Rushed: Christopher (The Four 4.50)

“No worries, they’ve seen worse,” I said softly. “Christopher?”

“Make sure to put an ice pack on the back of your shoulder. And leave the butterflies on for a few days. Take some ibuprofen when you get home. That will help with your head and your shoulder. If you feel any kind of nausea or anything, go to the ER just to be on the safe side. There was no LOC, but cerebral edema is always possible with head injuries.”

“Christopher…”

Although Christopher hadn’t stopped moving throughout his speech, as soon as I said his name again, he did. But he wouldn’t look at me. It made me feel empty.

Lost.

“Thanks for patching me up. Next time, I’ll try not to do a half gainer on any of your furniture or your cat.”

I’d hoped the comment would make him turn around, but there was no change in his frame. His back was ramrod straight, and his shoulders were locked tight. He didn’t even look at me.

“You take care, Christopher,” I murmured before turning my back on him and heading to the front door. I heard the kitchen faucet turn on, so I knew there wasn’t a possibility that he was following me to see me out.

I made quick work of leaving the small house and then headed east. As I’d suspected, King was waiting for me at the end of the block. I’d been pretty sure my friend hadn’t completely ditched me like he’d pretended. As I took in the sight of King leaning with his back against the front of the vehicle, I couldn’t really be angry with him.

King barely reacted as I walked around the front of the truck and leaned against it. I almost smiled when I saw him toying with his handgun. He was ejecting the clip and reloading it over and over. It was a nervous habit he’d engaged in from the time I’d met him, but I hadn’t seen him doing it for a while now.

Not since he and Gio had gotten together.

“You need a new nervous habit, buddy. That one’s going to land you in jail,” I said.

King sighed and put the gun away. “Did he tell you anything?” the man asked as he glanced at me.

“Was he supposed to?”

King pushed away from the car and began pacing in front of it. “When I saw him jump into action after you fell… I don’t know, I just thought…” King fell silent and shook his head.

I straightened and then went to grab my friend’s arm to stop his forward movement. I opened my hand. “Keys,” I said. “You owe me a drink.”

King didn’t argue with me. He handed the keys over, and within ten minutes, we were sitting in a dive bar in a part of Seattle I wasn’t familiar with but that certainly didn’t cater to the tourist business. I ordered us a couple of beers and joined King in one of the few booths available in the place.

When King didn’t say anything, I said, “So you left me in there to do some kind of recon on your nephew?”

“Yeah, I suppose I did.” King took a long pull on his beer and then added, “He’s not Christopher anymore. Hasn’t been in a long time.”

“You said he went to nursing school, right?”

King nodded. “One of the best. Duke. It had an accelerated BSN program. He stayed here for his undergrad, then went to Duke and got his BSN in just sixteen months. The plan was for him to do the nurse practitioner program through Duke via distance learning, which meant he’d only have to spend a week in North Carolina every semester, and the rest he’d do from home.”

“What changed?” I asked.

King shrugged. “None of us can fucking figure it out. He’s just not… our Christopher.” King took another drink. “He had all these plans, Rush. He knew what he wanted from the time he was a kid, and he was doing it. Nursing, Duke, all of it. But something had been different about him for a while. He stopped interacting with the family as much, especially after he left Seattle. But when he got back a few months ago, he was… a stranger.”

I couldn’t help but agree that the title was a fitting one.

“How so?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t come to family functions, wouldn’t even talk to Micah or Con. They called, they stopped by his house which he’d bought on his own without even telling anyone. And he never enrolled in the nurse practitioner program. He works remotely for an insurance company processing claims. He has all his groceries delivered, he never invites anyone to stay if they come for a visit. Hell, he’s remodeling the place and hasn’t asked for help. And those books…”

“The romances?” I clarified.

King nodded. “He loved those books. He’s probably got thousands more on his Kindle. The ones we took over are the ones he read when he was real young… He’d get them from thrift shops for pennies on the dollar using coins he found lying around the house or on the street. Even though he could have gotten them on his Kindle once he was older, he still hung on to those paperbacks.”