Five Minute Man: A Contemporary Love Story (16 page)

No wonder Adam was so proud of the kid, she thought. She nodded, much more carefully this time, though she felt anything but. “Fucking awesome,” she said, her brain too muddled and her body in too much pain to waste the effort on a filter. “Crap, I don’t need to tip you for this, do I?”

He chuckled, but his handsome face held genuine concern. “Jason’s going to take real good care of you, Holly. He’s the best. Just listen to what he says, okay?”

“Okay,” she breathed. It’s not like she had a hell of a lot of choice. She could barely move without agonizing pain.

“Brandon, can you call Liz for me? Her number’s in my cell, which should be in my pocket...” Holly tried to move her right hand – the only one that appeared to be working – across her body awkwardly to pull out her phone. Jason saw her struggling and helped her out, handing the phone to Brandon.

“Do I need to go to the hospital?” she asked, trying to focus on EMT Jason. He was still a little blurry around the edges. “Wow. You have amazing eyes. Very kind.” Definitely a fireman-slash-EMT in her next novel. She’d read somewhere that firemen ranked number one on the list of female fantasies. How had she not yet tapped into that?

Jason smiled back at her with even, white teeth. “Thanks. And yes, you need to go to the hospital for some X-rays. The good news is, they’ll be able to give you something for the pain there, too, once they know what you’ve got going on.”

“Oh, I got it going on,” she mumbled, making him laugh.
Pain meds
. That sounded
wonderful
. Holly was not a big fan of pain. But she couldn’t just leave. “Someone needs to take care of Max...”

“I’ll take good care of him, Holly,” Brandon assured her. “You just take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay...” Holly let her eyes close as they lifted her onto a stretcher.

***

W
ith precise, careful movements, Holly gingerly got out of Liz’s car. After hours of being poked, prodded, X-rayed, and MRI’ed, all she wanted to do was crawl into her own bed and sleep for a week or so.

One broken arm, three cracked ribs, and a deeply bruised hip and shoulder hurt like hell. The pain meds they gave her at the hospital – only after they determined she did not have a serious concussion - did help somewhat, but not nearly enough. The ER doc had taken pity on her and written a prescription that should help with that. Holly wasted no time in downing two of the pills within seconds of picking them up at the drive-thru pharmacy on the way home. Already a very welcome, pleasant numbness was beginning to seep into her limbs, muting her pounding headache from a ten down to a seven on the tolerance scale.

“You should have stayed overnight,” Liz chastised, grabbing her overnight bag from the backseat and helping Holly into the house.

“I hate hospitals,” Holly groused.

“Everybody hates hospitals, Holly.”

“I want my own bed. I want Max.”
I want Adam
, she added silently.

“I know,” Liz exhaled. “But you’re stuck with me tonight. Brandon texted about two hours ago. He said he’ll bring Max over in the morning.”

“Did he say anything else?” Holly asked, hoping she didn’t sound as pathetic out loud as she did in her own head. Given Brandon’s involvement, she’d half-expected Adam to show up at the hospital, or to find him waiting for her when Liz brought her home. But he hadn’t shown. He hadn’t called or texted even once. Granted, he hadn’t said he would, but after last night, she’d kind of assumed they’d be getting together, picking up where they had left off this morning.

“No,” Liz said quietly.

At the look of sympathy in her eyes, Holly resolved not to ask again. She was not going to be
that
girl, she reminded herself. It was just as well. She and Vicodin were going to be pretty tight for the next couple of hours anyway. But it would have been nice if he’d at least called to see how she was. Assuming he knew. And why wouldn’t he know? Brandon had been there on the scene, and was watching Max, presumably at Adam’s house.

“Okay then. Thanks for hanging out tonight, Liz. Sucks for you, though, huh?”

“Like I had anything better to do,” Liz said, pulling off Holly’s shoes and socks. Liz was trying to keep things light, but Holly could see the worry in her eyes. Everyone should have a bestie like Liz, she decided. Someone to have your back. To be there when you found yourself in the hospital and needed a ride home.

