Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,31
onto the mildewed vinyl seat with a grunt.
“Jeepers. I done told y’all, I’m fine,” Mr. Renshaw gasps.
“Ah, come on, old man. Rain needs a new patient. The one she’s got is boring.” Carter jerks his chin in Quint’s direction. Then, he leans down and whispers in his dad’s ear, loud enough for everybody to hear, “And he’s startin’ to smell.”
Carter ducks suddenly as a roll of medical tape goes whizzing past his head.
“I heard that, asshole,” Quint coughs out from behind the counter.
They all burst out laughing as Carter stands and gives Quinton another smile that I know all too well. It’s the same one he used to give Sophie after he teased her to the point of her smacking him.
Brotherly love.
“Glad you’re feeling better, man,” Carter says more seriously, walking over to the counter and reaching behind it to give Quint some kind of dude handshake/fist bump thing.
The three of us were in the same grade back in Franklin Springs, and even though Carter and Quint didn’t hang out that much, they’ve known each other since they were kids.
“Me too.” Quint’s words are strangled with pain, but his voice is getting a little stronger every day.
“Would you get out of here?” I huff. “You’re upsetting my patients.”
Carter chuckles as he strolls toward the door. I close my eyes as he passes, catching his subtle, masculine scent.
“Hey, Carter?” I blurt out just before he leaves.
Turning back around, my best friend flashes me a Hollywood smile and points a finger gun at me. “I knew it. I knew you’d rather hang out with me than stay here with a cripple and an angry, old man.”
I crack a smile—my first one in days. I don’t know how he does it, but Carter has always been able to make me laugh, no matter how badly I don’t want to.
“Uh, no.” I roll my eyes. “I was just wondering where you’re going.”
“Relax, Rainbow Brite.” Carter beams.
And my heart sinks like the Titanic. I know that smile too. It’s one that I saw more and more of toward the end of our relationship.
Carter has a secret.
“You won’t even miss me … much.” With a wink, he disappears into the hallway, and I turn to glare at my new patient.
“He gets it from you, you know.”
Mr. Renshaw chuckles and wipes the last few beads of sweat from his brow. The walk over must have really taken it out of him. As soon as his laughter fades, I can almost feel his defenses go up.
“Don’t worry,” I say, taking a seat on the edge of the counter a few feet away. “I’m not gonna make you show me.”
Mr. Renshaw relaxes into his chair. “You ain’t?”
“I already know it’s broken.”
His nostrils flare. “How do you s’pose that?”
“By your limp. That car accident was over a month ago. If you’re still limping this badly, it means something’s broken, and it’s not gonna heal unless you get it set and stop hobbling around on it like you’ve been doing.”
Mr. Renshaw’s rosy cheeks go pale, confirming my suspicions.
Crap. It really is broken.
“I … I didn’t think it mattered, what with the end of the world comin’ and all,” Mr. Renshaw grumbles through his wiry gray beard. His once-bright eyes are dull, pinched at the corners in pain and red from countless sleepless nights.
“Is that why you wouldn’t let anybody see it?”
He shrugs and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Didn’t wanna worry ’em any more than they already was.”
Quint and I share a quick, sympathetic glance before I hop off the counter and cross the room.
Placing a hand on Mr. Renshaw’s shoulder, I say, “Welp, the world’s not ending after all, so what do you say we get you fixed up?”
He shakes his head, pulling his hurt leg a little further under the chair.
“No?”
“I ’preciate you tryin’ to take care of me, Rainbow; I do. But I think it’s best to just let it be.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
Not that I have any idea what I’m doing.
I glance down at his leg—I don’t even touch it—and the jumpy old bastard swivels away from me in his seat with a loud, “No!” He drops his eyes with an embarrassed chuckle. “I mean … I’m fine. Thanks anyway, young lady.”
I huff loud enough for him to hear me. Mama used to say that the burliest men were always the biggest babies when it came to boo-boos.
Mama.
The second her beautiful, tired, stressed-out face comes to mind, I frantically grasp at