Page 91 of Red Hot Harmony

His eyes were red and watery, but the tears never fell.

I nodded, the tightness around my heart dislodging a little. “You’re gonna be okay, man.” I slid my palm to the back of his neck and held him firmly.

“I’m gonna be okay,” he repeated after me.

“It’ll work out,” I offered another encouraging line.

He jerked his chin, ready to say something else, but a knock on the door and a flash of color—scrubs—in my peripheral interrupted us.

I turned my head and saw a nurse, the same one who tried to flirt with me earlier.

She cleared her throat and thrust a stack of printouts at Malik. “I have your discharge paperwork, Mr. Dixon.”

He took them. “Thank you.”

“Good luck and be careful out there.”

And that was it.

Five minutes later, we were rushing across the lot and to my car. The smoke made visibility shit and finding my Navigator among the sea of other ash-covered SUVs proved to be harder than I would’ve imagined. We circled the portion of the parking several times until we were finally close enough for the alarm to pick up the signal from my key fob.

“I’m out for a day and this is what happens,” Malik gestured at the layer of grime on the windshield as we climbed into the vehicle.

I started the engine and turned on the wipers. “Yeah, well, maybe don’t OD anymore.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” he muttered, fumbling with the seat belt.

An uncomfortable pause ensued between us. I wasn’t sure if my total lack of sensitivity triggered him or if he was still not quite himself after Shanice walked out on him in the hospital.

The nice guy deep inside me—the one I’d buried a long time ago when my mother laid her hands on me for the first time at the age of three—nudged me to say something, to apologize, but my tongue didn’t know how to form those words on demand yet.

Yes, I’d said them to Camille this morning, but I’d been beyond desperate.

“Look it.” Malik spun in his seat, his eyes catching mine. “If you’re trying to come up with some mushy shit to tell me right now, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it.

“You got some music?” He pointed at the stereo.

It was a rhetorical question, of course. You didn’t really ask a dude who created tunes for a living if he had any in his ride unless you were seriously fucked up in the head and that was the only thing that came to mind that seemed harmless enough to discuss.

I messed with the Bluetooth on my phone and found my guitar porn playlist. It was a collection of the best songs featuring Satriani, Morello, and Hendrix.

“Some DJ you are.” Malik gave me a what-the-fuck stare and snatched the device from my hand. “Drive.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him pulling up some other artist via the Spotify app as we weaved through the parking lot. Moments later, I heard a harsh beat pouring from the speakers and filling the empty space around us.

It was loud and angry and absolutely not my kind of music. I couldn’t even tell whether it was EDM or hip-hop, but Malik was now shaking his head and tapping his fist on his thigh. And it wasn’t so bad after all.

He turned to me and a wicked grin split his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I agreed and snuck my hand into the pocket of my jacket to grab what I’d meant to give him earlier, but Shanice with her unresolved abandonment issues had gotten in the way. Now was as good a time as any, I supposed.

“I have something of yours. Wanted to return it,” I said, slapping his cross against his palm.

Malik stopped moving. His fingers curled around the pendant, making a solid ball.

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