“And no offense,” Liz continued, “but I’d rather be me than you right now.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Holly sighed, sinking into the pillow that still smelled a little like Adam. “Goodnight, Liz.”

“Goodnight, Holly.”

***

S
unlight streamed through the windows, searing his eyes. Adam rubbed at them, feeling like he’d been on one hell of a bender. It took him a couple of minutes to get his bearings. He was in his bed, his room, his house, with absolutely no idea how he got there.
Thank God for small favors
.

Adam dragged himself into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Christ, he looked like shit.
What the hell happened last night?

He gripped the edge of the sink, gritting his teeth together while willing the room to stop spinning. Adam didn’t do shitfaced; yeah, he tossed back a few with the guys sometimes, but he certainly hadn’t been this out of it since he was a stupid kid. Like so many others, he’d learned the hard way, but he
had
learned. He knew his limits, and he made sure he stayed well within them, especially with Brandon around.

He leaned over and splashed cold water on his face.
Fuck!
Why couldn’t he remember anything? Most of his mind was focused on trying to stay upright and conscious, but to be this hung over, he should be able to recall something. Where had he been? Who had he been with? What had he done?

It was all a blur. There were vague, fleeting glimpses, but they couldn’t possibly be right. They had to be nightmares, because Adam wouldn’t have willingly done
any
of those things.

He needed answers, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to find them in the porcelain a couple of inches from his nose. When he was relatively sure he could do so without face-planting on the floor, he pushed himself upright and took a deep breath. What he needed was caffeine and acetaminophen – preferably huge quantities of both. Then maybe he could get his shit together enough to figure this out.

It took one hand against the wall and all of his concentration to put one foot in front of the other, but he finally made it to the kitchen. Brandon was already there, sitting at the table. God bless the kid, he’d made coffee.

Adam fixed himself a cup, sloshing more on the counter than he managed to get into his mug, and collapsed heavily into a chair. Even that brief foray from his bedroom to the kitchen left him feeling drained and weak. His hand shook so badly he had trouble getting the mug to his mouth, which was probably just as well, because the smell of the coffee had the nausea coming back with a vengeance. He closed his eyes and summoned every bit of self-control he had. He was
not
going to blow chunks like some teenager after his first bender.

Brandon looked up slowly and met his eyes. “Why did you do it, Uncle Adam?”

The look on the kid’s face sent a wave of dread through Adam’s already unsettled stomach. But this is what he needed. Obviously his nephew knew more than he did about what had gone down.

“Do what, exactly?” Christ, was that his voice? Either he was slurring his words or his brain wasn’t translating the signals properly.

Brandon’s next words had the bile rising in the back of his throat: “I thought you really liked Holly.”

Holly!
She couldn’t have anything to do with this, could she? He was supposed to go over to her place last night; he’d been looking forward to it all day.
Shit!
If he felt like this, what the hell kind of shape was she in this morning?

But wait... that didn’t make any sense. If he had made it over to her place, he wouldn’t be
here
, and he wouldn’t have woken up alone, though given the way his day had started, that was probably a good thing.

He clamped his eyes shut and scrubbed his face with his hands.
Remember!
he commanded himself. It was as though his brain was a blackboard and someone had just wiped it clean. All that remained were a few blurry white patches where the chalk had been. But while he couldn’t recall any specifics, he knew in his gut that wherever he had been, whatever he had done, it hadn’t been with Holly.

But
why
hadn’t he been with Holly?

“I do care about Holly,” Adam said, trying to remember where he left his phone. He had to call her and ... say what exactly?
Hi Holly, it’s Adam. Do you have any idea what I did last night? Why I’m here at my place, feeling like roadkill, instead of waking up in bliss beside you?

He’d finally found someone he wanted to be with, someone who had seemed just as happy to be with him. The last thing he needed was her questioning her choice to spend time with his sorry ass. But maybe his phone held some clue. He could at least look at the text and call log; maybe that would trigger something to help him make some sense of this.

“You sure as hell have a funny way of showing it.”

