“Good.”
“And wait until Castiel shows up. You’ll want to keep him, too.”
There’s a crash outside and George shouts, “It wasn’t me!”
“Dude! There’s blood!” Charlie cries.
“George McLauren, you better not hurt yourself! I’m not driving to the ER tonight!” Sierra shakes her head in resignation.
“Does that happen a lot? The ER?”
He walks in right when I say it, blood dripping from his finger. “I swear it’s not bad. Just a Band-Aid.”
She reaches for his hand and studies it. “Go get one from the bathroom. Do not make a mess.”
She sighs. “To answer your question, yes, we go to the ER constantly. They know him by name.”
He comes back in with his finger wrapped in a towel and the bandages held between his lips. His light brown hair tumbles in his eyes and he kicks the kitchen chair out of the way and plops in the seat. He raises his eyes at Sierra, asking for help. Her hands are covered in onions and tomato juice. I jump in.
“I can do it,” I say, walking over to him. I pull the bandages from his mouth and he releases them slowly, licking his lips when they’re clear. “Thanks, Starlee.”
“How bad is it?”
“Really not that bad. I just dropped the plate—withnothingonit,” he adds quickly, “and when I picked it up a sharp edge sliced my finger.”
“Of course it did, because why would you be careful while picking up sharp pieces of ceramic?”
He rolls his eyes, making me notice how very green they are.
Carefully, I take his hand and remove the towel. Now that it’s clean and blood isn’t dripping so badly, it’s obvious the cut isn’t that bad. “I think we can skip the ER.”
“Thank goodness,” Sierra mutters.
“So what else have you gone to the ER for?” I ask, but I have my suspicions. George’s body is covered in scars.
He lifts up knee and touches the deep gouging scar. “This one I got chasing a chicken around the back yard. Landed on a rock, right on my knee.”
“There was blood everywhere. I almost vomited,” Sierra adds. “Everywhere. In his shoe, on the driveway.”
“Because you were chasing a chicken?”
“A fast chicken.”
“Okay, what’s next?”
“This one came when we were hiking and I slid down some rocks.”
“Just hiking?”
Sierra snorts.
“Okay, climbing a waterfall.”
“That was marked off limits by the rangers.”
“I misjudged the jump,” he says, giving me a wink. I don’t fight the grin that appears or the flutter in my stomach. “It was no big deal.”
“It was in the national park. He had to take an ambulance out and get thirty-six stitches.”