Page 84 of Bad & Bossy

“What? You didn’t think to fucking lead with that?”

As if powered by anger alone, I grabbed my belongings in handfuls, clumsily and shakily shoving them into the duffel bag I’d brought with me. I could feel the sweat building on my back, could feel the worry already enveloping my bones.

I should have answered.

“I didn’t realize that was all it would take to get you home,” Gray snapped, but before I could turn on him, he was helping me pack.

————

He wouldn’t let me drive, probably for the best. A driver would bring my car back home. But that didn’t mean I was going to be useless.

I spent the entire drive chugging water to sober myself up, researching the top pediatricians in Colorado.

I would put my issues on the back burner, handle myself later. Right now, I needed to help Drew, and that meant helping Dana, and helping Dana meant keeping this from her so she could focus on her son. I’d tell her eventually but not while this was happening.

Red rocks and ponderosa pines zoomed past the window as Gray drove. I secured Drew a spot in Denver’s premier children’s hospital along with the best fucking pediatrician I could find. I just needed to secure transportation, and that should be easy seeing as I had the main contact for Life Light services.

————

There was no happy reunion.

Instead, I sat in the waiting room beside Dana in the dull and lifeless pediatric ward of Foothills. She didn’t speak to me. She didn’t speak to anyone. She glared harshly at the middle-aged man and woman across the room from us, daggers practically shooting from her eyes. She refused to eat or drink anything.

Still in her vest and work slacks, she sat with her head in her hands, her name tag dangling from her chest. I didn’t know a single fucking thing about what was happening to Drew.

I wanted to throw up.

“Dana,” I breathed, leaning just a little closer to her and sliding my hand onto her thigh. “I?—”

She pulled away.

Fuck. I wanted to believe she was just worried for Drew, wanted to believe that her actions were just mixed up in fear and anger toward what was happening to her son. But a part of me thought she might have already put the pieces together, and that she wanted nothing to do with me.

Vee walked in through the doors, chatting with a nurse behind her, and within seconds, Dana was on her feet.

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

The words were knives as Dana spat them. It almost floored me. I’d never heard her speak like that, never heard that kind of anger from anyone except myself.

Before I realized what was happening, her hands were on Vee, driving her back. I jumped to my feet.

“If you’d have just listened to me in the first place, you wouldn’t be so goddamn angry,” Vee spat back.

Dana’s elbow notched back, her breathing steady but heavy, and it was like the launch party all over again.

I grabbed her by the forearm, pulling her back into my chest. “Baby, calm down, calm down?—”

All hell broke loose.

“It’s not your goddamn place to decide who I let see my child!” Dana shrieked, her words aimed at Vee but her sudden thrashing aimed at me. I tightened my hold on her as a handful of nurses came running, their shocked faces filling the hallway as Vee took a step back.

“Dana, please,” I begged, wrapping one arm around her middle, my other hand holding her arms in place. “Think this through?—”

Footsteps sounded behind me, stopping me mid-speech. As a middle-aged couple came to stand beside us, Dana only thrashed harder. Her ponytail came undone, loose tendrils of wavy brown locks falling in her face. “She’s a fucking alcoholic, Vee! You let her around my son and now look where he’s ended up!”

Alcoholic.

I looked at the middle-aged woman, taking in the uncanny resemblance.

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