Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
If he was surprised I was asking him about something as inconsequential as a guitar when he was trying not to throw up from pain, he didn’t show it, but he did answer with a tight, “A… a headless.”
Okay, good. I could work with this. I pressed down on the gas a little more and kept on hauling ass. “How many strings?”
It didn’t take him as long to answer as it had a moment ago. “Six.”
“Do you know what kind of top you want?” I asked, knowing I might be irritating him by forcing him to talk but hopefully distracting him enough with the questions so that he’d think about something else. And because I didn’t want him to think I had no idea what I was referring to, I went more specific. “Spalted maple? Quilted maple?”
“Quilted!” he gasped violently, forcing his hand into a fist and banging it against his knee.
“Quilted is real nice,” I agreed, gritting my teeth and sending a silent prayer up that he was okay. My God. Five more minutes. We had five more minutes, maybe four if I could get around some of the slow drivers in front of us. “What about your fingerboard?” I threw out.
“I don’t know,” he basically cried.
I couldn’t cry too. I couldn’t cry too. I always cried when other people cried; it was a curse. “Birdseye maple might look nice with quilted maple,” I threw out in basically a shout like if I was loud enough to overpower his tears, they wouldn’t come out. “I’m sorry I’m yelling, but you’re scaring me. I promise I’m driving as fast as possible. If you don’t cry anymore, I know someone who knows someone, and maybe I can get you a discount on your guitar, okay? But please stop crying.”
This weak cough came out of his throat… that sounded a hell of a lot like a laugh. A butchered, pained one but a laugh.
A peek at him as I turned right showed there were still tearstains on his cheeks but maybe….
I took another right and pulled into the lot for the hospital, steering us toward the emergency room entrance, saying, “We’re almost there. We’re almost there. You’re going to be okay. You can have my appendix. It’s a good one, I think.”
He didn’t say he wanted it, but I was pretty sure he tried to give me a thumbs-up as I parked in front of the glass doors and helped Amos out of my car, one arm around his back, taking his weight into me. The poor kid felt like melting Jell-O. His knees were buckled and everything, and it seemed to take everything in him to put one foot in front of the other.
I had never been to an emergency room before, and I guess I had expected someone to come rushing out with a gurney and everything, at least a wheelchair, but the woman behind the counter didn’t even raise an eyebrow at us.
Amos hobbled into a chair, groaning.
I had barely started telling the woman behind the desk what was going on when a presence came up to my side. I met dark brown eyes set into a dark face. It wasn’t familiar whatsoever. “You’re Aurora?” the stranger asked. It was another man.
And my God, this guy was handsome too. His skin was an incredible shade of milky brown, cheekbones high and round, his short hair a deep black. This had to be Amos’s uncle.
I nodded at him, tearing my gaze away from the whole of him to just focus on his eyes. “Yes, Johnny?”
“Yeah,” he agreed before turning toward the woman and sliding his phone across. “I’m Amos’s uncle. I have his insurance information. I have a power of attorney to make medical decisions until his dad can make it,” he rattled off quickly.
I took a step to the side and watched him answer more of the woman’s questions then fill something out on a tablet. I learned as I stood there that Amos’s name was Amos Warner-Rhodes. He was fifteen, and his emergency contact was his father even though, for some reason, his uncle had a medical power of attorney. I backed up right after that information dump and headed over to sit beside Amos, who was back in the same position I had found him: groaning and sweating, pale and terrible.
I wanted to pat his back but kept my hands to myself.
“Hey, your uncle is here. They should be coming to get you in a second,” I told him quietly.
His “okay” sounded like it came from some deep, dark place.
“Do you want your phone back?”
He tipped his head farther toward his knees and groaned.
It was right then that someone in scrubs came out with a wheelchair. I was still holding Amos’s phone when they wheeled him out of the waiting area, his uncle following after him.