Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (11 page)

“Thank you,” I whispered into his chest. “Thank you.”

“Any time, Em,” he said gently, and I shuddered beneath him.

Em. He’d never called me that before.

My friends called me Em.

When had he gone from
Simon-fucking-Ferguson
to being my friend?

When had I changed so much that the thought would make me happy, even on a night of misery?

“I actually wanted to get you something to eat, but from what I gather, all the food in this vending machine is likely to kill you. You’d think a hospital of all places would know better,” he remarked, his voice infused with the disdain that only a British accent can convey.

“I might have to settle for a little
partially detoxified industrial waste
anyway, I’m starving,” I teased, chuckling a little in spite of myself.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Lunch.”

“Jeez, Em. That was fourteen hours ago. We need to get you some proper food, soon. You skip so many meals,” he said, suddenly sounding very concerned.

“
We
were going out drinking to celebrate, remember? Isn’t that the tradition you guys have after winning a game?”

“Well yes, but we eat first. Lots and lots. Shepherd’s pie, roast beef with gravy, scotch eggs, steak and kidney pie…. You’ll recall I did suggest we go to Johnnie’s first.”

“Yeah well, I’m an athlete. I need to watch my figure,” I said, blushing.

“Is starving yourself necessary to be an athlete now? Have I been doing it wrong this whole time?” he asked.

He had me there, but there was no way I was going to tell him the real reason. His suggestion of getting dinner together before going out and drinking had sounded an awful lot like a date, and I’d shot it down accordingly.

Of course, if I was being honest with myself, the truth was that I had actually liked the idea a little
too
much. I’d vetoed it in a panic, afraid of opening that particular can of worms.

Looking up at Simon, I could see that deep worry was once again written all over his expression. I scrambled to think of a way to change subjects, anything really.

The nurse came back in, and I could feel Simon’s body tensing back up. He mumbled something into my hair before letting me go, rushing up behind the woman and saying hello. She spun around, her face already locked into a glower.

The nurse wasn’t much taller than I was, and her eyes only went up to Simon’s chest. I watched as she craned her neck higher, her demeanor changing instantly as she sized him up and found him gorgeous.

An irrational part of my mind wanted to run over there and shove the woman back through the door she’d just come from. Mostly, though, I was just worried about Theo. I held my breath as Simon gestured animatedly in conversation, the nurse nodding along as he spoke. With one last, bright smile, the nurse winked and left.

Jesus
.

Simon turned back around, running a hand through his hair as he slowly walked back. He looked exhausted, and my stomach twisted as I began to fear the worst. Before he could say anything, however, an overweight woman wobbled into the waiting room.

I recognized her immediately. Theo’s mother, Ella, was both very small and very wide. Her short black hair was matted to her skull, her face sweaty and tired.

“Emilia! How’re you doing?” she asked pleasantly, her tone giving me hope.

“I’ve been better,” I admitted. “Do you have any news? How is
he
?”

“I just got Shauna’s message from a couple hours ago, saying he’d been shot and was losing blood. She didn’t answer me when I called back, though,” Ella shrugged, seemingly offended. “You know, I always thought he was going to turn out
better
than the others.”

Simon arrived just after Ella finished making her comment, and I bit my tongue. Offending Theo’s mother was only going to make it harder to get any information.

On the opposite end of the ER, the door opened once more. The nurse was leading a very disheveled and disoriented Shauna, who wasted no time in running over to us.

“Simon!” she called, flying straight into his arms. He held her while she broke down into sobs, just as I had earlier.

“Well, I’d do that too, if I was her age,” Ella said with a wink as she looked Simon over from head to toe.

My fingernails were threatening to draw blood from my palms, but I managed to stay quiet. Besides, Ella wasn’t all that bad compared to many of the so-called parents I met working at the rec center. At least she had actually showed up, and her only crime this time was making inappropriate comments. At least she wasn’t threatening Shauna for calling in the middle of the night, or telling the doctors they needed to stop helping her son.

Ella was, in fact, quite present in her kids’ lives…when it suited her. She would also disappear for weeks at a time, when it suited her. She never seemed to think, or care, much about the consequences of her actions. Usually
she
was the one to pay for that, but not always. Shauna did a good job taking care of Theo, but there was only so much that the young woman could do by herself.
 

“How is he?” Simon asked softly, once Shauna had regained some composure.

“Sleeping. They said he’s going to be fine, that the bullet only grazed his shoulder. I don’t know how a graze could cause so much blood. I was so scared,” she said, starting to cry anew. Simon held her reassuringly, softening as the good news sank in. Tears of relief began to form in my own eyes, and for the first time in two hours, I felt like I could breathe.

“Are you Theo’s mother?” the nurse asked Ella, who was struggling to fit into the small waiting room chair. To her credit, she too looked profoundly relieved. She’d clearly been more worried than she let on.

