“Do I need a reason to visit my domestic partner?”
“We don’t live together, so we aren’t domestic partners.” Gray took the Velcro thing from the wall and wrapped it around Emmitt’s arm—tightly.
Emmitt opened his mouth to respond—and in went the thermometer.
Gray pressed his finger to Emmitt’s wrist and silently checked his watch. He was grinning as if he found some kind of sick pleasure in making Emmitt follow the rules.
“How’s my pulse?” he asked around the thermometer.
Gray lifted a single brow and struck his serious guy pose. “Did you swim back from China?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not good.”
“The closer my proximity to assholes, the higher it gets.”
The thermometer beeped. “It’s 98.9.” Gray coiled the stethoscope back around his neck and took a seat. “What happened in China? And before you give me some half-baked answer, like you did last night, remember I can order a whole panel of random tests if I think you’re wasting my time.”
Needles and being controlled were two big triggers for Emmitt. One came from watching a parent slowly die, the other from being on the receiving end of the remaining parent’s coping techniques.
“I pretty much told you all of it,” Emmitt began, choosing his words carefully. He needed to give enough info so Gray would clear him but not so much that he started asking more questions. “One of the silos failed, whatever warning system was in place failed, and kaboom.” His hand became a bomb, his fingers sizzling fireworks.
“What I read online doesn’t sound as benign as you’re making it out to be.”
“It wasn’t. Over sixty people died,” he said, unable to look anywhere but his lap. “It looked like a war zone, bro.” He could still hear the screaming of the people stuck inside who—if they weren’t lucky enough to pass out from the toxic smoke—were burned alive. He woke up every night to the lingering scent of smoldering ashes. “I was on the other side of the factory when it blew, so I was nowhere near the blast area. Most of my injuries were from flying shrapnel. I got off easy.”
The sound Gray made said he strongly disagreed. “Are you talking to someone about it? These kinds of traumatic—”
“Yes, Dr. Phil. They brought in grief counselors and made all of us talk to someone at the hospital.” Emmitt had been unconscious for the first part, and sweet-talked his way out of the last. Rehashing it wouldn’t help. The only thing he could think about was getting home and hugging his kid. That hug would feel better than anything some shrink could have given him.
“Good to hear. I started seeing one after Michelle—” Gray cleared his throat. “It helped. A lot.” Before Emmitt could ask how he was doing, the good doctor was back to doctoring. “Did any of that flying shrapnel hit you in the head?”
Emmitt looked him directly in the eye and didn’t waiver. A convincing technique he’d picked up while imbedded with a team of SEALs in Fallujah. When people lie, their gaze tended to shy away. Maintaining eye contact was an easy way to convince someone of your truthfulness—even when you’re lying.
“Everyone was hit with little particles, but beside some lacerations from concrete and a few bruises, nothing major.” Not a lie. It was the crumbling floor above him that did the real damage.
“Then you want to tell me why you couldn’t sit still last night? Hell, you couldn’t follow the card game.”
Yup, Emmitt had been stupid enough to mention the embarrassing shrapnel he’d taken in the ass. Levi had asked him how badly he’d been injured, Emmitt had panicked, and out came the one part of the whole unlucky event that they’d never let him live down.
Better than spilling the truth though. Paisley was clearly having a tough time with her mom gone, and coming clean on all the details would have done nothing but unnecessarily worry her.
“Hard to concentrate on cards when the table is bitching like a bunch of biddies.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re so moody. Plus, you look like shit. How have you been sleeping?”
“As well as a man can when forced to sleep on his own recliner,” Emmitt said, and the dickhead had the nerve to smile, as if finding Emmitt’s current living situation hilarious. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“You have a problem, talk to your property manager.”
“Levi may have agreed, but I know damn well it was because you