Page 123 of Bad Blood

It happens at a glacier’s pace.

Liam stands and brings the phone to his ear.

He turns and gives me a toothy grin.

There’s ringing.

I react without thinking, the split-second decision coming at me in high definition as I fly over the countertop and watch as Liam’s face changes to disbelief.

With my hand outstretched and my overestimated momentum, I crumple onto the floor next to the stools, causing a domino effect as Liam darts out of my reach.

Liam lunges for them, dropping his phone.

Mission unintentionally accomplished.

We reach for his phone at the same time, but I grab it at the last second. And push end on the call.

“Award for the most annoying person in the room goes to . . . drum roll, please . . .” Liam trails off, yanking the phone from my hand. “I’m gonna talk to her eventually, whether or not you like it. You give way too many craps about everything.”

“What they did was wrong.”

He turns, lifting a brow. “A little bit wrong is mostly right. Don’t you think?”

“Not when it comes to them.”

Liam squints. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the main character in everyone’s story. Not everything revolves around you. I need to talk to Grams. And if you were at my appointment this morning, you would know why. But you weren’t, so you don’t have a say.”

He makes his way to his room. I roll onto my back, the cold tile seeping through the thin fabric of my T-shirt, and stare at the ceiling. Maybe I am an asshole, but the last thing we need is to get the grandparents involved. I can appreciate his frustration. But we can handle this without them—like everything else we’ve had to deal with since our parents died.

“I’ll wait to call until you’re gone. There’s no rush.” He chuckles as he enters his room.

“I’m not going out.”

“That changes things.” He peeks from his doorway, letting Axel and Bane scurry past him. He pushes the door closed and yells from behind it. “You can’t stay home forever. And I’m going on our summer trip with or without you.”

“Can you at least wait until your chemo’s done?”

34

Mine to Make

Brighton

Monday, June 5 th

2:19 p.m.

There is a delicate balance between telling Luca I don’t have a backup of the files and explaining we might not need it.

“The server shows your login to your email on Saturday morning at a little after one in the morning.” The IT guy continues with his spiel of how an inside source on hospital grounds breached my private data.

I try not to zone out. My patients probably feel this way when I spew out facts about their cases, and I make a mental note to work on my bedside manner.

“Does that make sense?”

I nod, hoping it’s appropriate. I don’t think I can make it through the rest of this.

“I can pull footage from the cameras, but I don’t know how this person would have access to your personal login information.”

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