People always deal with tragedy in their own way, I suppose.

“Yes I am,” she answered, and the nurse’s face turned sour.

“The police would like to speak with you,” she said darkly. “As would social services.”

Ella’s face once again turned impassive as she squeezed out of her seat with a sigh. Simon and I shared a look, and I could tell he was concerned about the ordeal to come. I shrugged towards him, trying to communicate that Ella had already been through this many times before. Sooner or later, she was going to have to face the harsh reality of her poor decisions, but it probably wouldn’t be tonight.

Silently, I tilted my head towards Shauna before looking back up at Simon with a questioning expression. He understood at once, nodding in response.

I didn’t need to say more.

“It’s been a hell of a night,” Simon said. “You probably haven’t eaten any more than we have. How about we go find Adam and tell him the good news, then the four of us get some dinner? My treat.”

Shauna’s eyes lit up, nodding with enthusiasm. All four of us were tired and hungry, and a little late-night food seemed like the perfect way to diffuse the tension we’d all been carrying. My stomach rumbled, and immediately I felt a little better. Looking up at the haunted look on Simon’s face, however, sent another wave of shivers down my spine.

I dreamed about Jake again last night.

I told him it was nothing, that we’d be fine.

Argus was counting on us, we had to do it.

Jake agreed with me.

He always agreed with me.

A few hours later, I told him that I’d find help. That I’d save him somehow.

That I was sorry.

He didn’t agree with me. Didn’t say anything. How could he?

The bullet had hit him in the throat.

“Take care of yourself. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?” I heard Emilia whisper into Shauna’s ear during one last hug for the night. The ordeal had left everyone on edge, the most obvious of all being Shauna. Her face was full of barely restrained emotion, while Emilia’s looked pale in the shadowy light of the parking lot.

I did my best to appear as unaffected as possible, but the looks of concern on Emilia's face spoke volumes about my success. Truth be told, I felt like my whole world had been thrown upside down. I’d tried so hard to bury my past, and suddenly old demons were clawing their way up from the earth and back into my present.

“Bye, Simon. Thanks for being around,” Shauna said, sounding a little embarrassed and unsure around me. Of course, I hadn’t yet earned the kind of trust and familiarity that Emilia had built over the years working at the center. I gave her a smile and offered my hand, though she weaved past it to give me a parting hug as well.

With one last goodbye, Shauna climbed into the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s car. Michael seemed like a nice enough guy, willing to pick her up without complaint even at the terribly late hour. Shauna had always said he was there for her when she needed it, something he’d proven tonight. I waved as they pulled away, relieved she had someone to keep an eye on her.

I stretched my arms out with a yawn, taking in a deep breath of the cool ultra-early-morning air. It was a welcome reprieve from the oppressive heat that had lingered for most of the night.

Now that Adam and Shauna had left, Emilia and I were alone together once again, the first time since we’d gotten the bad news.

“So, what now?” I asked, unsure of where we went from here.

“I should probably get home,” Emilia shrugged.

“Want me to drive you?”

“No thanks, I’ll be fine.”

“I wasn’t really
asking
, you know,” I chuckled, half amused and half horrified. “I just assumed it was a foregone conclusion you’d take me up on it. I’d be the world’s worst stepbrother if I let you try to walk back home, alone, through this neighborhood, at four in the morning.”

To my relief, she didn’t point out that I’d
already been
the world’s worst stepbrother on more than one occasion.

“I usually do my runs around here in the early morning, you know,” she said.
 

“Well, you shouldn’t. A hundred wrongs don’t make a right, you know. Let’s go back to my hotel room, and I’ll grab my keys, okay?” I asked. I grabbed Emilia’s elbow, and her expression went from reluctant to resigned as I walked her towards safety.

“Fine, you win,” she muttered. “But I could do it, you know. This part of the city is a lot safer than it used to be.”

“Yeah, it is, but
safer
isn’t the same as
safe
. It’s just the principle, I don’t want to put you in danger needlessly.”

We walked together, side by side, in silence. Between the match this afternoon, our failed attempt to party this evening, and the ordeal at the hospital tonight, I was sure that Emilia felt as exhausted as I did.

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the heavily gentrified district I was staying in. Even though it wasn’t far from the rec center, it felt like another planet. Here, metal detectors and barred windows were replaced by doormen in hats. The lush, green parks and flower-covered street medians were worlds away from the yellow grass and dried, parched dirt patches of West Field.

We crossed the street, entering the majestic marble lobby of the hotel. The doorman smiled, greeting me by name.

“I can call a valet to bring the car,” I called to Emilia, who was gawking at a fountain. In the middle of it sat a statue of an angel, strumming over a large harp whose strings were made of continually falling water. The angel’s wings were made of some kind of hollow crystal, a cleverly disguised tank filled with exotic tropical fish.