Officer Rookie looked as if he were about to die. “No one, sir! It’s absolutely nothing!”
Cap narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Hmm.”
“It’s fine, Cap,” Nick said.
“Is it? Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Officer Morton, I’ll handle this from here. Make yourself useful elsewhere.”
Officer Rookie nodded and fled.
“Strange guy,” Cap said, staring after him.
“He’s all right,” Nick said, crawling over Jazz to get out from underneath the table. “He’ll make a good cop.”
“Yeah? Seal of approval?”
Nick nodded. “Little wet behind the ears, but he has to start somewhere.”
Cap rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Good to know.” He glanced at Nick. “We okay?”
Nick shrugged and looked down at his shoes.
“Sounds about right.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have run away.”
“Sometimes we have to run away in order to clear our heads and put ourselves together as best we can. The important thing is that we return stronger than when we left.”
It’s easier to stand together than it is to struggle apart.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” Nick admitted.
“I think you are,” Cap said.
“Me too,” Gibby said while she helped her girlfriend up.
“The strongest,” Jazz agreed. “And even if you’re not, you’ve got us.”
Nick loved them very much.
* * *
Mary Caplan came and fussed over Nick. She was a no-nonsense Black woman who told him in no uncertain terms that he would be staying with them when he tried to tell her he’d be fine on his own. “Don’t even try and come at me with that bull,” she told him. “I won’t hear of it. You will stay with us, and I’m going to feed you like you wouldn’t believe. You’re far too skinny. I made meatloaf and pot roast and bought sixteen frozen pizzas before I came here. You’ll eat all of it, and you will like it.”
“This is going to be great,” Cap whispered to him.
“Oh, don’t believe any of that is for you, Rodney Caplan,” Mary said, mouth a thin line. “You get kale.”
“But—”
She glared at him.
Cap sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She leaned forward and kissed her husband on the cheek.
Cap smiled adoringly at her.
Nick didn’t understand old people.
* * *
Jazz and Gibby went with Mary to the Bell home to pack Nick a bag. As weirded out as he was by the idea of them digging around his underwear drawer, he wanted to stay with his dad as long as he could.
Becky smiled at him when he returned, gesturing toward a chair set up next to the bed. “Doctor Chaudry will come talk to you in a minute. Your dad is in good hands.”
Nick sat in the chair. “Is he—is he hurting right now?”
Becky shook her head. “It looks worse than it is, trust me. He’s probably going to be in some pain when he wakes up, but that’s what morphine is for. We’ll get him stoned, and you can record him for blackmail later.”
Nick liked the way Becky thought.
* * *
Doctor Chaudry gave him the breakdown. Two broken ribs, punctured lung. Superficial burns on his arm. Contusions. Abrasions.
“It’s the head injury we’re watching the most,” he told him. “There’s some swelling, but it should go down. The breathing tube is for his lung. If there’s repeated pneumothorax, we’ll need to consider surgery, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
“When will he wake up?” Nick asked, fidgeting in his chair.
Doctor Chaudry smiled at him. “Soon, Nick. Probably within a couple of days. He’s healthy and strong. He’ll have to take it easy for a while, but I think he’s going to be fine.”
* * *
He was finally left alone as night began to fall, the rain slacking off to a miserable drizzle. The officers had shifts to get to, or they needed to go home to their families. Officer Rookie volunteered to stay with Nick, but Nick shook his head. Before he left, Officer Rookie wrote down his phone number on a piece of paper, telling Nick to call if he needed anything.
“Why, Officer Rookie, you sly dog. Way to slip me your number while I’m in a vulnerable place—”
Nick was almost offended at how fast Officer Rookie fled the room.
Turning back to his father, he hesitated before reaching out and touching the back of Dad’s hand. His skin was warm, and Nick struggled to swallow past the lump in his throat.
“Hey,” he managed to say. “Um. Becky told me that it was okay to talk to you. That you probably wouldn’t hear me, but she thinks it helps. She’s—uh. She’s your nurse. She