Page 101 of Hooked
“No reception for a couple of miles,” Cary said. “We’ll have to tie him up and lower him down the cliff. Jeremy, you trust me to tie you on and get you down? The other option is two of us boogie out of here and hike back to call search and rescue.”
“Fuck no.” He was going to throw up. There was no avoiding it. “Get me on my side.”
Ashley and Cary rolled him over, and he upchucked the oatmeal he’d eaten for breakfast. He felt better, but the nausea only yielded to waves and waves of pain. “I think I did something to my shoulder too.”
“You may have a partial dislocation.” Ashley was feeling along his neck. “No pain here?”
“No.”
“Any numbness anywhere?”
“My arm was numb. Not anymore.”
She winced. “Yeah, your nerves have caught up with the break. I don’t feel anything along his spine or his head, Cary.” She took something from Dave and poured it onto his arm before she started wrapping gauze around the bone. “Jeremy, you think you can walk? Are your legs okay?”
He flexed his knees up. “Yeah, they’re good.”
“I think it’s more important that we get his arm taken care of as quickly as possible. I’m gonna wrap it up and make sure the bleeding is okay, but I don’t want to mess with it. I’m not a doctor. We need to get him down the mountain.”
“Okay.” Once they made it down the cliff, it was a two-mile hike back to the car. “This is gonna suck.”
“Yeah.” Cary put his arm around Jeremy and helped him to his feet. “It really, really is.”
Tayla had forcedher parents to sit in the living room. Together. Or as together as they ever were. Her mother was on the chaise near the bar, and her father was impatiently steaming in a wingback chair.
“Tayla, what is this about?”
“I have been offered a job at SOKA, the international trading company I was interviewing with.”
Her father was mollified. “That’s excellent. I’m glad you’re finally putting your degree to proper use.”
“I’m also excited about it. However, I’m not thrilled about moving back to San Francisco. Partly, to be frank, because of you two.”
Bianca put on her best wounded face while Aaron looked bored.
“Darling, I don’t know why you’re—”
“Mom, I don’t want us to be this way.” She waited until her father met her eyes. “I really don’t. And I don’t think you want us to be this way either. We’re not a family. Not even close.”
“I suppose your friends down in that little town have something to do with this.” Aaron sighed. “Tayla, I’m not going to justify my work or the life I’ve provided for you.”
“Fine.” She clapped her hands. “Don’t justify it. But also don’t pretend you have to work as hard now as when I was a kid. You don’t. You’re at the point where you could be semiretired if you wanted to be. You and mom could travel. You could pursue… I have no idea what you like other than being at the office.”
“Sailing,” Bianca said.
Aaron picked at a piece of lint on his pants. “I haven’t sailed in years.”
“But you liked it. That’s why I wanted to get a membership at the yacht club, Aaron. You were happy when you were on a boat.”
“I thought you liked the brunches.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Those people are so boring. I always assumed you’d eventually get a boat. God knows we have enough money for it.”
Aaron looked uncomfortable.
“This is good,” Tayla said. “See? We can talk about things. Maybe we’re not like close families. But Mom knows things you like. And Dad, you know things that Mom likes too.”
“Wine.”
