Page 19 of Rock On

Losing Carter had been unbearable.

If I lost Tommy too, I wasn’t sure I would survive either.

SEVEN

Tommy

I came awake slowly, trying to get my bearings.

Where the hell was I?

I reached up to rub my eyes and found one arm attached to an IV.

Suddenly it all came rushing back.

The semi fishtailing on the freeway.

Hitting that damn Tesla hard enough for both me and my bike to get airborne.

Hitting the ground even harder.

And pain.

There had been so much fucking pain in my leg.

The doctors had given me something for it when I got to the ER, and then it had been lights out.

I must have made a noise because there was movement beside the bed.

“Hey. Welcome back.” Z was sitting on the chair next to my bed.

“Hey.” I looked around. “What happened?”

“You had an accident.”

“Yeah, I know that much. How bad am I hurt?”

“You’re a lucky SOB,” he said, meeting my gaze with a frown. “You’ve got first degree road rash on your shoulder, and one small spot that’s second degree. Other than that, you dislocated your knee. They put it back in place and you’re going to need to do some rehab to build up the strength in it again, but that’s it. Overall, nothing permanent.”

“What about my bike?”

He sighed. “Probably totaled.”

“Fuck.”

“Dude, you could have died!”

“It wasn’t my fault!” I snapped. “The fucking semi fishtailed. I couldn’t get out of the way.”

“They said you were probably going ninety.”

“And?”

“If you’d been going a normal, legal speed, you might have been able to avoid it. Unless avoiding it wasn’t the plan.” He eyed me.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“You tell me. There’s video, Tom. You were driving like a fucking lunatic, practically drag racing with that Maserati, and I know you’re usually a safe driver.”

---