Page 51 of Keeping it Casual
“Dad.” Something about his voice seems off, but I don’t have time to focuson it because the doctor steps forward.
She clears her throat, drawing my attention away from Lachie. “Mr. Knight?”
“What happened?”
“A BMX stunt gone wrong, apparently,” she says.
I blink. BMX stunt? What the hell? Lachie doesn’t even own a BMX bike.
I try to focus on what the doctor is saying. “We suspect your son’s leg is broken. We’d like to take him through for an x-ray. If that’s okay with you?”
I nod my consent. “Sure.”
Relief overwhelms me so much my legs wobble. A broken leg. I can deal with that. Thank god it isn’t anything more serious.
But my relief is short-lived when I return my attention to Lachie and get a whiff of his breath.
It reeks of beer.
My head snaps back. “Have you been drinking?”
“Just a little,” he replies, his words slurry. When I peer into his eyes, I can see his gaze is slightly unfocused.
“We’ll take him down to the radiology department now. You’re welcome to come down and wait outside there,” the nurse says.
“Let’s go with him,” Jeremy says.
I’m glad Jeremy is making decisions because my brain is stuck on the fact my fourteen-year-old is drunk.
A nurse aide turns up and maneuvers Lachie’s bed down the hallway.
Jeremy and I trail after them to the x-ray department. Then Lachie vanishes behind the swinging double doors.
I slump down on the cold hard-plastic seats outside the doors.
“Fuck.” Scraping my hand through my hair, I try to process all the emotions of the last hour.
Jeremy sits next to me. “He’s going to be okay,” he says softly.
When I turn to him, he’s watching me, his gorgeous face full of concern. Something about the look on his face makes me open my mouth and start talking. “When I first got the call, I thought…” My voice catches. “It was like my world collapsed. I’ve never been so scared.”
“I know,” Jeremy says. And I can see from his expression that he does understand. “Em and I lost Lucy at Christmas in the Park when she was three. We only turned away for a second, then wham—she was gone.
“I thought I knew what fear was, but it turns out I had no idea until then. Someone eventually found her and took her to the police tent, but that was the worst hour of my life.”
“I can imagine,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Jeremy’s a parent too. That’s one of the many, many great things about him. He completely understands my commitment to Lachie.
I’ve never been in a relationship with a guy who was a parent too, who knows exactly what that means at the instinctual gut level.
Not that Jeremy and I are in a relationship.
The thought pulls me up.
But before I can think about that, Lachie’s being wheeled back out of the x-ray.
Jeremy proves to be a godsend over the next half hour whilewe head back to the small, sterile cubicle to wait for the doctor to talk through the results of the x-ray.
