Afternoon Delight by Anne Calhoun

Author:Anne Calhoun
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

***

“What the fuck happened to you?” the cop on duty in Bellevue’s ER asked. He’d taken up residence in Tim’s curtained room and was grinning and rocking up on the balls of his feet. Wednesdays at nine in the morning were slow, even in the ER.

“Fuck off,” Tim said.

“I’m sorry, LT,” Casey said.

“Stop fucking saying that,” Tim said. “I know you’re sorry. It’s not a big deal. I’m six feet fucking five. I hit my head all the time.”

“You do have a nice assortment of scars,” the ER doc said, peering at his forehead through a lighted magnifying lens. “This one’s going to be a nice addition to your collection. Six stitches, probably.” She flipped a penlight at his eyes. “Maybe eight.”

Tim flinched away from the light. “Knock that off.”

She ignored him. “You might have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a concussion. I have the mother of all headaches and a little cut over my eyebrow.” He swiped at it, felt bone under fatty tissue, felt his stomach flip, and took a deep breath.

“I just cleaned that out,” the doctor bitched.

“I’m sorry, LT.”

“Shut up, Casey.”

“Lie down,” the ER doc said.

Tim did, only because it was starting to seem like a really good idea. His head hung off the top end of the gurney until he scooted down so his feet hung off the bottom end of the gurney. “Just put a butterfly bandage on it. I’ve got a shift to work.”

“You do your job and I’ll do mine,” the ER doc said. Tim tried to read her name badge and failed, because blood still matted his eyelashes. He squinted at her. Midthirties, thin, smelled of Marlboros, so a smoker, but most of them were, with kind eyes. How did she keep those eyes when so many didn’t? The room was tilting slightly. He shut his eyes and resolved to ask her. Later.

She pinched the skin above his eyebrow and slid in a needle to inject the lidocaine. The cop’s grin widened. Misery loved company, all right. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Tim said.

“Nope,” the cop said, rocking up on the balls of his feet. “Slow morning.”

Fucker.

“How’s your neck?” the doctor asked.

“I used it to carry my head from the bus here, so fine.” He’d also gotten the patient into the ER. That was just before people started gasping and pointing and the room spun ninety degrees on a vertical axis.

The cop was all but giggling. “You passed out.”

“The fuck I did.”

“What happened?” the cop asked Casey. Nosy bastards. This story would be all over the radio before the lidocaine wore off.

“There was an obstruction in the road,” Casey said, clearly clinging to what was left of his dignity with his fingernails.

Tim’s eyes were already closed, but he could hear identical snorts from the doc and the cop. Might as well get it over with. “What kind of obstruction?” he asked.

“A dog.”

And there went Casey’s dignity, buried under an avalanche of laughter. “Jesus, kid, I say that all the time,” the cop said when he regained control of his breathing.

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