Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

This time, the doctor shuddered with me.

“I’ll arrange for it to be looked after,” I promised.

“Don’t you get no humane or animal society on it. They won’t give it back. Petunia needs one-on-one TLC, and those assholes just cage the poor animals up and kill them when no one wants them.”

Rubbing my face with both hands, I repeated to myself that I needed her to remain calm. “I’ll get on it.”

With the way she was talking, it was going to be an angry beast with one eye sewed shut, its ears cut off, bald in patches, and have a personality like the Antichrist, I just knew it. That’s the only reason she wouldn’t want it to go to an animal rescue place.

“Now, Doc, give me whatever’s in that syringe, fix my damn arm, and order that psych eval like the nice Po-Po asked.” There was a pause, and then she added, “And I’m truly sorry for getting blood on your sheets. I’ve got a special pussy, you see, and being in here is keeping me from her.”

Glancing over at the doctor, who was still standing there in shock, I nudged him toward her. “Good luck.”

I was almost back at Alejandro’s room when she shrieked, “I said, give me the damn drugs in the goddamn syringe, fix my fucking arm, and get me a motherfucking psych eval like he said, you stupid piece of shit.”

Walking in and seeing that Alejandro had a doctor with him, I waited while he was examined and kept an ear on the woman down the hallway while I talked to DB about what’d happened and the cat.

It’s a given that in life you’ll encounter people or situations where you’re left asking yourself, “Self, what in the ever-loving hell did we just get into?” Or you’ll muse about how surreal and bizarre it was. I could honestly say that this might be number one on my list of those situations and people.

After getting the all-clear from the doctor and finding out he was just badly bruised, I helped Alejandro off the bed and walked slowly beside him down the hallway to the exit.

We’d only taken a couple of steps when the woman yelled, “God damn, that’s some good shit. Isn’t that good shit, Doc? I need to get the name of this, ‘cuz hoo-wee!” And then she started singing Christmas songs.

Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, Alejandro murmured, “I’ve never in my whole entire life

met anyone as insane as she is, and that says something.”

“Wanna hear something that’ll make your day feel better?” When he nodded, I chuckled, “She’s got a cat that needs looking after, so to keep her calm, I agreed I’d get someone to go and do just that. I called DB, and he’s sending Carter and Naomi to do it.”

A bark of laughter burst out of him again, making his legs crumple slightly, and I had to catch him carefully. “Fuck me, you gotta stop doing that. The next one’s gonna have my rib ricocheting through my body until it comes out of my ass.”

Yeah, the boy had been given some painkillers by the doctor, so he wasn’t thinking all that clearly, which was why he’d pretty much yelled that in a room filled with people waiting to be seen.

An old guy in a wheelchair with an oxygen thing in his nose nodded. “I feel you on that, man. Last night I had this frozen meal that left my ass bleeding. It feels like I shit out a rib.”

I was torn between being disgusted and my heart hurting because he reminded me of Bexley’s grandpa, Lawrence. He’d say something like that to make people laugh.

Not Alejandro, though. Nope, he went over and started talking to the old guy, asking him which meal it was because he had about fifty in the freezer in his garage and didn’t want a bleeding ass.

Deciding to give him a moment with the man, I pulled my phone out to see a text from Bexley asking what I was up to.

Me: In the ER listening to an old guy telling Alejandro about his bleeding ass. You?

Her reply came back quickly.

Bex: So many things I want to say to that. Gross. Ew. Why the hell do people like to share so much? Are you okay?

Me: I’m not the hurt one, and it’s fucking gross.

Bex: Are you free to meet me at the house later?

She could ask me to cut a kidney out myself, and I’d do it at this stage.

Me: Absolutely. What time?

Bex: Whenever you’re free. I’ll order pizza.

Me: Make it tacos.