Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Nice job,” Sig commented.
“Thanks.”
His teammate refocused his attention on the hospital bed. “This isn’t you. Lying here, feeling bad for yourself. Get better and go apologize. Tell her everything you just said to us.”
“It’s not going to work. I really . . . did a number on her.” A fresh wave of agony tripped and fell in his sternum. “I fucked up.”
“The game isn’t over. There’s still another period left to play.”
“This isn’t hockey.”
“Is it golf?” Wells asked. “We have a lot of holes, if you’re looking for metaphors.”
Sig shook his head at Wells. “You know, the thing about this intervention, Sir Savage, is we knew you were going to be stubborn. Hence, we prepared layers.”
That tick behind Burgess’s eye accelerated. “What do you mean by layers?”
Wells put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
The rookies walked in.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Burgess complained, wishing he was closer to the window, so he could jump out. Maybe get lucky and become impaled by a flagpole. “Are you serious?”
“Hey, Captain.”
“Sup, Cap.”
“What the hell are you smiling about?”
“Just relieved to see you alive.”
“Even though, if I’m being honest, you smell like fish.”
Wells pressed his lips into a straight line. “Told you.”
“No one asked you to come,” Burgess growled at the rookies.
“Sig and Wells did,” Mailer and Corrigan said, simultaneously.
“Is there food here? Like a cafeteria?” Mailer asked. “My sister had a baby last year and the cafeteria food was top tier. Came for the baby, stayed for the banana pudding.”
Burgess split a look between Wells and Sig. “I hope you’re happy.”
Sig snorted. “I’ll be happy when you’re out of this motorized bed, you big fucking baby.”
The rookies’ mouths dropped open.
“I don’t like it when Mom and Dad fight.”
“Me either.”
Anger and pressure and resentment built in Burgess’s veins until he swore they were going to burst. “What did you call me?”
“A big fucking baby. What are you going to do about it?” Sig held up his phone, and without breaking eye contact with Burgess, he tapped a green icon on the screen. The ringing sound filled the too-crowded hospital room. “I’m breaking out the big guns.”
Burgess couldn’t swallow, sweat forming on his palms. “Who are you calling?”
A familiar voice answered on the third ring. “Sig. They didn’t have strawberry Pop-Tarts at the store,” said Chloe, audibly crestfallen. “What am I going to eat for breakfast?”
“I’ll track some down when I get back and bring them by.”
“You will?” She sighed.
“Of course, I will.” Sig shifted, coughed into his fist. “Hey, Chlo, you’re on speaker. Remember when I told you we were doing Burgess’s intervention today?”
Burgess rolled his eyes so hard, they almost exited through the back of his skull.
“Yes, I remember,” Chloe said brightly. “Hi, Burgess!”
He grunted.
Sig kicked the bed, as if to say be nice to her or die.
Burgess gave him a withering look. “Hi, Chloe.”
One of the rookies popped up behind Sig’s shoulder. “Hey, Chloe,” Corrigan drawled, adding a wink. “Allow me to formally introduce myself—”
Sig shoved him back across the room into his seat, which rocked ominously before settling back into place. “Absolutely not.” He kept the rookie pinned with a death glare. “Not happening. Never. Don’t even think about it.”
“Sig,” Chloe scolded him. “Don’t be such a meanie.”
“Yeah, Sig,” Mailer complained. “Don’t be a meanie.”
Sig picked up a full box of tissues from the tray attached to Burgess’s bed and threw it at the rookie, who blocked it at the last second with a defensive forearm.
“This intervention sucks,” Burgess declared.
“Really?” Wells asked, settling into a lean against the wall. “I thought it was just beginning to get interesting.”
“I’m sorry my pain isn’t entertaining enough.”
“You’re forgiven.”
“Chlo,” Sig said, hitting Burgess with some truly ominous eye contact. “How is Tallulah doing?”
“Stop,” Burgess managed, his chest already on the verge of cracking open like an egg.
“Umm.” Chloe paused long enough that Burgess felt the threads of his sanity thinning, fraying, nearly snapping. “She’s just okay.”
“What does that mean?” Burgess shouted.
“It means, she’s . . . going to class and staying busy with her outings, but not really . . . present, I guess. She’s pretty checked out.”
Pretty checked out. Put those words on his grave, because they were going to bury him. He could already smell the freshly turned earth. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Wells raked a hand down his face. “I’m getting flashbacks.”
Sig clucked his tongue. “Because you need a reason to get out of this bed. What would you do if someone else hurt Tallulah like this?”
Burgess’s hands turned to fists. “Slaughter them.”
“Yeah, but after that.”
“I’d . . . go make her feel better.”
“Exactly. You’d do everything you could to fix what’s broken.”
“Lying here isn’t going to do that,” Corrigan pointed out.
“Do you think they still have banana pudding?” whispered Mailer to his friend.
“I’ll concede that inviting them here was a bad idea,” Sig said.