“God, I love you. Thank you. The swill downstairs is like drinking battery acid.”
“It’s so you don’t get comfortable staying. This isn’t a place someone should let become home. It makes leaving the dead harder.” Quinn’s attention was already wandering, taking in the people and conversations around him. “How is your friend doing?”
“Good. I’m waiting for them to let me go see him.” Connor eyed his brother. “The question is, what are you doing here? Mum send you to shake me loose?”
“Nope, Da did.” Quinn sipped his coffee. “Said you probably needed someone to talk you down off the walls.”
“And he sent you, huh? Good choice.”
“Kane probably wanted to go home and fuck Miki,” he remarked. “Second string.”
“You’re never second string, Q,” Connor replied softly. “I’ve got about an hour to kill. Want something to eat?”
“If I won’t drink the coffee here, what makes you think I’ll eat something? Coffee is just beans and water. They don’t even touch it. Why would I risk them actually making my food?” He shuffled, running a hand down his thigh. The black corduroy squeaked slightly under his fingers, and Quinn looked up at Connor. “Remember when I tried to convince you ghosts lived in my corduroys because they moaned?”
“You had some odd ideas as a kid.” He laughed.
“I have odd ideas as an adult.” Quinn’s sharp eyes were back on Connor’s face. “Are you okay? You don’t look okay.”
His gaze pinned Connor in place, and he cocked his head, seemingly digging through his older brother’s defenses with a flick of his eyelashes. Connor waited through Quinn’s silence, wondering what scab his brother would find to pick loose from Con’s psyche. A second passed, then another, and Connor looked away, unable to fight off the feeling Quinn was peeling him apart to unearth his secrets.
Connor wasn’t ready to look at his own shit, much less letting Quinn in, but there his little brother stood, wielding a knife-sharp mind with soul-shattering eyes. After only a few seconds, he was ready to confess all of his sins. If he gave Quinn a minute or so, he’d be begging to be forgiven for taking up air someone else could be breathing.
“Shite, your students probably hate your guts. Peering at them all sphinxlike and mysterious.” Connor shoved his brother’s shoulder, careful not to jostle his coffee loose. “Come walk with me. We can go talk someplace private.”
“They should have a chapel here,” Quinn supposed. “Sometimes those have antechambers. We can look there or just use the chapel.”
“Someone might want to use it to pray in,” Connor retorted.
“Ah, Con. Don’t you know?” Quinn shot his brother a scalding look. “Nobody actually prays at the hospital. By the time they get here, they go straight to begging and negotiating. The chapel’ll be empty as sure as God created the sky.”
“HERE?” FOREST asked the nurse as he was wheeled into the room. “Oh man, this is a mistake. I didn’t ask for this.”
The room was nearly as large as his place above the Sound. It certainly had a better view. Heavy damask curtains were pulled back, showing off a foggy San Francisco skyline. The walls were painted a muted goldenrod, and a tapestry wing chair and its matching love seat were arranged near the picture window, a modern-looking coffee table set between the two for the sole purpose of holding up a bowl of green apples and oranges.
“Fuck the studio,” Forest muttered under his breath and fought an IV cord to get his hair out of his eyes. He was still shaky on his feet, but the room was much warmer than the one he’d just been in, and his knees sang the Hallelujah Chorus in thanks. “This is like a damned hotel. Where’s the fireplace?”
“Nope, just a private room—no fireplace. You do get your own bathroom, but that comes standard. It’s taken care of. No worries.” The fifth or sixth nurse he’d had that day—a cheery dreadlocked woman whose sugary smile made Forest’s teeth hurt. She helped him into the bed and arranged a mound of blankets around his legs, patting his thigh as she reached for his hand. “Here, let me hook up the monitor to track your heart rate, and I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes to take one last draw of blood. Do you want the remote for the television? Or maybe some water?”
“Um sure, either,” he replied, then spotted the phone on the stand near the bed. “Actually, can I make a phone call? It’s local.”
“Hospital, sweetie.” She grinned at him. “Call anyone you want.”
“Oh, and um… there’s this guy—”