“Well, can you dignify me with your credit card then, because this broke motherfucker has to pay for the comedy club renos out of pocket now.”
Scowling, Jax hands it over.
A few minutes later, we’ve just arrived at the club when my phone goes off.
The voice is feminine but weird, all nasally and unfamiliar, and I’m thinking that whatever this chick is selling, she’s doing a shit job. I’m about to snap it off, when I hear: “Emerson Storm—”
“What?” I say, shoving the phone to my ear.
“Your brother, Emerson Storm,” a not-very-patient-sounding female voice says. “He had an accident. He’s at Hillerston Hospital. You were his first contact.”
“What accident?” I snap, stalking away from the club to hear better.
“Overconsumption of alcohol—to a near-fatal dosage,” the nurse snaps, as if I were the one who poured the alcohol down his throat.
Already, I’m flagging down the cab we just got out of.
“Is he OK?” I ask Nurse Bitchy.
“Yes,” she says. “But—”
“Don’t say another word,” I tell her, gesturing Jax in with me. “I’m on my way.”
By the time we get there, I’ve called up Landon and Greyson. As I race into the waiting room, I see that Landon’s already there.
“He’s OK,” he says, rising. “But asleep.”
As I go to move around him, he stops me. “They won’t let you see him.”
“What—why?”
“Like I said, he’s sleeping,” Landon says, frowning. “Shouldn’t be disturbed.”
I freeze.
Suddenly, the adrenaline that’s been spiking through my veins falls off the deep end. Tiredness is all it leaves.
“Let’s go to the vending machine,” Landon says. He turns to Jax. “Want anything?”
Jax, a National Geographic with a whale cover in hand, just shakes his red-haired head. “Nah.”
We stalk down hallways with fluorescent lights that make my eyes hurt.
“What the hell happened?” I ask Landon.
He shrugs. “Emerson partied too hard. Can’t get over this Molly chick.”
“Fucking Molly,” I growl.
I can feel Landon giving me a judgy side-eye. “Alright, what is it?” I ask him.
“Where were you?”
“What do you mean, where was I? I didn’t even know Emerson was at a fucking party, OK? And last time I called and checked up on him a few days back, he was fine. Where were you?”
Landon stops suddenly, and it takes a few seconds for me to realize why. The vending machine. Right.
“You’re right,” he says. “I just… this is fucked. Messing with my head.” He leans against the wall, and I wonder if he sees how eerie this place is.
Not that this hospital is any different from any other. It’s eerie in the same way I’ve always found hospitals eerie: too clean, too white, and filled with people who seem like ghosts.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” he’s saying now.
This is the second time I’ve heard those words tonight. And yet, no, I really don’t fucking get it.
“You gonna tell me?” I growl. “Dear twin?”
His hand on the wall forms a fist. “It’s not some fucking joke, Nolan. You got him into partying. Emerson looks up to you—and he partied himself nearly to death just now.”
“Whoa.” I spin to glare at him. “You’re not pinning this on me.”
“I’m not—but Christ.” Head hung, Landon’s voice is hoarse. “We almost lost him.”
I sink to the wall, to the floor as it sinks over me. What I haven’t really considered since I got that call.
We really almost lost him. My baby brother. Emerson.
Fuck.
“You’re right,” I say. “We need to look out for him. I need to look out for him. I’ll have him move in, and…”
Landon just sinks beside me. “Emerson’s always been the good kid. The baby. I think losing Dad, and then this Molly chick…”
I nod. “Dad dying threw everything off balance.” I nudge him. “I mean… look at you. Hell, you’re…”
“I’m what?” Landon can’t even smile.
“You’re a goddamn husband. A dad.”
“Yeah, and?”
“It’s just big, is all.”
“It’s my life.”
As I toss him a sidelong glance I don’t think he notices, what I see on his face surprises me. It’s not the increased weariness I’ve noticed on him since he’s gotten himself a family. Or even frustration at me that I don’t really understand the stage of life he’s at now.
Right now, the only thing on his face is a quiet, self-evident satisfaction.
It’s weird, seeing it like this, right in front of me, so clear that I couldn’t deny it even if I wanted to.
Because he is, damn it, my crazy twin brother really is happy with that family and wife of his.
Maybe—probably—marriage and all that isn’t for me. But I think if I were just about any other man seeing that look on my twin brother’s face, well, it’d make me a believer.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say, rising. “And I’ll cut down on the partying.”
That seems to satisfy Landon. He nods as he rises. “I’ll talk to him too.”
We spend the night in the waiting room.