’d told him she would come back today. He’d even eaten all of his breakfast, lunch, and dinner to please her. But with dusk filling the sky outside, reality told him she wasn’t going to show. It didn’t matter that he’d waited and watched for her all day. Didn’t matter that he’d kept his promise and eaten all his food just as she’d asked him to. She obviously wasn’t going to keep her promise.
Damn it. He was such an idiot. He’d seen it in her eyes; she hadn’t wanted to come back. The girl was a terrible liar. So, why had he anticipated her return so much?
Probably because she’d been the only thing to give him any kind of hope since he’d woken in this bed. He didn’t even care that he knew she hadn’t told the truth. The parts about her that had been honest were just so…honest. Pure. Heart-felt. It made him wonder why…but then the whys of it really didn’t matter now. She wasn’t coming back.
Clenching his teeth, he fisted his hands and muttered, “Screw it.”
Frenchie, his physical therapist, had told him not to try to stand. Jonah hadn’t walked yet because his damn PT had only worked and stretched his muscles every time he’d stopped in to check on Jonah. He wasn’t even planning to allow Jonah the opportunity to try until he returned in another two days.
Well, Jonah didn’t want to wait two days. He didn’t want to just lie here with his heart cracking open because some tiny, blue-eyed redhead had lied to him. He just wanted to get away for a few minutes. Escape.
Blowing out a deep breath to bolster himself, he tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed to set them on the floor. But he’d grown so numb just lying there that it felt like he was moving two concrete blocks. Clenching his teeth, he ignored the heat rising to his face as he strained, ignored the pain exploding from every bullet hole in his body, ignored the nurse who walked into his room, carrying more medicine.
She skidded to a halt. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going for a walk,” he grated out, glaring at her from narrowed eyes and clenched teeth. “I need to walk.”
“The hell you do.” She hurried forward to set the tiny cup of pills down before turning to him, arms already raised to restrain him. “You’re not supposed to get out bed yet, Mr. Abbott.”
“Well, I am anyway. I need—”
“No.” She grabbed his arms. “Before your therapist left today, he said you could try on Wednesday with the walker. That’s soon enough.”
He glared and batted her away. “Let go,” he warned. “I’m trying this. Now.”
“No, you’re not. There aren’t enough people in here to help if you can’t do it.”
When he ignored her and attempted to stand anyway, she pushed him right back down. He growled and resisted, causing a jagged pain to shoot up his leg. He gasped but kept struggling. “I just want to try. I need t
o try.”
The damn nurse didn’t seem to care what he needed. “And you will. In two days when your therapist and a roomful of assistants are here to help you.”
“I don’t want to wait. I don’t need help. I just want—”
“And I really don’t care what you want.” Well, at least she was being perfectly honest with him. No one in this hospital seemed to care what he wanted. “You’re waiting.”
“God…damn it!” Using his feeble strength to break free of her, he failed miserably, only hurting himself more with each twist of resistance. “Let me go!”
“I need some help in here,” she yelled toward the doorway.
“You need to back off.” Jonah’s IV tore from the flesh in the back of his hand as he struggled. He just about had the upper hand when the wild-eyed nurse dug her nails into his thigh wound, subduing him.
He roared out his pain as a handful of people in scrubs flocked into the room, pile-driving him onto the bed.
Half a dozen voices screamed at him, telling him what they wanted him to do, and he hollered right back, trying to tell them he just wanted to be left alone. All the while, his body turned into one huge ball of shrieking, throbbing agony, each nerve ending pulsing unyieldingly. But he was so mad and scared and hurt, he continued to fight against the bodies holding him back, against the voices telling him what he couldn’t do.
He knew he must look wild, and he knew he was acting crazy, but he couldn’t help it. He had to escape. He needed to be free from all this. Everything became about the fight, the will to not give up.
Bowing up his back while both of his arms and legs were being pinned down, he lobbed his head back and forth, cursing the entire room full of orderlies as he caught sight of one nurse sucking a syringe full of juice from a tiny clear bottle and then pulling it free before turning his way.
“No! Don’t you fucking get that thing close to me. Just leave me alone.”
“Hold him steady,” Needle Nurse demanded of her cohorts, and she approached, the gleam in her eyes scaring him shitless.