Page 6 of Gold Rush
“Yes. It’s…very sad. He’s being released soon. The police wanted to arrest him, but the doctors talked them out of it.”
Goldie’s blood pressure rose over that. “Assholes.”
“Well, my husband is one, but his friends are…assholes. Yeah. So is he on a bad day,” she said with a laugh. “So, if you want to talk to him, he’s leaving now. He’ll be coming this way in a few minutes.”
“Already?”
“Narcan and fluids. That’s really all he needed.”
She left them, and Abs pulled him. “Let’s go.”
“Not yet. He’s coming out.”
“So?”
Goldie didn’t want to seem desperate, but he felt that way. He desperately wanted to see the guy. Abs huffed and asked, “Are you…like…infatuated with this hooker?”
“Abs!”
“Well, he is!”
“Abs, you work with us, and you judge?”
Abs rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. “You’re such a shithead.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I just need to see him upright and maybe see if he needs some help.”
“Like we got,” Abs finished for him.
“Yeah. Like we got.”
“Okay. Okay, I get it, I think. Go see.”
Goldie again kissed the top of his head, and then, he spotted Dean Miles coming out of the ER double doors, still pale, but gaining a little pink in his cheeks.
He stopped cold, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and Abs watched him like he was suddenly a stranger. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
After pushing past him, Abs walked right up to Dean and said, “Hi. We found you.”
Goldie wanted to die, but Dean’s brows raised high as he said, “Excuse me?”
“My friend over there, we found you in that alley.”
Dean looked past Abs to see where he’d nodded, and his eyes moved slowly up Goldie’s frame until they came to his eyes. “Oh! I guess thanks. I mean, no, I mean it, thanks.”
Goldie cleared his throat and asked him, “Do you need some help?”
“Help? Oh…with…no, man, I wouldn’t get anyone involved in that stuff. Thanks, but go back to your lives. I’ll be okay. I’ll just avoid certain places for a while.”
“And if you can’t?” Abs demanded. “Listen, we stuck our necks out for you, and we didn’t do it so you could go and get stabbed with another needle.”
Goldie almost lost it, ready to scream at his friend for the attack, but it worked. Dean shrugged and asked, “What can a couple of guys like you do to help someone like me? You don’t have any idea where I come from, what I’ve had to do.”
Abs gave a short, sarcastic snort. “You’d be surprised, buddy. Come on, before my friend shits himself in the damn hospital.”
Goldie’s jaw dropped, but he followed the two out of the lobby and finally into the air of the evening.
As they walked up to the road, Dean was between them. He smiled at Goldie, but asked Abs, “How can you help me?”
