Page 76 of Winning You
After their conversation last night, would Frankie think Lucas was ghosting him?
And what if he didn’t get a hold of him on time and Charlie found Fallon?
But there was nothing he could do. Even if he was brave enough to tell his parents about Frankie, they couldn’t do anything about it. Neither of them was going to leave his side just so he could make a phone call.
“Let me see your face again,” Bronx said after a beat.
Lucas sighed but dropped the ice pack. “I doubt it’s changed in the last ten minutes.”
“You have a small cut,” Bronx said. “And the swelling’s gone down a little, but the bruising is worse. How bad does it hurt?”
Bad, but he’d had worse. It wasn’t nearly as awful as the time he’d walked into an open cupboard and knocked himself to the ground, smacking his head on the corner of the oven on the way down.
That had been his deadbeat dad’s fault.
“I’ll live. I just want to get this over with and go home. I hate hospitals.”
Bronx pulled him into another hug, and Lucas took it because he desperately needed the comfort. “I know. I’m sorry. But we need this documented, okay? I’m not going to let this little shit stain get away with hurting my son.”
Lucas snorted a very soft laugh. “Okay, dramatic.”
Bronx squeezed him tighter. “Oh? Am I dramatic when my son called me in the middle of being attacked by some lunatic?”
That…was fair.
“And would you say the same thing if something like this happened to someone you love?” Monty pressed.
Lucas pulled away from Bronx and turned his head toward his other parent. “Dad?”
“Yes?” Monty always sounded quietly thrilled whenever Lucas called him that.
“If someone did this to you, I wouldn’t say anything. I would just quietly go over to their house, board up their windows, then light their house on fire.”
Bronx burst into laughter and hugged Lucas close. “I love you, but please don’t ever say that in front of Adele.”
“Please. The last thing I want is a ten-hour lecture about fire safety.” But Lucas mostly meant it. Maybe he wouldn’t do murder if someone hurt his parents or his friends, but he had been contemplating dark, evil things against the two people who hurt Gage.
So he supposed his dad calling Charlie a shit stain was appropriate. And after today, definitely warranted.
Radiology arrived after what felt like a hundred years, and Lucas got his scan, which indeed showed an orbital fracture and a hairline fracture in his cheekbone. Renato was just coming onto his shift as they were working out Lucas’s discharge papers, and he quietly pushed the nurses out of the way to examine him.
“You know who did this, yes?”
Lucas sighed. “Yeah. There’s a whole thing happening. I know my dad is going to go to whatever your adult drinkies night is soon and tell you all everything.”
Renato chuckled as he pressed around the fracture. “You’ll have some discomfort eating. Did Amir tell you that?”
Lucas assumed Amir was the first doctor who had come in to see him. “Something like that. They emailed me all the instructions so I can read them on my phone.”
Renato sighed. “You let me know if there’s anything you need for the police report.”
Lucas nodded and waited for him to step back before sliding off the table and holding his hand out for his cane. Monty handed it over, and Lucas squeezed it tightly in his hand, drawing comfort from it like a security blanket.
“I just want to go nap.”
“It’s ten,” Renato said, and Lucas’s heart sank down to his feet. “You can and should go to bed.” He gave him a hug, and Lucas could hear him exchanging handshakes with his parents before they were finally let go.
Lucas kept a light grip on Monty’s arm as he let his cane guide him along the wall as the three of them made their way to the exit. He could feel the slight coolness of the breeze as they headed out into the parking lot, and he could smell rain on the air.
