Page 61 of Heart Strain

“What?”

“You have a little something-something going on with Luwanna? Should I be jealous?”

Gavin chuckles on the other side of me, but Jameson shakes his head and elbows me with a smile, saying, “Oh yeah, you should be really jealous. What she and I have is special.”

I laugh and elbow him back right before we walk off the elevator.

“This is bullshit!” I hear Drix yell from his room.

“Oh man,” Jameson says under his breath. “What’s he pissed about now?”

“No idea, but I guess we’ll find out,” I say, then push into the room finding Drix sitting up in his bed with his arms crossed over his chest and a guy I’ve never seen before holding one of those elastic exercise bands and a squishy ball. “What’s wrong, Drix?”

He turns his glare on me. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. The physical therapist was just leaving.”

I scrutinize the other guy, who sighs and mutters, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.” He sets the band and ball on Drix’s tray. “You need to do this once every hour.” Drix glares at him and doesn’t say anything, so the PT shakes his head, then tells me, “He needs to run through his exercises throughout the day if he ever wants to get out of that bed again.”

Drix huffs something I can’t understand under his breath, but I say, “Okay, sounds good. Thank you.”

The guy hands me a folder with some exercises in it, then heads out of the room.

I turn to Drix. “Why are you being so difficult with the staff? They’re only trying to help.”

He glares at me, then scans the room, seeing Jameson and Gavin in the doorway. “Great, a new person to see me in my humiliation. Welcome to the party, guys.”

“Hendrix, knock it off. There’s nothing to be humiliated about. We all just want you better.” He huffs again, so I sigh and decide to change the subject. “Gavin’s here for a few days!”

Drix glances at Gav and murmurs, “Hey.”

Gavin walks farther into the room and holds out a bag of sour gummies that I didn’t know he had. “Hey, Drix. It’s nice to see you again. I thought… you might like these more than flowers.”

Drix looks at the candy, then up at Gavin in surprise. “These are my favorite.”

Gavin blushes. “I know. I remember from the last time you came up to see Holds. You were eating them the whole time you were there.”

Drix seems to release a bunch of his tension as he takes the bag from Gav and says, “Thank you.”

Gavin smiles at him. “You’re welcome.”

My eyebrows shoot up because that’s probably the longest—and nicest—conversation I’ve ever seen the two of them have, even though that wasn’t really anything. Usually they say polite hellos, then ignore each other while I try to talk to them both. It’s always strange and annoying.

Jameson comes in and begins talking to Drix while Gav walks over to me and whispers, “It’s always so weird seeing your brother at first.”

“Why?”

“Because you two look exactly alike and it freaks me out. And seeing him in a hospital bed is just…” He shudders like he has a chill.

“You really think we look alike?”

“Duh.”

I examine my brother’s face, then look at my… Jameson and ask Gav, “You don’t think that freaks Jameson out, do you?”

He watches the two of them for a moment and shakes his head. “Nah, he looks at Drix like he’s a normal guy; nothing like he looks at you.”

“How does he look at me?”

“Like he wants to eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

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