Page 78 of Whispers and Wildfire

“It’s there.”

He shot a glance at me. “You were racing?”

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck?” There was no missing the surprise and frustration in his voice. “I thought you quit doing that years ago.”

“I did. For a while.”

He just shook his head.

I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “What, no lecture about how dangerous it is? How I should know better?”

“Sounds like you already gave yourself the lecture. You just need to start listening.”

“True.”

“Besides, if this doesn’t convince you to quit, nothing I say is going to make a difference.”

I shifted slightly, trying to ease the feeling of pressure in my chest. It didn’t help. “Good point.”

We lapsed into silence as we drove. I was still drowsy, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I kept almost drifting off then jerking awake with a jolt of pain.

Finally, we got to my house. I lived in what was essentially a big garage with an apartment above, and I struggled to walk up the stairs. Theo followed and went in with me. He looked over my discharge paperwork while I eased myself onto the couch with a groan.

“Ice packs?” he asked.

“Freezer. Hopefully.”

Thankfully, I had one shoved in the back. It was bunched up, and he had to massage it a bit to get it to flatten, but at least it was cold. I put it where the worst of the pain was and let my eyes close.

“I have a ton of those,” Theo said. “I’ll bring more so you can rotate them.”

“Thanks.”

“Need anything else?”

“I don’t think so.” I opened my eyes. “Thank you. Really.”

He nodded. “Of course. You know I’ve always got your back. Even when you’re being stupid.”

“So stupid.”

“You have your phone?” he asked.

“It’s in my pocket.”

“Okay. Rest up.”

I nodded, my eyes drifting closed again.

Theo left, and I settled into a restless sleep, filled with dreams of car wrecks and Melanie’s voice asking me if I was okay.

CHAPTER 20

Melanie

The shrieksof child happiness on a sunny day were soothing to my soul. And the crunchy dill pickle, while not exactly healing the previous night’s wounds, was delicious. There were worse ways to spend a Saturday.

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