Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Jack grins. “It’s better than donuts.”
Sulli snorts. “No fucking way.” She pauses. “Is it a waffle? Because that’s a close second, then pancakes.”
“You’re off,” Akara says.
Sulli swings her head to her bodyguard. “You know what it is?”
He shrugs.
She breaks into a smile. “Okay, now I have to see.” She flips open the pastry box, her eyes lit. When she tilts the box a bit more, I catch sight of two-dozen turquoise cupcakes, iced together to form a wave.
“Happy 20th Birthday,” Jack tells her.
It’s February 4th. Our indoor waterpark plan to celebrate Sulli’s birthday pretty much died hours ago. To salvage the day, Jane has been trying to get a cake delivered.
But Jack Highland beat us to it.
Sulli is lost for words, but then she starts with, “You didn’t have to—”
“I didn’t,” Jack says and then nods to Akara. “When he found out I was coming by, he told me to pick up the order.”
Correction, Akara Kitsuwon beat us to it.
Sulli looks overwhelmed. “Thanks, Kits.”
He shrugs again, his lips inching up. Then he glances at Jack. “Her mom has a theory that cake fixes everything.”
Sulli lingers on Akara for a long moment, then plucks a cupcake out of the box. “Right on fucking time.”
Jane has already unloaded all the supplies, but I don’t see any drinks. Charlie has walked the hall a few times, so it shouldn’t be a problem for me. As long as I’m fast.
34
MAXIMOFF HALE
An ice machine rumbles in the vending enclave. I crave to run, to swim, to feel something other than confined, hollowed out or empty.
I smack the side of a black-and-gold Fizzle machine that won’t spit out a Fizz Life.
“Move, wolf scout.”
My pulse skips. Reminding me I’m alive. Breathing. Human. I look over my shoulder.
A six-foot-three, tattooed know-it-all comes up behind me. His brows raise and lower in a wave.
I feign confusion. “Who are you again?”
Farrow kicks the machine. A can drops. “Your boyfriend.” He collects the soda from the dispenser and tosses the silver aluminum can to me. “Want to talk about it?”
Yes, a million fucking times yes. The can is cold in my grip. I want to express how I feel, but I’m not used to articulating any of this out loud. My guards scream no, my heart pleads yes.
And I end up saying, “You want a drink?”
He chews his gum slowly, our eyes not detaching. “Yeah.”
I go to take out my wallet.
“I’m buying my own,” he says casually, fishing out a couple bills from his leather wallet. “I can tell you something I’ve never shared with anyone.”
“I don’t want to force you—”
“I want to, Maximoff,” he says with the tilt of his head. Trying to assess my reaction.
My muscles start to unbind. “What about?”
He smiles and then talks while he feeds money into the machine. “My second week of rotations in the ER. It was a bad night, understaffed, and the only attending available was an ass. At one point, there was just him, a first-year intern, two nurses, and me. And a teenage girl comes in with a stab wound to the heart.” Farrow presses the regular Fizz button. “There was no time to rush her to the OR, and the doctor decides on an emergency thoracotomy.”
The machine dispenses a gold can.
He grabs the soda and then faces me. “I knew the girl had a two-percent chance of living, and so I hung onto the excitement of seeing a thoracotomy. It made it easier when the attending cracked her chest open…” Farrow shifts his weight, his nose flaring. But he keeps eye contact with me.
I listen closely. He’s never talked about any hard days during rotations before. Not like this.
He pops the tab of his soda. “The doctor sliced open the pericardial sac. It’s a thin sac around the heart. A lot of congealed blood poured out, and the first-year bailed.”
My brows knot. “He just left?”
“To puke,” Farrow says. “The rest of us tried to remove the blood out of the sac while the attending sewed the cut.” He pauses. “She died, and it wasn’t the first time I watched someone die in the hospital. But it was the first time an attending turned to me, said close her, speak to the parents and walked away.” Farrow winces at the memory. “That son of a bitch. I hadn’t even taken the retractors out of her chest when her mom…”
His chest collapses, shaking his head.
My stomach overturns. “That would’ve gutted me.”
His brows lift slowly. “It crushed me.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “The curse of having a photographic memory, I can’t get rid of her face or her wail.”
“Jesus,” I breathe. And I draw towards him.
He leans back on the Fizzle machine, but his lips inch up at me coming closer. He takes a swig of soda. “That’s the story that no one ever got but you.”