The hair on the back of his neck rose and prickled; a wave of dread and cold sweat washed over him. Adam didn’t know if it was purely physical or a reaction to Brandon’s words and the tone he’d used to say them. Despite their closeness, Brandon had never addressed him with such disrespect. “Excuse me?”

“Just doesn’t seem right. While Holly’s laying in a hospital, you’re out fucking your ex? Not cool, Uncle Adam.”

Several things happened in quick succession. Adam’s heart stopped beating for several seconds, then re-started by pounding painfully hard and fast against the walls of his chest. The contents of his stomach decided they didn’t want to remain where they were after all; Adam just barely made it to the bathroom in time. Then, after retching violently, his legs betrayed him and he ended up hanging onto the toilet to keep from face-planting into the tiled floor.

Next thing he knew, Brandon was leaning over him, pressing a cold, wet towel to a really sore spot on his temple. The derision on the kid’s face was now mixed with genuine concern. “Hang on, Uncle Adam. I’m going to call for an ambulance.”

Adam grabbed onto Brandon’s arm with surprising strength. “No ambulance,” Adam said through clenched teeth as his body started to shake. “Tell me what happened.”

Brandon blinked and studied his face. “You mean you really don’t remember?”

“Can’t remember shit,” Adam said, forcing himself to take deep breaths, knowing whatever it was, it was
bad
. “Just fucking tell me what happened to Holly. Why is she in the hospital? Is she alright?”

For the first time, Brandon seemed uncertain. “Okay, but let’s get you to the couch first, okay?”

Moving in any fashion was not in the least bit appealing, but Adam used every last ounce of willpower he had. With Brandon’s help and a steel will not to vomit all over his favorite nephew, Adam managed to make it to the couch. By the time he got there, he was covered in sweat and feeling as weak as a pup. He sank down into the cushions and wiped his face with the cool cloth.

“Okay. Start talking.”

“There was a fire at Holly’s yesterday,” Brandon began, taking the chair adjacent to the couch to remain close. “I was doing my volunteer shift down at the fire company when the call came in around three or so. Someone reported hearing an explosion and seeing smoke.”

“Christ,” Adam swore. “An
explosion
? You mean like a gas leak or something?”

“Or something,” Brandon said grimly. “It happened in one of the smaller outbuildings, looked like a tool shed or something. The fire chief is working with the police. Nothing official yet, but the chief said it looked like a clear case of arson. He found evidence of an accelerant at the scene.”

Adam knew just the building he was talking about; Holly had shown it to him when she’d given him a tour of her place. It was situated to the left of the cottage, an old wooden structure in remarkably good condition where Holly kept her gardening tools.

“The building is destroyed, but we got there in time to keep it from spreading to anything else.”

“What about Holly? You said she was hurt. How bad? Did you see her?”

“Yeah, I saw her,” Brandon said, his tone grave. “I’ve definitely seen her look better, but all in all, she’s okay. Got banged up pretty good, couple of broken bones, cracked ribs, possible concussion. There was a fire extinguisher found not too far away from where she landed. She must have smelled the smoke and gone out to investigate. The chief thinks she was near the door when the place blew. Knocked her across the yard, but that was probably a good thing. Kept her away from the fire till we could get there.”

“Jesus.” Adam closed his eyes and tried not to picture it in his mind as his stomach twisted. “But she’s okay?” He needed to hear it one more time. If anything happened to Holly...

“She’ll live. The hospital wanted to keep her overnight, but she signed herself out. Liz tried to talk her out of it, but Holly threated to call a cab if Liz didn’t give her a ride home.”

Yeah, that sounded like Holly
, Adam thought. “Liz is staying with her, I hope?”

Brandon nodded. “She was, up until Holly’s family started arriving this morning.”

Adam frowned, remembering the little bit Holly had revealed about her family. She’d probably appreciate Liz’s company more. “What about Max?” The dog was Holly’s shadow, and if she was affected, then he probably was, too.

“Some singed fur, but none the worse for wear. Holly was really worried about him, though, so I told her I’d look out for him till she got back home. It was the only way she’d get in the ambulance.”

“Max is here?”

“Was. I took him back first thing this morning. He was lost without Holly, and Liz said she needed him, too.”